I have a the current ic dual led pro on my 29 gallon tank. By factory these lights come at 90 blue, 75 white, 86 red, and 30 green for daylight settings. I am wondering if I need to modify these at all. I wouldn’t say it is a constant battle but I find my self battling green algae on occasion. I am wondering if my lighting has anything to do with it. My lights turn on at 930 and ramp up for one hour then start a ramp down at 5 pm for 4 hours and then it is lights out. Any suggestions?
Lighting spectrum
- Thread starter GR00VY
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SAWFISH
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Have you measured the PAR in your tank? If not I would suggest it, this is a good way to check how much light is getting to each point in your tank. By doing this you could potentially turn the power to your lights down to lower levels, while still sustaining corals.
That being said I would be inclined to turn the white and red spectrum down. The corals rely primarily on chlorophyll A for their food. Chlorophyll A has a large absorption peak on the blue side of the spectrum. For this reason corals do not need a ton of light in the spectrums outside of blue.
I do not have a par meter unfortunately. My thoughts were to turn the white down to 40ish give or take and see how things go. I could bump the red down to 50 or 60 as well. I just am not sure what they should be at or if they should be adjusted at all. My tank is at the smaller end of what is recommended for the lights. They are used for my size tank and up. Not sure what the range was, only that my tank was at the bottom end of the size rating.
SAWFISH
Active Member
Not a bad idea, with changing the lights and seeing how things go. Once you start moving towards getting corals a PAR meter is great to have.
Another suggestion if you do not have a PAR meter is find a local club in your area. For example where I am at in Ohio there are multiple clubs all of which have a membership fee of about 10$ once a member you can borrow the club shared PAR meter. I would try to find something like that in your area.
Or, I believe that BRS has some PAR meters which you cant rent for 50$ or so. I know that isn't cheap but it is better than spending money on a new PAR meter.
Measuring PAR is not going to help him "if" he has a spectrum issue as he is qestioning, and the sad part is there is no inexpensive way to measure spectrum. I Would reach out to others that use this light fixture and collect as much data from them as possible, and try to tune your lights closest to the people having great success with this fixture. Good luck, this is a great forum, you will most likely get you problem solved here !!!!
What do you mean by " 90 blue, 75 white, 86 red, and 30 "?
Are those the amount of lights or their intensity settings?
You should aim for about from 2-1 to 4-1 blue to white ratio of light wattage depending on your taste with minimal red and green (less than 10:1 red+ grenn both to blue ratio).
Are those the amount of lights or their intensity settings?
You should aim for about from 2-1 to 4-1 blue to white ratio of light wattage depending on your taste with minimal red and green (less than 10:1 red+ grenn both to blue ratio).
The factory settings are fine as these lights are weak. 1 watt LEDs i think, maybe even weaker like the older model. I would turn down your reds/greens to a level you find appealing, otherwise leave it. For whites id turn it up to 100. I run my older Orbit Pros at 100 percent whites and 60 percent blue. Lights go on at 7am and start ramping down at 5:30.
I have a newer IC im messing with and keep the Whites at 70 at first, blues at 50 and R/G at 50 slowly bumping it all up so corals get used to it. You only have a 29 gallon so depth shouldn't be too much of an issue, but these lights drop off a little at lower depths. They under report their PAR though which is nice for a company as i grow my Goniopora on the sandbed where it shouldnt be able to grow according to their PAR, so they under report compared to most companies who over report based on "perfect" conditions.
My tank using marine orbits
I have a newer IC im messing with and keep the Whites at 70 at first, blues at 50 and R/G at 50 slowly bumping it all up so corals get used to it. You only have a 29 gallon so depth shouldn't be too much of an issue, but these lights drop off a little at lower depths. They under report their PAR though which is nice for a company as i grow my Goniopora on the sandbed where it shouldnt be able to grow according to their PAR, so they under report compared to most companies who over report based on "perfect" conditions.
My tank using marine orbits
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blasterman
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Spectrum has nothing to do with algae growth. There's been no tests to prove it and it currently has as much validity as claiming fish grow bigger in bigger tanks or the moon landings were faked. BRS was supposed to be testing red vs blue light for macro growth. Not sure if they just gave up.
