Please review my lighting schedule!

[konatown]

I have a Red Sea reefer 350 with two AI Hydra 26 mounted 12” above the surface. I’ve been using this schedule for months. Everything seems to be happy and I see growth, so I haven’t changed it. However, I want to make sure everything is in the right intensity and spectrum for my corals.


I have soft and lps coral throughout and some sps as well. I like the whiter lights during the day, and the blues in the evening/night before bed. I kinda built this schedule myself. How does this look?

 

[wculver]

It's difficult to tell what the intensity should be based on the graph. Light dynamics will change from tank to tank depending on spread and depth of tank.

Typically you are looking to set the lights up to get the best spread from the top of your rockwork to the sand. In par I would b something like 350ish at top to 150ish at bottom.

This will give you a spectrum to provide the optimum position for your coral. Visually you'll have to work out of you think they're happy.

So how do you get to those numbers? You bought a nice setup so perhaps I would suggest either renting a par meter or actually buying one from brs and returning it. (They have literally suggested this on their videos.) You can then use the meter to align how the lights should be positioned and what intensity they provide to different depths of the tank through the day.

Outside of this, it's really visual seeing if you believe the coral are happy.

 

[konatown]

It's difficult to tell what the intensity should be based on the graph. Light dynamics will change from tank to tank depending on spread and depth of tank.

Typically you are looking to set the lights up to get the best spread from the top of your rockwork to the sand. In par I would b something like 350ish at top to 150ish at bottom.

This will give you a spectrum to provide the optimum position for your coral. Visually you'll have to work out of you think they're happy.

So how do you get to those numbers? You bought a nice setup so perhaps I would suggest either renting a par meter or actually buying one from brs and returning it. (They have literally suggested this on their videos.) You can then use the meter to align how the lights should be positioned and what intensity they provide to different depths of the tank through the day.

Outside of this, it's really visual seeing if you believe the coral are happy.

Thanks a lot! Yes I need to get myself a par meter. Visually, I’ve been keeping everything pretty much in check, but honestly I think I can increase it, however I’ll probably wait until after a par test

I just added a big montipora colony, so I want to make sure it’s getting enough light!

 

[wculver]

Thanks a lot! Yes I need to get myself a par meter. Visually, I’ve been keeping everything pretty much in check, but honestly I think I can increase it, however I’ll probably wait until after a par test

I just added a big montipora colony, so I want to make sure it’s getting enough light!

Oh wow, that is very nice. Good news is if you are starting on what you believe to be the low end of lighting that's the best place to start. My first monti was the size of a quarter.

My suggestion would be to get a par meter and design a plan to get the best spread on the light. This may even mean moving the lights either up or down to achieve that. You're trying to get the lowest delta between the top of the rock and the sand as you can get without the top having a hot spot.

Once you have that you can then begin to adjust the light intensity of needed in small increments over a few weeks. Your goal being to get to a steady state where you don't have to touch the light again.