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Another AI Sol Blue-Can one have too much light?
- Thread starter trivan
- Start date
You can have too much light. I would be careful. It is more than possible to bleach your corals.
If your cube is the same as my 45g cube, you should not have any trouble growing SPS on the sandbed of that tank when the lights are ramped up.
Do you have feet, or have you hung the fixture? How far above the tank is the fixture? What optics do you have?
Keep in mind that a single fixture is supposed to be sufficient for a 36" x 36" spread.
For PAR ratings and diagrams of the spread you should be getting, take a look at this: http://www.aquaillumination.com/sol/performance.html.
FYI, we had that fixture on our 30g cube (we now have two fixtures on our 57g), and I moved things over from a tank with T5s, and placed them about 5" up from the sand bed, and I bleached the heck out of them. Try ramping your light up slowly, and see- when we had our lights hung too low (on the feet), and when we had them dimmed, we also got what I'd call the "spotlight effect". Since we turned them up, we are getting a good spread out of our lights. One way to test this is to remove corals, ramp up your lights then and see how the tank looks. I would bet that it will be fine.
If your cube is the same as my 45g cube, you should not have any trouble growing SPS on the sandbed of that tank when the lights are ramped up.
Do you have feet, or have you hung the fixture? How far above the tank is the fixture? What optics do you have?
Keep in mind that a single fixture is supposed to be sufficient for a 36" x 36" spread.
For PAR ratings and diagrams of the spread you should be getting, take a look at this: http://www.aquaillumination.com/sol/performance.html.
FYI, we had that fixture on our 30g cube (we now have two fixtures on our 57g), and I moved things over from a tank with T5s, and placed them about 5" up from the sand bed, and I bleached the heck out of them. Try ramping your light up slowly, and see- when we had our lights hung too low (on the feet), and when we had them dimmed, we also got what I'd call the "spotlight effect". Since we turned them up, we are getting a good spread out of our lights. One way to test this is to remove corals, ramp up your lights then and see how the tank looks. I would bet that it will be fine.
Nikki - I have it hanging and I believe we have the same 45. It's the 24x24x18.
I currently have the lights as follows : White - 75%, Royal Blue - 70%, Blue - 75%. They are on the hang kit about 16" over the center of the tank going longer front to back. I have the standard out of the box opics.
My real goal was to have a more even distribution of the light, so that the fall off won't be as much at the edge. Thank for the link and the insight.
I currently have the lights as follows : White - 75%, Royal Blue - 70%, Blue - 75%. They are on the hang kit about 16" over the center of the tank going longer front to back. I have the standard out of the box opics.
My real goal was to have a more even distribution of the light, so that the fall off won't be as much at the edge. Thank for the link and the insight.
Raise it more and increase the intensity. These light cover 24 X 24 when raised 20 inches. Try that first and see if the tank corners are better lit.
If not you can always add one later.
This is a pick of my tank with 6 of them sitting at 22 inches from water. Tank is 96 X 30 deep. The corals in the back (where it seems dark) are growing as well as any other in the tank.
I had two of these units over the same tank and it was way tooo much.
It was too much and bleached everything. If you can turn the light so that it goes left to right instead of front to back and you will get better spread.
here is a better pic
It was too much and bleached everything. If you can turn the light so that it goes left to right instead of front to back and you will get better spread.
here is a better pic
Thanks all. I raised it as suggested and seems to be better. Got to love the hang kit... was able to play around to get it in.
Can people post their settings? I'm currently at 40% white, 50% on the blues. Not sure how much higher I can go without the risk of bleaching.
Thanks for saving me the $400. Now on to the automatic water changer with a dosing pump project.
Can people post their settings? I'm currently at 40% white, 50% on the blues. Not sure how much higher I can go without the risk of bleaching.
Thanks for saving me the $400. Now on to the automatic water changer with a dosing pump project.