Time, intensity and color for kessil lights

[Jvesche20]

I have a kessil on my frag tank and all my frags are dead. Not sure why but my guess is my lighting. How do you keep your lights on. What intensity and color? And how long do you have them set for? I used the settings that brs uses but I would like to see what others use.

 

[Adalius]

Just out of curiosity, did you use a PAR meter? If not, BRS rents them pretty cheap. There can be a surprising difference in just a few inches of lighting difference. My AP700s put out almost 200 more PAR at the top of my rockwork when I lowered the lights 1.5" during some testing with a rental meter (had to get my money out of it so I tried about 8-10 different combinations and measured at 12 points in the tank for each configuration). So you might have the same color/intensity/time and still be baking your frags.

 

[Jvesche20]

Just out of curiosity, did you use a PAR meter? If not, BRS rents them pretty cheap. There can be a surprising difference in just a few inches of lighting difference. My AP700s put out almost 200 more PAR at the top of my rockwork when I lowered the lights 1.5" during some testing with a rental meter (had to get my money out of it so I tried about 8-10 different combinations and measured at 12 points in the tank for each configuration). So you might have the same color/intensity/time and still be baking your frags.

I do not have one. How long did you actually use the meter for? My LFS rents it for $20 for 1 day. Its cheaper than $50 for the week.

 

[Jvesche20]

the other thing that doesnt make sense to me is that some of these corals were growing perfectly and for 4+ months and just die out of no where.

 

[Adalius]

I only had it one day. If you can rent one for $20 there's really no reason not to. Once you have PAR numbers in hand you'll know right away if you're barking up the right tree or not. If you're using the same spectrum as BRS and the PAR numbers are solid, then it would seem to me you can rule out the lighting, so its worth testing.

 

[Midrats]

How did you come to the conclusion that the lights killed your corals?

 

[Jvesche20]

How did you come to the conclusion that the lights killed your corals?

I have my DT and the frag tank linked together so they are all running the same calcium alk etc. So If one of those elements were off then I would see the results not only in my frag tank but my display tank. I made these frags from my colonies months back and the colonies are completely fine. Growing and healthy as can be. Could it be the powerhead blasting the corals too hard? I have the powerhead blowing water over the corals not on them. Not sure what else would be the problem