PAR Readings for Reef tank x4 Vipaspectra

[epicfatigue]

Hey All,

For so long i have just been unsure of what my actual lighting is so i rented a oar meter today.

I raised my lights to 18" off the tank and took some readings.
I am a new reefer and just wondering which of these readings are better thanks in advance

 

[Ron Reefman]

It looks like you got many higher readings with the lower power levels. How does that happen?

Your coral's zooxanthellae use the blue spectrum for photosynthesis, so you want quite a bit of blue. The coral also produces other chemistries and pigments with the white light. So you want some of that.

I terms of the mix, it's your tank and you have to look at it, what mix pleases your eyes?

IMHO (I've been in the hobby for 20+ years) I'd recommend something like a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio of blue to white, assuming you have nearly equal numbers of blue and white leds.

 

[IslandLifeReef]

I agree with @Ron Reefman, the higher PAR at lower settings doesn't add up. As far as the numbers go, it depends on what you want to keep. Those numbers will be fine for most LPS and some SPS. If you want to keep mostly SPS, the PAR needs to come up to around 300+ in the areas you plan on keeping them.

If you still have that PAR meter, I would test again. You should get higher numbers when you turn up the power on the lights, not lower ones.

 

[HighlandReef]

PAR settings really going to depend on tank size and what you plan on keeping?
LPs, sps, etc.

In general, These lights are very powerful, doesn’t take much to way overshoot par.
It’s not like the good old days of MH, used to be able to just hang light fixture and go.
Those days are gone, with led lights, par meter pretty much a must have or at least have access to one.
I have 4 Viparspectra across my 210 (29” deep tank), led lenses have been upgraded to 120*, that helps with the spread.
blue set to 30% and white channel set to 1%, my par is just over 100 on the sand bed with both channel on.
I was shooting for 75 on the sand bed (LPS towards bottom, SPS towards top) but with white channel on, it’s a struggle to het par down to 75.
I even lowered the wattage on the white channel, helped but couldn’t get it down to 75 par on sand bed. I could drop the blue channel down more but don’t care for the color spectrum, when blue channel is under 30%.