Photon v2+ on a 40 gal breeder tank

[JeremyH]

Hi all
I'm looking at buying a photon v2+ 24" for my 40 gal (soon to be) mix reef tank and had a few questions for you experts.
is the 24" big enough for a mix tank. tank is 36" long 18" wide and 13" deep.
I know you should make your own schedule but does anybody have a good starter schedule that would work good on my tank.
and it being so close to the 4th of July does anybody know if Reef Breeders is going to be having a "4th of July sales" going on.

 

[Big G]

Bump

 

[Lance M.]

I have a photon 24 v2+ on a 40 breeder, for about 4 months now.

What corals do you have and placement?

I had mine at 11" off the surface of the water, getting ~280-300 par about 5" under the surface on a couple acro frags (I've had for about two weeks now?).
Just raised the light up to 14" off the surface of the water about two hours ago with the intent to get a better spread and more par around the edges. Adjusted the intensity to about equal what it was when it was 11" off the surface.

I have a MQ-210 par meter.

Any questions in particular?

I like mine and don't currently have any issues. I have a couple chalices, couple different zoas, several monti's, a couple small acro frags, and ~14 bta's.
I will say I am probably going to purchase a led bar to add to the front and slightly angle towards the rear of the tank. Not sure if I need it. Kind of just because.

 

[Silver14SS]

https://www.reefbreeders.com/faq/ Has some good starting recommendations for a light schedule. There's a link in the "What should I set my lights to" section that goes to some spreadsheet examples.

My preference is to have the light be close to the tank width. I've got a like new 32" v2 (not plus) for sale if interested.

 

[Style185]

Photon v2+ 24 on a 40b

 

[Aquanautical]

I have a photon 16 on a nuvo 40 I max out at 65% blues and that gives me 250-350 par in 70% of the tank, Lights are 12" above waterline

 

[Style185]

There about 10inches above the water. The tank isn't very old under a year and everything is thriving under the light. I highly recommend!

 

[JeremyH]

Photon v2+ 24 on a 40b

thanks for sharing you tank looks great. is your lights completely off from 8pm to 8am?

 

[JeremyH]

I have a photon 24 v2+ on a 40 breeder, for about 4 months now.

What corals do you have and placement?

I had mine at 11" off the surface of the water, getting ~280-300 par about 5" under the surface on a couple acro frags (I've had for about two weeks now?).
Just raised the light up to 14" off the surface of the water about two hours ago with the intent to get a better spread and more par around the edges. Adjusted the intensity to about equal what it was when it was 11" off the surface.

I have a MQ-210 par meter.

Any questions in particular?

I like mine and don't currently have any issues. I have a couple chalices, couple different zoas, several monti's, a couple small acro frags, and ~14 bta's.
I will say I am probably going to purchase a led bar to add to the front and slightly angle towards the rear of the tank. Not sure if I need it. Kind of just because.

Thank you very much for your input i really don't have any corals in it yet just a small Green Star Polyp and fish. the light I have now really isn't strong enough its barely keeping the green star polyp alive. I guess my main concern was if the light would be big enough for my tank.

 

[Style185]

Thank you very much for your input i really don't have any corals in it yet just a small Green Star Polyp and fish. the light I have now really isn't strong enough its barely keeping the green star polyp alive. I guess my main concern was if the light would be big enough for my tank.

Ya I have them shut off around 9. You can set the light really low levels at night almost like a moon light or black light. This aquarium is in our bedroom so it shuts down earlier. The 24" is pretty sweet and a good price, I was contemplating the larger at the time but am happy with the 24". I'd do it all over again even with all the options available.

 

[Lance M.]

Thank you very much for your input i really don't have any corals in it yet just a small Green Star Polyp and fish. the light I have now really isn't strong enough its barely keeping the green star polyp alive. I guess my main concern was if the light would be big enough for my tank.

Before I made my purchase I had emailed ReefBreeders asking if I should go with the 32 vs the 24. The response was 24 will be plenty and now using it, I believe (mounted high), it is very powerful with a good spread for this size tank.
I still have room to up the intensity a good amount and my Tyree Pink Lemonade and TCK Plutonium Pikachu frags are showing their yellows and beginning to encrust after having them for 2-3 weeks.
I'm happy with the 24. I did mention I would add a led bar to just to help with some shading but it's probably not really needed, just extra.

The 32 would be great if the led clusters were probably clustered closer to the center of the fixture, like the layout of Orphek lol, only then would I probably have gone that route and just kept a lower intensity.
The layout of the 32 appears that it would give a lot of wasted light on the edges and spill over into the room when hung at a decent height above a 36" long tank, I'm sure better suited for a 48" long. It would be powerful over a 40B, just not needed imo.

