Lighting Recommendations

[Kevin Rausa]

Current have a 90 G with fish and basic mushroom, cabbage corals & a carpet anemome but have plans to upgrade tank to 240 G in next few months. The hobby/tank was neglected for a while but now I have more time to get back involved. I am in the process of stabilizing the current tank while I do more planning for the 240 G. Currently using 2x 48" Loop fixtures for lighting but expect to upgrade lights when getting 240 G setup. I would like to have the option to expand SPS & LPS variety once stabilized. Lots on money to be spent over the next few months so trying be plan out some of the spending and not have to replace equipment due to the larger tank size. I was thinking to add 2 LED fixtures on the current tank and add additional fixtures on the new tank. Any recommendations?

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

I have two of the current orbit marine pros they are 72 inch long and 60 degree lens. My tank is 240 also and 34 inches tall 72 long and 24 deep. It’s just about 11 months old now and this is what it looks like on these lights alone. They have been amazing.

 

[Kevin Rausa]

Looks great? What do your testing numbers look like? Can you share lighting parameters? I am still stabilizing after a years of little to no maintenance? I think of have too much sand / detritis in current setup so nitrates are too high. Phosphates low. I'm doing a lot of water changes & added biopellet reactor about 3 weeks ago so still waiting.

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

As of yesterday I have 1-5 ppm nitrate, hardly any phosphates, no ammonia and no nitrates. Alk is always around 8-9 and calcium is 440-450, mag is stable at 1400 salt is at 1.025.

I use the presets the lights come with which is number 3 and it’s 12 hour but I turn the heights down to 40% and blues are 100, I have plus 20,000 in flow. If you look at my thread Urgh seriously I have tons of info on my tank

 

[cvrle1]

Hello,

I have two of the current orbit marine pros they are 72 inch long and 60 degree lens. My tank is 240 also and 34 inches tall 72 long and 24 deep. It’s just about 11 months old now and this is what it looks like on these lights alone. They have been amazing.

I am not sure I would call those lights amazing or even good truth be told. Reason being is that they are nowhere as powerful as they should be for most of the corals you have in your tank. They are using 0.5W LEDs which are good only for really shallow tanks and very, very, very low light needing corals. They cannot produce proper PAR needed, especially at depth of 34". Fixtures with 3W LEDs are the ones that are commonly used and recommended. It would be interesting to see your PAR reading throughout the tank. If only fixture you are using is current orbit marine pro, I am willing to bet they would be really low.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

If you really want to step up your game to higher light lps and sps your lighting muat be your top concern. If you plan to use all LEDs or LED T5 hybrid then you need to set aside a good piece or your upgrade budget towards quality lighting. For sps like acropora Kessile, Radion, Orphek, AI make up the short list or high quality lights designed for lignt demanding reef tanks. Reef Breeders Photon V2 is the only budget LED I would recommend and I would have T5 to supplement. MH is still the best there is for lighting a sps reef tank. The up front cost is much lower than LED and the longer term heat issues are simple to deal with if planned out right. Imo MH LED hybrid is the best reef lighting combo. You get the growth, color, proper spectrum, skimmer and coral health of the MH and the blue LEDs provide some increased par, extended photo period, dawn dusk effect and the pop from the blue LEDs. Imo the only LED lignt from Current that is ok for a reef tank is the IC Pro and only for low light soft corals and even then there are better choices out there.

 

[cvrle1]

If you really want to step up your game to higher light lps and sps your lighting muat be your top concern. If you plan to use all LEDs or LED T5 hybrid then you need to set aside a good piece or your upgrade budget towards quality lighting. For sps like acropora Kessile, Radion, Orphek, AI make up the short list or high quality lights designed for lignt demanding reef tanks. Reef Breeders Photon V2 is the only budget LED I would recommend and I would have T5 to supplement. MH is still the best there is for lighting a sps reef tank. The up front cost is much lower than LED and the longer term heat issues are simple to deal with if planned out right. Imo MH LED hybrid is the best reef lighting combo. You get the growth, color, proper spectrum, skimmer and coral health of the MH and the blue LEDs provide some increased par, extended photo period, dawn dusk effect and the pop from the blue LEDs. Imo the only LED lignt from Current that is ok for a reef tank is the IC Pro and only for low light soft corals and even then there are better choices out there.

I will respectfully disagree on some of these points, mainly which LED fixtures to use. I will say that Even a cheap fixture as Mars Aqua will give you pretty much same growth, color and look as a lot more expensive units like Kessil, AI and so on. What those expensive units will give you is more channels of control, dawn/dusk, WiFi and so on. In the end it comes down to what you want for extra features and how much you want to pay for them. While some people absolutely have to have all the extras, which is perfectly fine, none of those features will grow your corals more, or make them more colorful. I cannot comment on MH LED combo, or T5 LED combo as I dont have any experience with them.