Go ahead and blast your tank with the same PAR / wattage level of red vs blue vs white LED and it won't make a difference in terms of algae growth. Quantum conversion is quantum conversion.
A white LED is a blue LED with some phosphor on it. If it's the same class of LED a cool white LED will emit about the same PAR as a blue LED at the same power level. The minor increase in red/orange with the white LED in terms of PAR will be offset by how much blue light gets blocked by the phosphor. Our eyes perceive the increased green as a brighter light source , but to a coral or algae it's the same growth energy because green is irrelevant.
Turning down lights can affect algae growth - a lot. So, you might as well adjust the tank to what looks good to your eyes and then reduce light periods or intensity to combat alage. The spectral balance has nothing to do with it.
Go ahead and blast your tank with the same PAR / wattage level of red vs blue vs white LED and it won't make a difference in terms of algae growth. Quantum conversion is quantum conversion.
A white LED is a blue LED with some phosphor on it. If it's the same class of LED a cool white LED will emit about the same PAR as a blue LED at the same power level. The minor increase in red/orange with the white LED in terms of PAR will be offset by how much blue light gets blocked by the phosphor. Our eyes perceive the increased green as a brighter light source , but to a coral or algae it's the same growth energy because green is irrelevant.
Turning down lights can affect algae growth - a lot. So, you might as well adjust the tank to what looks good to your eyes and then reduce light periods or intensity to combat alage. The spectral balance has nothing to do with it.
Man or man. I don't know were to start with his. With this logic I guess the world is still flat!!
Just fYI OP, diffrent colour spectrums are definitly associated with diffrent aspects of plant and many life forms.
SAWFISH
Active Member
I agree with your ultimate conclusion that the OP needs to turn the lights in his tank down.
However I disagree that growth is not affected by the spectrum. Below I attached a image of the chlorohpyll absorption spectrum across the 400-700 (nm) range which is the Photosynthetically Active Range (hence PAR). This is the range where chlorophyll actively absorbs light, but not all light is absorbed at the same efficiency. This can be seen below in a chart I got from a wikipedia article, but more reputable sources provide similar spectrums. Note that the graphs clearly show that not all light is absorbed equally. The reason for this is that chlorophyll as specially designed cells often called antennas which are responsible for light absorption. These antennas just like the antennas used in your phone, radio, etc, only works over specific wavelengths of light. For this reason some light is absorbed well, while other light is absorbed poorly or not at all.
This is why there are two peaks in both chlorophyll A and B. These correspond to two separate "antenna" cells which are responsible for absorbing different wavelengths of light.
It is also worth noting that corals tend to house more chlorophyll A. So the large peak at the left of the spectrum is where your corals are going to be getting large amounts of their energy from.
Ultimately though there is a lot of overlap in all the spectrums and I think the best thing you could do is turn your light intensity down. But I would suggest turning the intensity down more on the red and white channels than the blue and green channels
The factory settings are fine as these lights are weak. 1 watt LEDs i think, maybe even weaker like the older model. I would turn down your reds/greens to a level you find appealing, otherwise leave it. For whites id turn it up to 100. I run my older Orbit Pros at 100 percent whites and 60 percent blue. Lights go on at 7am and start ramping down at 5:30.
I have a newer IC im messing with and keep the Whites at 70 at first, blues at 50 and R/G at 50 slowly bumping it all up so corals get used to it. You only have a 29 gallon so depth shouldn't be too much of an issue, but these lights drop off a little at lower depths. They under report their PAR though which is nice for a company as i grow my Goniopora on the sandbed where it shouldnt be able to grow according to their PAR, so they under report compared to most companies who over report based on "perfect" conditions.
My tank using marine orbits
yeah I have the pro with 2 lights. I will do as suggested and tune the lights to my liking and maybe just change the duration to see how it goes. Maybe I will start my sunset earlier and just extend the sunset setting a bit longer so it is receiving less intensity over more of the time the light is on.
