Reef Breeders Photon v2+

[nick654377]

Tomorrow our Photon V2+ comes and we are excited to get it all set up as our tank has had no lights for about a month now. (its a new tank, Letting everything settle first)

My question is what does your light schedule look like? how many hours a day?

We do not have a PAR meter yet as well as no corals in the tank. Only live rock and a few fish. Just trying to figure things out for our 65 before I over do the lighting.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Tomorrow our Photon V2+ comes and we are excited to get it all set up as our tank has had no lights for about a month now. (its a new tank, Letting everything settle first)

My question is what does your light schedule look like? how many hours a day?

We do not have a PAR meter yet as well as no corals in the tank. Only live rock and a few fish. Just trying to figure things out for our 65 before I over do the lighting.

Start on low settings and gradually build intensity
There are some suggested settings on you tube

 

[littlebeard]

I use a setting similar to BRS reef breeder suggestion. They have an LPS and SPS recommendation.

My aquarium is not the same one that they use so I had to modify the intensity.
I really only use it for color percentages. I found that my v2's were putting out way too much par if I was running at 100% so I think I run around 65% for the brightest time of the day. That can put almost 200 par on the sandbed.


For duration, I run low, low blues so I can see the corals fluoresce then ramp up to max intensity over like 2 hours, have the lights at max for about 4-5 hours then ramp back down over another 2 hours.


Was working pretty well until dino's took me down.

 

[jgirardnrg]

How deep is the tank?
Did you get the Photon Pro (wifi enabled)?

 

[nick654377]

How deep is the tank?
Did you get the Photon Pro (wifi enabled)?

The tank is a 36x18x24. We did not get the pro as we do not have anything fancy on the tank yet and can upgrade later on if we want to. To be honest will will more than likely give this 65 gallon to my step daughter as it was our first dive into aquariums and get a sumped 120.

 

[nereefpat]

Paging @Ron Reefman

 

[nick654377]

So the light came last night late and the wife wanted to set it up so I played around with it for a few. We ended up taking the top off our hood and are running the light at 12 inches above the water. I must say I love the way this light works and how easy it was to program.

We are not running any reds nor green and I followed this schedule for the moment to see how things react.

8am 10% on all blue channels
9am 20% all blue channels
10am 20% all blue channels
11am -3pm 30% all blue channels
4pm 20% all blue channels
5pm-6pm 15% all blue channels
7pm 10% all blue channels
8pm 5% all blue channels
9pm 3% all blue channels
10pm 0%

We are not running any whites as we like the looks of the blue.

I do not have access to a par meter and have the following in the tank
- RBTA 12 inches below water line until he decides to move
- Green tip purple torch coral 15 inches below water line on the far left of the tank
- micro favia on the bottom left by the substrate (22 inches down from water line)
- a garden of pulsing Xenia front left corner 18-20 inches from water line
- Marvin the Martian Chalice coral front center on the bottom of tank about 20 inches from surface.

Does this raise a concern to anyone? Do you think 30% would be too much? I know its hard to tell without a par meter but we do not have one. I am looking to see if any LFS has one that will rent out as I know some states have stores that do that.

 

[jda]

Have you seen therman's threads? He is a v2 user and has some of the best corals that I have ever seen under LED. It will be worth it to look him up, IMO.

 

[WVNed]

My 75 is 18 inches deep. My Photon V2 is 10 inches above it. I run 4 channels at 60% and the other 2 less.
It is on for 12 hours a day which includes a ramp up and down of 1 hour each.

 

[Bpb]

Why spend almost $1000 on a light fixture and only run the blues, when you could spend a fraction of that on Orphek bars and never have to worry about programming.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Blue is by far the most important color to run, but white light does do things for the coral polyps as well. It's a long term game, and you won't see effects right away, but don't short change your corals by only running the blue lights.
Consider finding some way to borrow or rent a PAR meter. I have the Photons over a 20" deep tank and I run mine at higher levels than you are using.

 

[Viperdragon]

I started with brs setting for LPS tanks and have modified from. There. I have a 75 and have the lights 16 inches above the tank