Two zones in tank need opinions

[ReefDude716]

I have a Nuvo fusion 30L tank with eshops rs100 sump. I have two echotech radion xr-15 pros. This is a mixed reef tank however I have my par maxed at a 200 and I inset it at33% since this is a shallow tank. I use the rms mount which is about 8 inches from surface of water. Should I move all the lower side corals to one side at same intensity and put all my acros and sps on the other side and increase my intensity

 

[Ron Reefman]

That's an interesting idea. Have you done any move yet (since this post is 3 weeks old)?

 

[Billdogg]

I agree that you have a interesting idea, but I think you'll find that there will be enough spread from the brighter light that it will make the "dimmer" side difficult to achieve. I think if it was a longer tank you'd have better luck.

Please let us know how it goes!

 

[ReefDude716]

I agree that you have a interesting idea, but I think you'll find that there will be enough spread from the brighter light that it will make the "dimmer" side difficult to achieve. I think if it was a longer tank you'd have better luck.

Please let us know how it goes!

Lol the problem of having a shallow tank , I’m in an apartment now so I was limited in size of tank once I find a house I plan on upgrading to a 200 gallon tank. But in the mean time I just wanted to have faster growth and coloration in my acros . But only having 200par limits this. Because at 200par on top means the sandbed is at around 125 . So if I go to 300+par on top I would be around 200 on sandbed which would be too much for some of my corals

 

[Dkmoo]

This is kind of what I did with my two primes but not to your extreme. Since I have a prime HD and a first gen one, I put the HD with overdrive on my side with mostly acros, and the other side is more of a mix

For yours, I would suggest lowering your light closer to water. This will reduce the light cone spread and make it easier to differentiate the two zones. You can always lower the % of light to compensate for the shorter distance to get to the PAR you need. A closer light at the same par output will have another benefit of better gradient between the top of water vs the bottom due to the inverse square nature of distance and light intensity. For ex if light is 8 inches above water and water is 8 inch deep, then bottom of water is only 1/4 intensity of top bc its 2x the distance to light source vs top of water. However, if you lower the light to 4in above water, then bottom of water is 1/9 the intensity of top bc its 3x further to light than top of water.