I have to be honest, I am not just new to saltwater tanks, I don't even own one. I am a freshwater planted guy just trying to help a friend out. I am helping my friend rehab his tank and he splurged on some new lights I installed for him last night. We have done a lot of maintance on this tank and he wants to add some corals.
First, being from the planted tank world, I was kind of shocked by how much light these things put out. I first look on the box and then looked online. Neither of us have access to a par meter so I am just going off what I see online. I know with all the LED stuff I have encountered, and I am new to LED in the planted fresh water world, usually things look brighter with T5's than LED's, these at full blast kill his T5 setup.
Now to my (hopefully) basic questions. It seems that these are very likely overkill at full power. He has a 90 gallon (48 x 18 x 25) with 3 modules. Unfortunately, due to the center brace, one needs to be on either side of that so it can't be centered. I think 2 would have been better but it is what it is.
I am not asking for someone to give me a detailed schedule or anything like that. We will figure that out over time. I am really just looking for a starting point for intensity as we start to add more than fish to this tank. We will likely customize it to his liking (and more so for his daughters), I just want to get an idea for a starting point so we don't over do it, or under do it. The family is very excited to have this back in their life but a lot of this will fall on my shoulders. I really apologize if this is way to basic, I just want some guidance.
That said, what is a good intensity to start at assuming we use a fairly even mix of the white, blue and royal blue? Is the par much different from white to blue if we have more white during the day, more blue at night? How long maximum should it be at it's highest intensity, to start, assuming we just ramp up to this value, and ramp down, likely having only 4 settings at first?
Again, my apologizes as a totally newbie at this.
First, being from the planted tank world, I was kind of shocked by how much light these things put out. I first look on the box and then looked online. Neither of us have access to a par meter so I am just going off what I see online. I know with all the LED stuff I have encountered, and I am new to LED in the planted fresh water world, usually things look brighter with T5's than LED's, these at full blast kill his T5 setup.
Now to my (hopefully) basic questions. It seems that these are very likely overkill at full power. He has a 90 gallon (48 x 18 x 25) with 3 modules. Unfortunately, due to the center brace, one needs to be on either side of that so it can't be centered. I think 2 would have been better but it is what it is.
I am not asking for someone to give me a detailed schedule or anything like that. We will figure that out over time. I am really just looking for a starting point for intensity as we start to add more than fish to this tank. We will likely customize it to his liking (and more so for his daughters), I just want to get an idea for a starting point so we don't over do it, or under do it. The family is very excited to have this back in their life but a lot of this will fall on my shoulders. I really apologize if this is way to basic, I just want some guidance.
That said, what is a good intensity to start at assuming we use a fairly even mix of the white, blue and royal blue? Is the par much different from white to blue if we have more white during the day, more blue at night? How long maximum should it be at it's highest intensity, to start, assuming we just ramp up to this value, and ramp down, likely having only 4 settings at first?
Again, my apologizes as a totally newbie at this.
