LOW PAR

[Icedog]

I have two Fluval Marine 3.0 strip lights on my 54 g tank. They're set directly on the glass lid of the tank. Awhile back I used a par meter to check the levels in the tank and they ranged from 35 on the sandbed to 100 at the top of the uppermost rock. This is mainly a softie tank with many mushrooms and zoas, and I just recently added an anemone to the top rock.

I'd like to increase the par levels but don't want to get new lights at this time. Is it possible to change the light schedule to compensate for the lower par? Right now I have a 12 hour photoperiod with a 4 hour ramp-up and a 4 hour ramp-down time. If I lowered the ramp times to 1-2 hours would that be an acceptable substitute for having an increased par?

Right now I have the spectrum set to 100% for all the blues, 0% for the red and 25% for the white. Increasing the white I'm sure would increase the par, but it's not visually appealing.

Any help on this would be appreciated!

 

[blaxsun]

The glass lid may be slightly reducing your overall PAR values. Yes,I would look at reducing the ramp-up and ramp-down times from 4 to 3 or even 2 hours (though it may still not be enough). Bumping up the red and white may also help slightly.

 

[ReefEco]

Hey IceDog - yup, your logic is sound - decreasing your ramps would essentially increase your Daily Light Integral (DLI) - but make the transition slowly, maybe 10 minute ramp change a day or less. If you are not home to view the tank during part of the day, you can also increase the whites during that time when you feel they are not appealing for more PAR.

Here is a good article about lighting duration, DLI, etc. A little dense, but a good read.

Imitating Natural Light Quality, Intensity, and Dosage in a Reef Aquarium – Do We Really Want To?

When it comes to reef aquariums, Mother Nature has always been the de facto benchmark aquarists aspire towards. Dana investigates in great detail the quality and quantity of light over natural reefs in order to lay the groundwork to answer the age-old question: what is the best light for...

reefs.com

 

[Cantusaurus]

I actually ran 2 Fluval lights on my 32 gallon. They grew Monti caps and birdsnests pretty well actually. But yeah a longer photo period will help. But par is not the only key element. The light spectrum, and photoperiod is also very important. I upgraded my lights to two AI Primes since I really like stylos, and birdsnests and wanted to get slightly higher output lighting since a lot of my other corals that wanted more light couldn’t be placed high.
You can also get a Aliexpress Populargrow light to help boost the par levels. They’re super cheap, and put a lot of par out. You then turn the whites up on your Fluvals without sacrificing the look. I know exactly what you mean. I wanna increase the whites, but they make thing look drab when too high