AI Hydra Settings Thread

[McGee10]

I always thought bleaching was caused by too much light also. In my quest for more information I have seen people say that corals can bleach from not enough light. This has me quite confused. The torch is Aussie & most of my euphyllias are except for one hammer. The torch is fully inflated & not retracting or showing skeleton. I'm not running a low nutrient tank either so it's not being starved.

I find it odd that the branches with the most bleaching are shaded by the other branches that aren't shaded. As I look at one of the unshaded branches, it appears to be splitting. I'll start target feeding it specifically & see if that helps.

I guess I just need to wait & see what the tank looks like tomorrow after lowering the White & UV & go from there.

I started slow when I switched over my corals under the PC in the cube to this. Even at 12 they should look good. Good luck! I enjoy this light, the torch just seems to be making this tricky for me

Just an after thought is your water quality good I have seen Phosphates bleach corals before

 

[Sonicboom]

Here's my tank with the new lights (crappy phone pic, sorry). This is 3 hydras over a 6' tank at 12" above the water line. Coverage is very good even at the low setting I'm using. Ignore the vertical lines on the right side, that's from my window shades. Yes I realize I need to raise the right a little, and I am going to try to hide the wires better with some electrical tape.

Looks great! I ran the wires of my right and center light along the rail behind the lights to hide them, then used cables ties to make sure they didn't dangle. Now there's only one wire bundle.

 

[Sonicboom]

The only coral I ever had bleach was my mushroom when I first switched to LED. My corals that died just slowly shrunk (branch by branch) until there was nothing left. I hope these lights help...before I had the cheap blue/white LEDs. I have very stable params exactly where they should be. If only corals could talk, tell us what's wrong.

I love how these lights look. Some say T5s are the tried and true, and I almost back to those, but I just love the shimmer and the color adjustability of LEDs. And I'm in CA so the savings in electricity is big $ for me.

On my old 180 I used to run 3 400 watt mh's and 4 t5's. I can honestly say I am happier with less heat over the tank which means my home ac doesn't have to run, less power draw and no bulb replacement or reflectors that need to be polished. Not to mention automatic sunrise sunset and moon phases.

 

[Sonicboom]

I have one Hydra mounted about 9 inches over a 37 gallon tank. Currently I'm only keeping soft corals in the tank. This is my first saltwater tank so I have nothing else to compare growth of my corals to but I think my corals are growing slow. I haven't seen much growth from my zoas.

I have a couple of questions

Do i need another light?
Are the lights too close or far from the tank?
Are my settings below correct?
I have it set on Miami weather with a 2.5 hrs ramp time. No particular reason why I did this. I live in NY and would like some light on when I get home by 7:30 ish.

How deep is the 37?
Are you using clouds or the real time weather?
Any reason you are using both blues and violet for lunar?

 

[oseymour]

How deep is the 37?
Are you using clouds or the real time weather?
Any reason you are using both blues and violet for lunar?

The tank dimensions are 30 1/4 long by 12 1/2 front to back by 22 3/4 wide.

No particular reason, I didn't even realize I was doing it.
I'm using real time weather (Lights have been going crazy because I guess the weather in Miami is bad over the last couple of days)

 

[Sonicboom]

ahh, i'm going to guess its 22 tall. you should be fine with one light since you wont have corals along the edge of the glass. try setting the deep blue to minimum 5% and set the others to zero and see how that looks. and yes the weather has been constant rain in Florida daily and should be like that for the next few months..lol in the meantime i suggest turning off the weather, turning on clouds at 20/10 and turning down the intensities to about;
UV ~20
Vio ~30
green 5
DR 5
CW ~20

 

[oseymour]

ahh, i'm going to guess its 22 tall. you should be fine with one light since you wont have corals along the edge of the glass. try setting the deep blue to minimum 5% and set the others to zero and see how that looks. and yes the weather has been constant rain in Florida daily and should be like that for the next few months..lol in the meantime i suggest turning off the weather, turning on clouds at 20/10 and turning down the intensities to about;
UV ~20
Vio ~30
green 5
DR 5
CW ~20

Here are the new settings

I turned off real time settings and for clouds probability at 20%, Intensity 10%.

Thanks, I'll watch closely and see how it goes.

 

[Fish Biscuit]

Just an after thought is your water quality good I have seen Phosphates bleach corals before

I have to wonder now about Phosphates too since I came in & the button & Duncan were thoroughly po'd with the lower settings on CW & UV. That's my next plan, more water changes. I've changed about 12g in the last 2 weeks & was planning on doing another 10g or so this week.

Thanks for everyone's help! It's really appreciated

 

[Sonicboom]

I have to wonder now about Phosphates too since I came in & the button & Duncan were thoroughly po'd with the lower settings on CW & UV. That's my next plan, more water changes. I've changed about 12g in the last 2 weeks & was planning on doing another 10g or so this week.

Thanks for everyone's help! It's really appreciated

Is your top off water reading 0 tds?

 

[MellowReefer]

I have to wonder now about Phosphates too since I came in & the button & Duncan were thoroughly po'd with the lower settings on CW & UV. That's my next plan, more water changes. I've changed about 12g in the last 2 weeks & was planning on doing another 10g or so this week.

Thanks for everyone's help! It's really appreciated

I'm surprised that your corals reacted to the lowered lighting that quickly, usually I've heard them react quickly with suddenly higher lighting but I thought lack of light takes longer to see a change. How do they look, just not open when they normally are fully open?

