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led placement
- Thread starter ham
- Start date
Ham, I’m in the same boat. I’ve read the stuff about increase height, covering with screen, and shortening the photo period, but nothing definitive. I guess everyone’s situation is different. I’m a dumb-a$$ and need someone to tell me what to do. Right now I’ve got my fixtures about 30 inches above the waterline and run blues about 8 hours and whites about 2 ½ to 3 hours. I plan on lowering the fixture 3 inches every week until it is down to about 13 inches above the waterline. And FYI, I have two Apollo 120 W fixtures on a five foot 90 gallon tank.
What fixture do you have?
What fixture do you have?
Depends what kind of light u guys r switching from. I went from 400w mh about 10" above the water, to the 120w leds. I kept them at the same height. Now i keep them around 8". I never had a problem with the sps bleaching or anything when i made the switch. I might of started them at like 20" if i had t5 or 150w mh to b on the safe side. Just use your best judgement, and keep a close eye on your corals
http://www.ebay.com/itm/140647717867?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649 this is the light i bought. i just started this frag tank and picked up about 14 pieces mostly polyps i'm running the blues for 3 and half hours then there off with the whites comming on for 3 hours then there off with the blues for another 3 and a half. the light is about a foot off the tank. on my main tank i'm running a cebsun from hamilton tec with a 250mh radium and 4 t5'. i will be transfering some corals from the main tank to the frag tank need room lol.
I run my blues for about 10 hrs from 12-10pm. My white come on at 130 and go off at 830. I also have 2-80w t5 that come on at 3 and go off at 7. Id make up some sort of schedule so that all your lights are on at once for a while. maybe your blue on for 8 hrs and the whites on for 5-6hrs in the middle of this period. This way theyll get a full blast of light and b more tolerable to higher lighting. And remember... One of the +'s with leds is that u can have your lighting on longer cause there is less of a heat issue. Then again this is only my opinion, and im a sps guy. U said u have polyps so i think they require less light overall. But prob b ok to try a lighting period like i mentioned.
i have them on timers and for the last half hour of the blues the whites are also on and then when the blues come on again the whites will be on for a half hour then there off . my main tank is sps lps and polyps so i'm playing around with the leds to see if maybe i can go all leds. i was the luck owner of the solaris back when they first came out. i bought it on one of the group buy's had it for less then a year and dumped it that light sucked lol . so i'm slowly thinkering with the led's so like you say just have to play with it to get it right thanks
Nick I would agree with you in regard to the light period……except…….Ham has a 20 gallon tank. 120 watts of LED is a bit much for a 20 gallon…and especially a 20 long, that is (I think) only 12 inches deep. Therefore, I think it best if you run the lights separately. I think if all 120 watts is on at the same time….ouch! I would also have the light up at least 12 inches above the tank.
I was running 12 3W Cree LEDs on my 20L and had bleaching of some of my SPS if I went over 40%. I raised the fixture 10" above the water and only ran the fixture at 35% max.
Since the fixture is not dimmable, I would go high as you can and work your up on the photo period and then work on lowering the fixture down.
Since the fixture is not dimmable, I would go high as you can and work your up on the photo period and then work on lowering the fixture down.