Be careful with the gsp. I'll post a shot of mine if I remember tomorrow. Isolate it unless you want it growing over everything.
I traded in 6 big frags of mine to my lfs Sat (checked today already sold 2) and still have plenty in my tank.

 

[JeremyH]

Before I made my purchase I had emailed ReefBreeders asking if I should go with the 32 vs the 24. The response was 24 will be plenty and now using it, I believe (mounted high), it is very powerful with a good spread for this size tank.
I still have room to up the intensity a good amount and my Tyree Pink Lemonade and TCK Plutonium Pikachu frags are showing their yellows and beginning to encrust after having them for 2-3 weeks.
I'm happy with the 24. I did mention I would add a led bar to just to help with some shading but it's probably not really needed, just extra.

The 32 would be great if the led clusters were probably clustered closer to the center of the fixture, like the layout of Orphek lol, only then would I probably have gone that route and just kept a lower intensity.
The layout of the 32 appears that it would give a lot of wasted light on the edges and spill over into the room when hung at a decent height above a 36" long tank, I'm sure better suited for a 48" long. It would be powerful over a 40B, just not needed imo.

Be careful with the gsp. I'll post a shot of mine if I remember tomorrow. Isolate it unless you want it growing over everything.
I traded in 6 big frags of mine to my lfs Sat (checked today already sold 2) and still have plenty in my tank.

thanks again for the reinsurance and I would love to see a picture of your tank if you had time and felt like showing it off.

 

[Lance M.]

Took some. There's a lot of blue in the pics but the tank isn't that blue.

I run the photon at 4:1 ratio, Channels 3,5,6 to 1,2,4

FTS

Top down left side

Tyree Pink Lemonade on Left; TCK Plutonium Pikachu on Right, small frags right now but growing. Can't get the color from a camera pic.

Backside

Acans

Two more bta's

I usually don't post pics so I apologize for the quality.

 

[JeremyH]

Took some. There's a lot of blue in the pics but the tank isn't that blue.

I run the photon at 4:1 ratio, Channels 3,5,6 to 1,2,4

FTS

Top down left side

Tyree Pink Lemonade on Left; TCK Plutonium Pikachu on Right, small frags right now but growing. Can't get the color from a camera pic.

Backside

Acans

Two more bta's

I usually don't post pics so I apologize for the quality.

thank you your tank is beautiful you should show it off more often.

 

[Lance M.]

thank you your tank is beautiful you should show it off more often.

Thanks. I don't post very often, just when there's something specific I can comment on. Mostly just read. Use to hang around and post a lot in the nem sub forum.
Probably once I figure out how to take better pics I might, or whenever I set up a new tank I'll make a build thread but I don't know when that will happen.

This tank (at least the lr and sand) has been up and running for about 9 years with one crash a few years ago were only the gsp survived.
I've been restocking and upgrading/ adding equipment the past year and a half and I've gotten everything stable now. Just watching things grow for the most part.

I switched from a 4x bulb 36" TEK T5 fixture to the photon 24 and have been happy with the change. Pics were mostly to show you can keep most anything.

 

[Reef Breeders Verified Sponsor]

Took some. There's a lot of blue in the pics but the tank isn't that blue.

I run the photon at 4:1 ratio, Channels 3,5,6 to 1,2,4

FTS

Top down left side

Tyree Pink Lemonade on Left; TCK Plutonium Pikachu on Right, small frags right now but growing. Can't get the color from a camera pic.

Backside

Acans

Two more bta's

I usually don't post pics so I apologize for the quality.

Beautiful tank Lance! Mind if we share it?

 

[Lance M.]

Beautiful tank Lance! Mind if we share it?

Sure!

 

[JeremyH]

Took some. There's a lot of blue in the pics but the tank isn't that blue.

I run the photon at 4:1 ratio, Channels 3,5,6 to 1,2,4

FTS

Top down left side

Tyree Pink Lemonade on Left; TCK Plutonium Pikachu on Right, small frags right now but growing. Can't get the color from a camera pic.

Backside

Acans

Two more bta's

I usually don't post pics so I apologize for the quality.

just received my light today been going though different schedules for the past few hours. I really like how it looks on your tank and it seems to be working good for you is there any way I can get you to post you schedule I think somewhere around that is where id like to be.
thank you again for all your help I'm pretty new at this and I really appreciate all that you have done.

 

[Lance M.]

Can you post a pic of your tank? What corals, placement, and current lighting/schedule?

This is my schedule I had worked up to with the photon 11" off the surface and it gave me ~280-300 par ~5-6" below the surface.
DO NOT set it to these numbers. Slowly work up. But its a 4 to 1 ratio, blue to white/red/green.
I changed it a little last week and might make some changes later again.

I believe my peak starting % in February was 44 for blues and 11 for white/red/green and I added 4%:1% about every sunday or every other.

If you play with it a little and find some ratio you like better, I can set mine and give you approximate par values as well.