Marshydro Dimmable 165W LED Aquarium Light dose anyone use them?

[hugcourtney]

Hi I just obtained this (Marshydro Dimmable 165W LED Aquarium led Light) today and I was just wondering if I wanted to use it to grow corals what setting would you use ? I know they are in the blue spectrum but can you have the white lights on as well or will the white overpower the blue ? and do soft corals grow best under the lowest setting for blue or the highest ?
As you can tell I have never had a tank before.

 

[Ty Hamatake]

Every tank has different lighting needs. The trick with multi channel lights is finding the balance between the blue and white. Some people like it more blue, some like it more white, and some like it right in the middle! Personally I like it a little on the blue side. I'd have to get back to you on what they prefer, but either way start out slow and slowly increase your intensity.

 

[Maritimer]

+1 to the slow ramp-up!

I've been using the MarsAqua 300 watt for a year, just bought a second unit for a nascent upgrade. I probably run the lamp at about 60-75% over a 65gallon reef, and like Ty, find that bumping the blue gives an extra bit of brilliance to the corals throughout the day. Under the whites alone, the tank looks "yellow" to me, and the corals display very little "pop". Experiment, find out what color balance you enjoy, and then raise your lighting proportionally.

P.S. - Welcome to Reef2Reef! I hope you're finding all the things you hoped for in this community!

~Bruce

 

[Triggreef]

Keep the whites at about 1/3 of the blues.

If you don't have corals yet i would put them at 100 percent blue 30 white. Then when you add new coral start them on the sand bed and move them up to enter you want them over some weeks.

 

[Psiber_Syn]

My black box whites top out at 40% blues at 100% 8 inches from water surface

 

[Psiber_Syn]

Here this may be useful to you also

These PAR reading were taken with all powerheads/return pump off with Apogee mq-200 meter. Lights 8" above water.
[Blue/white @100%][under waterline 1100][5"845][10"565][15"370][20"195][25"140][Blue/white@50/50][under waterline 480[5"330][10"240][15"145][20"90][25"35][Blue/white@60/40][under waterline 465][5"290][10"220][15"155][20"100][25"62]

Found this info online for the galaxy hydro 165w black boxes hope it helps someone else in the future

 

[hugcourtney]

Thank you for all your knowledge, I have been loving this community of tank enthusiast its very helpful and exciting to hear how everyone does things.

 

[Ljaus]

I'm running a mars aqua 165. I swapped out the reds for some blues and removed all the lenses as my tank is only 18 high. I must say I'm impressed with them and my corals are colouring up beautifully. You can always upgrade to the sb reeflights board later on. I'm planning to

 

[Waterjockey]

I run the Mars aqua 300 on a 30 gallon. Whites at 20%, blues at 25%. My mostly lps tank seems happiest there.