Mars aqua 165 watt led light help please!!!

Brandonn · Aug 27, 2019

Tank is 24” long , 12” wide, and 16 1/2” tall. Reef Aquarium is 20 gallons, light is hung above tank 10 1/2”. Blues are set at 100%, whites are set to 20%. Is that good for my corals? I had my whites set to 15% and blues set to 30, my brain coral bleached, I was told I didn’t have enough light going to it, so I turned up my whites and blues, , I know changes won’t happen over a couple days. I wanna get my lighting right ,any advice would help please, water perimeters are perfect as I test everything, it’s this dang light.

BrandonS · Aug 28, 2019

Way to high IMO. I have vipar spectra lights which are just another black box brand so I believe they are similar. I have a 25 gallon frag tank and with the light 12 inches above 12 inches of water I get 200 PAR in the center and 120 on the edges with my whites at 8% and my blues at 20%. Par measured with apogee MQ-510.

I want to say most brain corals prefer to be in 100 ish PAR. someone correct me. I know my Lobo bleaches in anything higher than 80 ish par.

Brandonn · Aug 28, 2019

BrandonS said:
Way to high IMO. I have vipar spectra lights which are just another black box brand

BrandonS said:
Way to high IMO. I have vipar spectra lights which are just another black box brand so I believe they are similar. I have a 25 gallon frag tank and with the light 12 inches above 12 inches of water I get 200 PAR in the center and 120 on the edges with my whites at 8% and my blues at 20%. Par measured with apogee MQ-510.

I want to say most brain corals prefer to be in 100 ish PAR. someone correct me. I know my Lobo bleaches in anything higher than 80 ish par.

i raised the light up to 12” knocked my blues down to 20 and whites down to minimum. In the picture below the brain cora is on the substrate kinda in shade of the cave. I moved it down today.

BrandonS · Aug 28, 2019

Now just watch and see. It takes a bit for LPS to recover if it starts to peel off skeleton in my opinion. Will be interesting to see how the rest of your coral responds as well. Keep us posted!

The black boxes may not have the best spectrum in most peoples opinion but they are PAR monsters.

Brandonn · Aug 28, 2019

BrandonS said:
Now just watch and see. It takes a bit for LPS to recover if it starts to peel off skeleton in my opinion. Will be interesting to see how the rest of your coral responds as well. Keep us posted!

The black boxes may not have the best spectrum in most peoples opinion but they are PAR monsters.

Definitely, I moved that rock above my gumdrop coral and the maze brain out a little from the cave so it receives some light , here’s close ups of the corals I’m concerned for.

BrandonS · Aug 28, 2019

IMO it looks like you just fried them. They should recover. at 100% blues all of a sudden you possibly hit 400 PAR IMO. Chalice? Torch or frog spawn? and montipora?

What I have heard lots of people have success with for the black boxes is whites at 1% and slowly (like over several months) working to 100% blues. Not what I plan to do but I have heard this.

Brandonn · Aug 28, 2019

BrandonS said:
IMO it looks like you just fried them. They should recover. at 100% blues all of a sudden you possibly hit 400 PAR IMO. Chalice? Torch or frog spawn? and montipora?

What I have heard lots of people have success with for the black boxes is whites at 1% and slowly (like over several months) working to 100% blues. Not what I plan to do but I have heard this.

Gsp, gumdrop chalice, frogspawn, Japanese tentacle leather toadstool, big leather toadstool, foliosi encrusting coral, zoa. Hopefully the low white setting and blues at 20% will make em improve .