AI Hydra Settings Thread

[Benson0219]

I was talking at length at MACNA with a retailer as I was deciding which to get for my 75g. The 26s are cool, but I don't totally see how you can get the same coverage, I feel like some shadowing is likely... They claim they get the same coverage cause of the optics, but I feel like physics makes that impossible and there must be additional shadowing. However, you probably get better color blending with the 26s. You can tell which part of the tank are under the blues and which are under the green/red pucks with my Hydras. Doesn't really bother me tho, I still think they look incredible. The guy at MACNA made a good point and said if your lights are out in the open then the 26s might give you a cleaner look.

I was at MACNA too. I talked with AI. I agree with you about the shadowing. It's about the number of fixtures and the amount of overlap. On your 75, two would work and is enough light but with shadowing. Three would be better. I have two over my 4 foot tank and have been thinking about adding more Hydras or adding T5s to help with the shadowing.

 

[swhobbie1]

drtrash,

Probably not unless you don't mind extreme shadowing and very low par in the corners. How deep is the tank? You can probably get really good coverage with 2 Hydra 26's.

Agree ... not enough if you want SPS on the ends. I have 1 hydra 52 over a 36"x15 and in the center SPS grow fine but not so much at each end, color fades. I am trying to decide which other AI LED to put over this tank with the AI52.

 

[Adam G]

I have found that as SPS colonies get larger and thicker it is helpful to have one every foot so. I am new to the Hydra 52's but I had 4 SOL Blues over my 48x30x30 for 3 years with excellent results. Started with 3 but after about a year and a half I added a 4th. When converting to Hydra 52s I converted all 4.

Of course I know that I could get by with less but I am getting light overlapping in multiple directions and it really helps with the thicker colonies and die off of the lower branches. I am hoping with double the power/LEDS and the 80 degree lenses on the hydras it should on increase the multi directional light hitting the lower branches and acting more like metal halide lighting with high end reflectors.

 

[Tuffloud1]

I am completely confused at this point and very frustrated with the Neptune AWM Module.

It was my understanding that if you had one color channel set to 100 for example and your ramping graph set at 80 peak, the channel you set at 100 would actually peak at 80 percent.

I have had the AWM and Hydra's for months, when I went to tinker with it, I turned all color channels down to 0, however the blue LED's remained as bright as the ones that were set at 100!!!

Look at my picture, the Hydra on the left has Royal Blue and Deep Blue set at 100, the Hydra on the right has ALL color channels set to 0. How in the world then are they still lit up like this? The ramp graph for each of the Hydra's I left at 100 peak, so what is this graph exactly doing when I set all my color channels to 0 and it is still lighting up all blues as bright as the other Hydra?

This makes absolutely no sense.

Someone, anyone with the AWM and Hydras please help me, this is driving me nuts.

 

[Tuffloud1]

Here is the ramping graph which is the same on both Hydra's.

 

[Adam G]

After reading through the thread again I decided to do some alterations to my settings on my 4 Hydra 52s over my 48x30x30 tank. I have them about 12" off the water now and took the acclimation function off. I have worked my way up to 48% with all channels being equal. Changed to the following from the advice on this thread and I will give it a few weeks and then turn them up a bit and tweak the ratio.


UV 30%
Violet 60%
Deep Blue 60%
Royal Blue 60%
Green 40%
Red 40%
Cool White 30%

I will see how everything reacts and adjust accordingly. I am really happy with the color mix though. Less blue than the SOL Blues and better color pop with my oranges and reds. Looks very natural.

 

[Brownflem]

After reading through the thread again I decided to do some alterations to my settings on my 4 Hydra 52s over my 48x30x30 tank. I have them about 12" off the water now and took the acclimation function off. I have worked my way up to 48% with all channels being equal. Changed to the following from the advice on this thread and I will give it a few weeks and then turn them up a bit and tweak the ratio.


UV 30%
Violet 60%
Deep Blue 60%
Royal Blue 60%
Green 40%
Red 40%
Cool White 30%

I will see how everything reacts and adjust accordingly. I am really happy with the color mix though. Less blue than the SOL Blues and better color pop with my oranges and reds. Looks very natural.

I would like to know how this works for you. I am still experimenting with my settings. I can't seem to stop making changes.

