Need lighting help

[greenhorn reefer]

I am using two hydra 26 LEDs and cannot find a setting that my hammer and GSP find to be appropriate. My hammer, throughout the day, seems content, and extends almost to the frag plug. During the day, his polyps are thick and full, and towards nighttime, they begin to shrink and pull in. However, he has lost the bright coloring and only his tips have remained bright green.

PH 8.0
Alk 10
Ca2+ 420
Phos. 0


I believe lighting is the issue. I tried this setting for one day and had to change to much lower setting.

Here are the corals now

The deep blue lighting, in the photo, is only about an hour long. I will screen shot my current settings when near wifi but any screenshots of settings that are working on a Red Sea e260, would be greatly appreciated.

Side note: my hammer let out a thick red (poop?) yesterday. It came from the mouth. It is growing well, I think, with a lot of (skin) growth starting to come down over the trunk.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

My gsp have never had an issue with the color balance of the light. My frogspawn however did very poorly under warmer light. 12 to 14 kelvin. I put it in my second tank under more 16 to 20k light and it is much happier.
the pooping I would usually put down to an environmental factor no the light, but it is possible. If it is bleaching you may have too much light and not enough nutrients. if its shriveling and "grumpy" it brobably wants more blue. IME

As far as closing up near the end of the day I have to wonder is this just closing up as the light dims, several of my corals do this.

unfortunately you settings picture is too small to see.
I am one of the lux meter guys. I measure the overall intensity of the light at full, decide the length of the intensity at full. and then adjust the ramp times.

All lights have a native color temp at full. One of mine is 16k. to adjust it I decrease the white channel. this mixes it more towards blue.IE 20,000 kelvin
if you decrease the blue channel it makes it warmer ie 14k


with a $15 lux meter. check the peak intensity of both. then check the peak intensity of blue, then white. Decrease intensity in increments of 2500 lux and 5000 lux.
now you have a quantified number rather than blank %. ie 100% at 12in = 100,000 lux, or 2000 par.

adjusting these by eye or guess work can be radical adjustments as 5000 lux may be 50 par and 10,000 lux is 100 par. thats a large change eswp if the system or animal is fragile..

IMO most advanced lights have too many setting of the average user. Red, should be considered part of white. This is part of the native color of the lamp.

all that being said, unless youve made radical adjustments in your lights recntly, it may not be light. If its a simple wants more blue. simply reduce the white side.
if you suspect bleaching reduce all channels evenly and feed better.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lighting-upgrade-with-a-lux-meter-saltyfilmfolks.248417/

 

[greenhorn reefer]

I went ahead and lowered some of the lighting, mostly uv and white. I will take your advice and seek out a lux meter to make the necessary adjustments. Thanks you.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I went ahead and lowered some of the lighting, mostly uv and white. I will take your advice and seek out a lux meter to make the necessary adjustments. Thanks you.

feel free to tag me any time for lux help.
fwiw UV is pretty controversial.

 

[RJ Harris]

Mine start to close up about an hour or so before the lights go down bc they have a lighting schedule that they are use to so they know when the light starts to dim