Red Sea ReefLED 50

PTXReef · Sep 12, 2020

Any advice on lighting schedule for my 95 wave aquarium? I am keeping a mixed reef with mostly LPS and softies. I have two Red Sea LED50s on it running for 10 hours a day at 100% blue and 30% whites. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance everyone!

Ron Reefman · Sep 12, 2020

I think you are just about in the right place. 10 hours a day may be a bit longer than it needs to be, but it's not at all harmful. Zooxanthellae typically do photosynthesis for 6 to 8 hours during peak lighting.

PTXReef · Sep 12, 2020

Ron Reefman said:
I think you are just about in the right place. 10 hours a day may be a bit longer than it needs to be, but it's not at all harmful. Zooxanthellae typically do photosynthesis for 6 to 8 hours during peak lighting.

I do notice that new corals do expel some zooxanthellae for the first day or so when I acclimated them into my system. I start everything off on the bottom of the tank. Should I reduce the lighting schedule to possibly 8 or 9 hours? I should add there is an hour ramp up and ramp down time (total is still 10 hours of light). Thanks!

Ron Reefman · Sep 13, 2020

PTXReef said:
I do notice that new corals do expel some zooxanthellae for the first day or so when I acclimated them into my system. I start everything off on the bottom of the tank. Should I reduce the lighting schedule to possibly 8 or 9 hours? I should add there is an hour ramp up and ramp down time (total is still 10 hours of light). Thanks!

Really? I've never noticed coral polyps expelling zooxanthellae. I know they can and do, I've just never seen it.

The ramp up and ramp down time is probably not part of the time that photosynthesis happens. The zooxanthellae needs high PAR levels to drive the process. I doubt less total hours is the issue. Maybe you could try dialing back the peak power levels a bit and see what happens.

Do you know what the PAR levels are in your tank? It's not critical to know, but if you can access a PAR meter, it can be helpful information.

BTW, I run a 4 hour ramp up (sunrise), 8 hours of peak (or very near peak) light and then 5 hours of ramp down (sunset). The sunrise and sunset has almost nothing to do with how well corals or anything else in the tank does. It's 99% for our human viewing enjoyment. I love corals that fluoresce and therefore I run long blue sunrise and sunset sessions.

Hope this helps?

PTXReef · Sep 13, 2020

Ron Reefman said:
Really? I've never noticed coral polyps expelling zooxanthellae. I know they can and do, I've just never seen it.

The ramp up and ramp down time is probably not part of the time that photosynthesis happens. The zooxanthellae needs high PAR levels to drive the process. I doubt less total hours is the issue. Maybe you could try dialing back the peak power levels a bit and see what happens.

Do you know what the PAR levels are in your tank? It's not critical to know, but if you can access a PAR meter, it can be helpful information.

BTW, I run a 4 hour ramp up (sunrise), 8 hours of peak (or very near peak) light and then 5 hours of ramp down (sunset). The sunrise and sunset has almost nothing to do with how well corals or anything else in the tank does. It's 99% for our human viewing enjoyment. I love corals that fluoresce and therefore I run long blue sunrise and sunset sessions.

Hope this helps?

I assume the PAR levels listed on the Red Sea website (ex: 10” from the surface with the LED 50 would be ~280 PAR). The reason why I do 100% is because I feel like either the light isn’t powerful enough to make my corals as fluorescent as I want them to be or if my water is too dirty. I haven’t been running carbon for a while now and the water change buckets are slightly yellow, which may affect the PAR.