 

[Brownflem]

I run mine a lot hotter than most and all is good. I am up to 92% on the blues and 60% on the reds. Every thing else is in between those. By the end of the month I will be a 100% blues and 65% red as my bounds.

I started at 40% for the blues and have been working my way up over 6 months. I used the acclimation function. Set the blues at 100% adjusted the other colors to get a mix I liked then hit it with a 60% reduction and 4 month ramp. It has been reset a couple of times along the way when I added new corals.

Can you advise of the progress of your tank with the settings this high?

 

[Wazzel]

Can you advise of the progress of your tank with the settings this high?

What would you like to know? I think it is doing fine. I started this tank with frags so nothing is big yet. Everything is growing at a fare rate.

 

[Brownflem]

I guess I am hesitant to turn the lights up higher. I am at 60 blues and 30 whites.

 

[jcs11236]

I currently have had my hydras since the beginning. Haven't posted on the thread for a while. I think I found the sweet setting for my tank. I have light 8" awl
The level are
90% both blues
15 green
13 red
35 uv
60 violet
28 whites

I used to have uv very bright before and all colors were dull/brown. Tea somewhere that uv causes this. So I lowered uv now colors have been coming back nicely. Also noticed that corals don't like high whites

 

[Wazzel]

I guess I am hesitant to turn the lights up higher. I am at 60 blues and 30 whites.

Do not be scared, just do it slowly. I took 6 months to go from 40% of my setting to full power.

What size is your tank? IMO if you have a 24" deep tank you should have whatever you want to be the dominate color to be at 100% and adjust the others to fit. I like my tanks to be white, with a hint of blue, so for me that has the other colors much higher than those that like a tank that is more blue. When I ran MH/VHO I ran 10k bulbs in the MH fixture and super actinic VHO. Personally I do not like the 20k lamps.

Also remember the data the LED manufacturers publish is at full power on all channels. So if you are running most of your channels at 20-30 percent you are taking a big hit to the power available to the corals. I suspect you could get an approximate overall reduction if you weight each channel by the number of LEDs per channel. I just did a spread sheet and if a weighted average gets you close my setting will get me approx 90% of the published power. I checked jcs11236's and sonicboom's settings just for fun and both of their scaled power is approx 53% of the published, based on the rough scaling spreadsheet I put together.

Right now I am at

Blues - 100
White - 90
Violet - 89
UV - 80
Green - 75
Red - 65

 

[Brownflem]

Thank you very much for the info.

I have a 60 cube 24x24x24 mixed reef and a frag tank 36x24x12.

I guess I will slowly experiment. It's a lot of light!

 

[Wazzel]

Thank you very much for the info.

I have a 60 cube 24x24x24 mixed reef and a frag tank 36x24x12.

I guess I will slowly experiment. It's a lot of light!

I hope me sharing my experience helps. Just keep in mind everyone's tank is different and I am just a hobbyest.

 

[Brownflem]

Very much so. Thank you for your direction. I am going to make some changes and report back in a week or so.

 

[Wazzel]

From my experience a week or so will only show bad stuff. Good stuff takes longer. Remember only bad things happn fast in a reef tank.

 

[saltyair]

Hey all just wanted to hear if anyone has dropped there UV down and increased white/green and red?
I was running 35% with a peak hr of 40%uv with whites @ 30% and 1hr peak 35%
I also increased my red was @ 5% and green @ 5%
I changed my settings 3 days ago and noticing some good results on PE and overall look.

Here is what i have now
white 50% ( 60 day acclimation 45%)
red 10% (60 day acclimation)
Green 15%(60 day acclimation)
UV 25%
deep blue 95% - not changed
royal blue 85% - Not changed
Violet 75% - not changed

Anyone do this? any bad effects?

 

[gregrocks79]

Here is what I've been running for a few months and my tanks been loving it.

Mostly softies but a few crusties

60g 48 x 15 x 17 tank

2 Hydras side by side 12" AWL
Set for Los Angeles time but not for weather.

Clouds; intensity 50% / probability 10%
Lighting; intensity 50% / probability 5%
Lunar 11pm - 5pm

2 Jebao WP25 one at each end w twin controller. Each pump goes on for 45 seconds each then switches (my corals love this!!!)





FTS

 

[gregrocks79]

Couple more pics

 

[saltyair]

Couple more pics

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Thank for the info