 

[AudiSportB5S4]

On my setup which is pictured below.. What would you do for mounting? My ceiling above the tank isn't the strongest (basement and it's that real hollow crap).. I was going to do the EXT rail system that mounts to the back of the stand and then hangs the light over the tank with that intersecting piece.. This and the other required piece that interlocks @ the top to then hold the light

Think that's the best thing to go with?

 

[Fish Biscuit]

I'm surprised that your corals reacted to the lowered lighting that quickly, usually I've heard them react quickly with suddenly higher lighting but I thought lack of light takes longer to see a change. How do they look, just not open when they normally are fully open?

They get upset really quick when I lower the lights at all which is why I wonder maybe not enough lighting. After 2 days of acclimation settings they are beyond upset & all out mutiny starts.

The Duncan wasn't open up at all & the button was only 1/3 of the normal size, deflated, & sucked in. Fully inflated the button is the size of a large bagel & it looks better but not 100% yet. The duncan is back to normal at least.

I'm surprised the goni wasn't mad too since it usually retracts into the skeleton when I lower the settings. Everything else looked good so I just upped lighting back to what it was & will slowly start increasing blues 1% a week.

 

[strout]

I just bought three Hydra upgrades for my three Sols, have them up and running over my mainly all SPS 48x30x25 tank, awesome lights, my corals have never looked better. Next to the Auto Top Off, this is the best money I have ever spent on my tank I do have a Hydra question though, I think I know the answer, want to see if I do and what the best advice ya'll can give me, I am sure I am not the only one with this problem Let me say here, I am using the Easy Set Up function on the controller to run my lights at this time.

I go to work early, which means I have to have a short ramp up time to get my fish up and moving around so that I can get them fed before going to work. With the old Sol lights and Sol controller I was using, no big deal, I had 8 cycles set up during the day. I could pick the primary light cycle that I wanted during the middle of the day, meaning the time my corals were getting their best light. With the new Hydras and the Hydra controller, its a whole other ball game. With running a short 1 1/2 hour ( Thanks for that advice in my PM Sonicboom ) ramp up time to get the fish up and moving around so that I can feed them, this means after 1 1/2 hours my Hydras are at their peak, meaning they are petting the amount of light into the tank that I have the lights set for and they are going to put that amount of light into my tank all day long till the ramp down time in the evening. Now I don't have the lights blasting my tank, but still that is a awful lot of light for such a long period of time. Lights are set at:

White 15%
Violet 40%
Red 5%
Green 10%
D Blue 65%
Royal 65%
UV 28%

So here is my question: am I alright running these light settings for such a long period of time, pretty much all day, or will I fry my corals? I see in the Aqua Illumations videos that I can set up light timer's in the Easy Set up function of the controller, should I be learning to use this function to give my corals a break from the light setting I have programmed into my Hydra Controller? If the answer is yes, I need to learn how to use and set up these timers, can ya'll give me a quick lesson on how these timers work and what I am wanting to do with them?

 

[manalojo]

Hey Strout. I have the same problem. Zoos didn't mind, but frogspawn hated it (it's really finicky). My acans also got fried.

Too help, I did a 3 month accilimation to get my corals used to it and moved stuff around so the more sensitive corals are not sitting directly under the hydras or are partially shadowed. Seems ok so far.

The other thing I did was use the cloud effects at 20% intensity, 20% probability. As Sonic suggested in some posts earlier, this seems to give the corals a break.

Let me know what you come up with. I'm still playing around so I can get some nice lighting when I get home later at night.

 

[Sonicboom]

On my setup which is pictured below.. What would you do for mounting? My ceiling above the tank isn't the strongest (basement and it's that real hollow crap).. I was going to do the EXT rail system that mounts to the back of the stand and then hangs the light over the tank with that intersecting piece.. This and the other required piece that interlocks @ the top to then hold the light

Think that's the best thing to go with?

If it's a drop ceiling can't you mount a 2x4 across the supports and mount the light to the 2x4?

 

[Sonicboom]

Hi strout, as manalojo said you could either bump up the cloud probability and intensity or set your sunset around 5 pm or so. Another option is to get an auto feeder for just the morning and set your times normally.

 

[manalojo]

Autofeeder definitely is a must. The eheim has up to 4 feeding times. It's a nice unit.

I also freeze a concoction of phyto, roe, and mysis shrimp mixed with a little tank water. Put it in an ice cube tray. I drop one of the cubes in the sump at night, shut off the skimmer, and let the food gradually melt and shoot into the tank via the return pump. In the morning, I just turn on the skimmer again.

 

[Wazzel]

On my setup which is pictured below.. What would you do for mounting? My ceiling above the tank isn't the strongest (basement and it's that real hollow crap).. I was going to do the EXT rail system that mounts to the back of the stand and then hangs the light over the tank with that intersecting piece.. This and the other required piece that interlocks @ the top to then hold the light

Think that's the best thing to go with?

I used the EXT over the back. With your (ours, since we have the same one) stand you will need a spacer. The top creates a lip across the back and interfers with the bracket. I used a 1x4 a couple of inches long.

 

[AudiSportB5S4]

If it's a drop ceiling can't you mount a 2x4 across the supports and mount the light to the 2x4?

I definitely have to look at it and see if that is an option. Thanks!

I used the EXT over the back. With your (ours, since we have the same one) stand you will need a spacer. The top creates a lip across the back and interfers with the bracket. I used a 1x4 a couple of inches long.

Good call.. Thanks! I looked at your thread I like how the EXT rail looks. You have the 48" piece and then the 12" that spans across the top, correct?

 

[Wazzel]

Good call.. Thanks! I looked at your thread I like how the EXT rail looks. You have the 48" piece and then the 12" that spans across the top, correct?

That is correct.