Radion LED lighting program!

[Catra2030]

Wanted to get some feedback on the program I'm going to start running this weekend. I plan on hanging my three radios tonight or tomorrow and running the following program. I do not have access to a par meter so I'll be starting out with low intensities and lights 12" off the surface, the tank is 20 inches deep.

6 am lights start up 0 percent intensity
7 am 20k at 5 percent
8:30 am 20k at 25 percent
10:30 am 14k at 30 percent
12:30 pm 7k at 45 percent
2:00 pm 7k at 45 percent
5:00 pm 14k at 30 percent
6:30 20k at 25 percent
8:00 pm lights off but at 10 percent with royals at 100 percent
9:00 pm, same as above
10:00 pm same as above but at 6 percent intensity
11:00 pm lights out completely

What do you think about the peaking out at 7k to replicate the mid day sun for growth purposes or should I maybe peak out at say 10k or 12k? The tank is an lps with a few z's and p's. Do you think I should up the initial intensities or decrease them?

 

[STL]

I've got mostly LPS too. Radions are REALLY bright - to acclimate everyone, I ran 30% max power for a few days, then 50%, then 70%, and then 100%.

7k is pretty ugly and I'm not sure you'd gain any PAR - IIRC 12k has all the LEDs on full power and I think that gives you max PAR and is probably the setting used when PAR values are quoted.

I use 20k in the morning and evening, 14k during the peak of day with a 20% random chance of clouds.

I've got my night programmed similar to yours but add in just a touch of red and green which makes some more of the corals that don't fluoresce with the just royal blues absolutely pop. I start with 20% that ramps to 10%, then to 5% for a couple hours before lights out at midnight. This night program is incredible...

For fun, try turning the red and royal blue channels way up at night - it's really bizarre, like a red/blue glasses 3D movie!

The new software will let you preview your day in 30 seconds (or 1 minute, or 2 minutes) so you can see what the day will look like and what the transitions look like. Also, as you're editing your control points you'll see them "live" on the Radions so you'll know what each looks like.

Enjoy!

 

[Catra2030]

Awesome, I thought about adding the red into the night settings, great idea. As far as throwing out the 7k setting...I agree, 12k is probably as far as I should go and thanks for the start intensity bit, I'm new to the LEDs coming from t5's a without a par meter I don't want to blast the corals. I'll play around with everything tonight.

Off hand, whats your max intensity that you are running or hope to reach, 100 percent or something more like 75?

 

[STL]

I worked my way up to 100% mostly to see how the tank would react - didn't seem to bother any of the corals, so my mid-day control point is currently at 100. I've since set the random clouds to happen at that peak control point too, which is pretty neat - so the corals aren't constantly under 100% light, it varies when the clouds roll through.

Let me know if you find any cool color combos - these lights are a blast to play with

 

[niftyjosh]

I got the first batch to come out and I made my own choppy graph I though would best simulate real conditions.

When natural mode came out, I gave it a shot for 3 days and didn't like the morning/night transitions.

I then switched my units back to artificial mode and kept the program on natural to have the smooth transition. Awesome.

I have two over a 90 and have bumped them from 50% to 80% over a few months. I should also note that I have them mounted only 2" apart so I almost have more of a 400w effect in the center of my tank.

I never had an issue till I bumped them from 76% to 80. I had a few stick colonies stn and a efflo completely rtn with in an hour. No chemistry changes or anything like that.

Other than that, my sticks look nasty.