Radion par overstated?

68Wreefer · Aug 12, 2022

So I finally got an MQ-510 to measure my par in a 10-gallon waterbox cube under my first Radion light an xr15 blue G5. Reading around on the forum when I was just eyeballing my lights (as I've always done) I read a lot of posts making it sound like it was super easy to fry my SPS with these lights so I played it safe and stuck to what seemed on the safe side of an eyeball estimate. I got my par meter today because I was suspicious based on color and growth the lights were too low. Sure enough at 80% overall intensity white red and green at 30% and the rest at 100% I was barely making low 200 par 6 inches under the water!? So I set 100% everything at 100% intensity and still don't hit over 400par anywhere in the tank that's over a couple of inches under water. What gives? The only thing I can figure is that there is so much light spill from it being over such a small tank.

w8lifts · Aug 12, 2022

You can’t lower the light?

Reefer Matt · Aug 12, 2022

How much par are you wanting to get? Also, I have fried sps coral with 200 par.

68Wreefer · Aug 12, 2022

w8lifts said:
You can’t lower the light?

I could. of course that would mean throwing the $100 mounting arm in a box and giving up the whole sleek tank look I was going for. Honestly the spread is super even so 350-400 over the entire tank isn't an issue with me. I am more curious as to if anyone else has seen these results.

Reefer Matt said:
How much par are you wanting to get? Also, I have fried sps coral with 200 par.

I was shooting for 350ish so I am happy with the numbers. Just surprised based on the way I hear them talked about. 200!? What kind of sps are we talking? I am mostly keeping acro.

Jekyl · Aug 12, 2022

I feel you can keep higher par when talking T5 or halide. LED seems to be less forgiving.

68Wreefer · Aug 12, 2022

Jekyl said:
I feel you can keep higher par when talking T5 or halide. LED seems to be less forgiving.

Now, this I definitely believe to be true. I will be using acclamation mode to reach these numbers slowly. My WD acro was in the one hot spot I found in the tank at 280 and has gone from very pale when I received it to bright and growing faster then anything else I have. So at the very least, I will try to get closer to 300.

Reefer Matt · Aug 12, 2022

68Wreefer said:
I could. of course that would mean throwing the $100 mounting arm in a box and giving up the whole sleek tank look I was going for. Honestly the spread is super even so 350-400 over the entire tank isn't an issue with me. I am more curious as to if anyone else has seen these results.

I was shooting for 350ish so I am happy with the numbers. Just surprised based on the way I hear them talked about. 200!? What kind of sps are we talking? I am mostly keeping acro.

My Walt Disney acros don't like anything higher than around 200. They are the first to bleach. My beachbum montipora don't like anything over 150. The Current Orbit R24 light gets up to 600 par at 20 inches deep. I have that turned down to 40% on a 29gal biocube for lps coral.

rtparty · Aug 12, 2022

It's a 100w LED light. They all run about the same.

At 100% everything I wasn't even hitting 200 PAR 12" into my 120g tank. It took two of them side by side equaling an XR30.

Acros · Aug 12, 2022

Same experience. Was barely hitting 200 par 6” under the water line. I added two aliexpress led bars as supplement. Everything is baking happy at ~350 par now.

mtraylor · Aug 13, 2022

You are getting what is expected. I tried 2 out on my 40 gallon frag tank and quickly moved to xr30's after seeing the numbers on my power meter. Didn't want to struggle with sps that like higher par and wanted to grow sps on bottom of the tank

68Wreefer · Aug 13, 2022

Reefer Matt said:
My Walt Disney acros don't like anything higher than around 200. They are the first to bleach. My beachbum montipora don't like anything over 150. The Current Orbit R24 light gets up to 600 par at 20 inches deep. I have that turned down to 40% on a 29gal biocube for lps coral.

That is very interesting. I have had the light running for 6 months and after checking par all the across doing the best that I have were in the highest light portions of the tank. Tank range was about 150-220 with the one hot spot for the WD at 280. The color and growth almost directly follows the par numbers with best coming in that those 220+ sections .

mtraylor said:
You are getting what is expected. I tried 2 out on my 40 gallon frag tank and quickly moved to xr30's after seeing the numbers on my power meter. Didn't want to struggle with sps that like higher par and wanted to grow sps on bottom of the tank

I just set up a frag system about the same size and I'm so glad I went with the xr30.

ceaver · Aug 27, 2022

I'm having similar issues with my two xr15 pro G5 lights. They're over an IM 40 tank and I'm not getting the PAR I feel I should more than 6" under the water line, even with them at 100% intensity. I started a thread a while back about this and my personal opinion is that the super spread in the new lenses is sacrificing penetrating PAR. That's just one man's opinion...

I've lined up a used xr30 G4, which will be interesting to compare to my G5s...

legionofdoon · Aug 29, 2022

Reefer Matt said:
My Walt Disney acros don't like anything higher than around 200. They are the first to bleach. My beachbum montipora don't like anything over 150. The Current Orbit R24 light gets up to 600 par at 20 inches deep. I have that turned down to 40% on a 29gal biocube for lps coral.

Did you measure the par on the R24s yourself? I have three over my 40b and have had to turn the blues down to 50% because it was bleaching anything within about 8-10 inches from the surface. I tried the photone app and it was showing 250 at the surface but 140-200 on the bottom. I don't think my phone works well with the app I took it outside in full sun and it shows 140 par.

Reefer Matt · Aug 29, 2022

legionofdoon said:
Did you measure the par on the R24s yourself? I have three over my 40b and have had to turn the blues down to 50% because it was bleaching anything within about 8-10 inches from the surface. I tried the photone app and it was showing 250 at the surface but 140-200 on the bottom. I don't think my phone works well with the app I took it outside in full sun and it shows 140 par.

Yes. Measured with the apogee mq510.

Lavey29 · Aug 29, 2022

I run 2 XR15s pro over my 80g system 22 inches deep and lights mounted 8 inches over. They are at 70% on the AB plus setting and my mixed reef tank is thriving. 25 SPS frags. Not sure what exact par is. I let the corals tell me how they like it.

mtraylor · Aug 29, 2022

Can you post fts?

Pat613 · Sep 8, 2022

I have a G6 Pro, exact same thing. It’s on an IM 20, using the RMS. I added the diffuser to deal with the crazy disco in a 12” deep tank and have to run at 95% to get SPS numbers.

Jon's Reef · Sep 8, 2022

The data on G5 has been out for years. Just search YouTube. It has not changed and every other report was along the same numbers. G6 results shows similar values in the outer rim with the middle hotspot being eliminated.

G5 XR15 Pro, all channels 100%, 6" depth