Radion XR30W Lighting for reef tank

[bsr2430]

I’m thinking about uping my lighting and wanted any input.

My lighting is four inches above the water.

Currently they turn on at 7am, and builds up to 27% to 8am. Then they run at 27% Intensity until 4:30pm and slowly go down until 5pm.

I have mainly all LPS coral with just a few SPS, my coral seed very happy but I think I can expect more from them if I raise the lighting.

Please ask for more input if you need any!

 

[TheEngineer]

More light requires more nutrients and flow. What are your parameters?

Also, if things are doing well I’d just leave it be IMO.

 

[bsr2430]

Flow isn’t a problem, I have Vortech’s.

Alk - 2.5meg/l
Mag - 1,250
Cal - 400
PH - 8.2
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0

 

[bsr2430]

Come on every body with Radion’s, speak out about your lighting!

 

[TheEngineer]

With zero nutrients, you need to be careful with increasing your lights.

 

[crawling junk]

If its not broken don’t mess with it. Leave it be and enjoy your tank

 

[bsr2430]

Now I do have some hair algae, so I might have a little to none. Wondering if I’ll get more input!

 

[bsr2430]

Bump

 

[Huff747]

Best thing I did was rent a par meter. Showed me how low my par was so I added a hybrid fixture and my numbers are much better and in a month with the new setup my coral’s colors are better and seem to be growing better now as well.

 

[bsr2430]

Where did you rent one at?

 

[Daniel Waters]

It's hard to give recommendations without knowing the size of your tank and placement of your SPS and what template you might be running or what your individual color channel intensities are set to. The radion XR30W can create a hot spot because the two pucks are very close together. Thus, most people raise them up very high and / or use diffusers.

LPS corals are not very light demanding. The trick for you is to provide intense enough light for your sps and stay within a range that your lps can tolerate. These are numbers that you would do best to get from a par meter so you aren't guessing. If you don't have access to a par meter, I would use the BRS videos on the radion XR30w pro and take their par numbers as a starting reference (except their mounting height is going to be higher and their videos are on the pro version which is stronger).

Hope that helps.

 

[Huff747]

I got it from @Bulk Reef Supply you pay a deposit and then I think it’s ~$35 for 2 weeks rental. They were quick to refund the deposit when I returned it so it never made it to my credit card bill. Was very educational. I had 3 XR15s on the RMS multi rail (~9 inches high I believe) and I was running them about 55-65% on the AB+ program and I the readings were so low I didn’t even write them down. I turned them up to 100% and I was just getting better numbers but still not where I wanted to be. Ordered the aquatic life hybrid and it’s hanging about 12 inches up and I’m running the XR15s at 75% and the par readings are much better.

FWIW I also slid the XR15 lights around while testing and I absolutely could have got the same numbers by adding more XR15s but the hybrid fixture was a better fit for my budget. Your XR30 may be perfectly fine but there are too many variables to tell without a meter.

 

[bsr2430]

Thanks mate!!!

 

[Sarah24!]

Hello,

I’m going to be super honesty (hate me later) but leave your tank alone. If it’s happy STOP messing with it. More light doesn’t mean anything except that you could bleach them. You don’t even have high high lights demanding corals to begin with. Even then maybe add 1-3% increase, at the most.

In addition to that get yourself a decent par meter and see where your lights are at. The most your corals need at this moment is probably 100 par. People are trying to help, but this is us helping. Sometimes it’s not what we wanna hear, and trust me from my own bad experience increasing light can wreck your whole month.

I added a third light from my marine orbit pro and even dropping all three lights by 33% in power I cooked some of my corals. You need to research this more, if your corals are happy leave them alone.

 

[bsr2430]

No, I don’t hate anyone, this is exactly what I want! I want to expect more from my coral but I will research more on this! I turly would hate to lose any! Thank you very much on this! I’m glad I can get honest feedback!