AI Hydra Settings Thread

I have one for everyone's opinion..

I am running one hydra 26hd over my 74 tower (24x24x30 deep) I have my blues at about 75% white at about 35 and others around 10-15...

I am about to add a second 26hd for more even coverage.. would I need to lower the totals for both lights by a percentage? Or run acclimation mode or what?
You should acclimate, but at those settings I would not reduce. I run two 52's over a 60 cube all at 100%, but white which is at 55%
 
You should acclimate, but at those settings I would not reduce. I run two 52's over a 60 cube all at 100%, but white which is at 55%
Yea I been watching your tank haha... looks great... thanks for the advice..

So do you do acclimation each time you add a coral to a high light area?
 
Hydra 52 HD's

Hydra 52 HD's

I'm new to the Hydra 52 HD's. I've had them for about a month and this forum has been very helpful. For my initial setup I used the kelvin wheel to get my settings in the areas i wanted, but now I am tweaking it further. I was originally adjusting my intensity levels every week without using the acclimation setting. Duh... Also, I had accessed my lights through the app but couldn't figure out how to either save my settings or upload settings that someone else had developed. I found inside the manual how to set up web access. When you access through the web there is a share icon below the graph in the control section. this allows you to import or export settings.

Thanks all for your help.

Also want to thank milsaltnewbie07 for sending me to this thread.
 
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Some tank picks
 
Mark so I have a question for you. I don't use this led fixture, I use rapidled kit same set up as radion. So I'm not sure if that matters. When you add a coral and do an acclimation for 2 months does it ramp back up to where you had it when you started the acclimation? How do the other corals handle it?

Corey
 
Mark so I have a question for you. I don't use this led fixture, I use rapidled kit same set up as radion. So I'm not sure if that matters. When you add a coral and do an acclimation for 2 months does it ramp back up to where you had it when you started the acclimation? How do the other corals handle it?

Corey

I ramp back to what the levels were before adding the coral. What ever happens to the other corals is minor. I never noticed a change in growth rate, 2 part consumption or color.
 
That's very interesting. So you set the acclimation mode, do you set a finish % as well. Then a timeline and it gradually goes to there?
Or how does it work?

Corey
 
That's very interesting. So you set the acclimation mode, do you set a finish % as well. Then a timeline and it gradually goes to there?
Or how does it work?

Corey

With the AI system you just give a reduction and duration. The software bases everything off the operating settings for the acclimation function.
 
Oh ok. Gotcha. Wish I had something like that on mine. :lol: guess that's one of the drawbacks to a "DIY" setup.


Corey
 
Hi all,
I've been reading through this thread and have some questions... I have my Hydra 52 set much lower than it seems everyone else does and am having problems with zoas shrinking away to nothing on me.
I recently increased the lighting slightly thinking I didn't have enough and that made things worse.
My water chemistry is good with calcium around 430 and alk around 8.7.

My lighting is a Vega and a Hydra about 10" AWL.

I have a PAR meter set in some rocks about mid way up the tank ( 36x17x21deep) It registers about 80-90 PAR during peak lighting hours...

My settings from APEX are in images below... any feedback would be appreciated!

GDXXWyWgqAzuDGwu7

https://goo.gl/photos/GDXXWyWgqAzuDGwu7

igKVFNH28CTwK2kd9

https://goo.gl/photos/DpebYiHKwc3x9obb9

Hours are 11:30-6:30 peak... with about an hour of ramp on either side

Hydra: 25%
R-30
G-30
B-100
RB-100
DB-100
V-100
UV-100
CW-40
WW-40
NW-40

Vega:42%
R-30
G-30
B-100
RB-100
DB-100
V-100
UV-100
CW-50
WW-50
NW-50

I know the vega doesn't have all those lights, its just easier to program them the same so that the lights it does have come on at the same values... but open to suggestions.
 
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Only have zoas? Anything else doing good or bad? Zoas can handle more par than that.. I would be searching for another answer... water quality or a pest nudibranch or something...
 
Most everything else is doing well. Softies mostly. Acan, Frogspawn, duncans, etc. the only thing not doing well besides the zoas is a red goniopora...
looked for pests a lot and haven't seen anything (and I can see even the tiniest copepods in my fuge)... would't I see specific heads deteriorate if pests were the case and not the decline of 2-3 small colonys as a whole. Also have one small colony of zoas doing well.
Thanks for the input.
 
I would say those setting are pretty good based on the amount of light you had before... shouldn't be too much IMO... you will probably want to play with it a bit as that is right much white

Thanks man,

Just abit confused on your last comment, you think this is too much white with my settings for a start anyway?

Currently am running 3 white tubes and 2 purple ones in my tank so have abit of white light. Thinking this may also be helping feed my GHA......Should I be looking at more like 30% of CW to start and maybe bumping the blues by another 5%?
 
i have almost 0 coralline growth with my hydra 26. my white sump light has coralline growing everywhere so it ain't a chemistry issue it's something to do with the spectrum or intensity my lights are outputting anybody wanna give some tips?

W 15%
UV: 45%
G: 5%
R: 5%
Both B: 65%
V: 45%

The lights are about 2 inches off the water line so I can't go too crazy with the settings i'm looking more for some suggestions on the spectrum needed for that sweet sweet purple encrusting algae
 
i have almost 0 coralline growth with my hydra 26. my white sump light has coralline growing everywhere so it ain't a chemistry issue it's something to do with the spectrum or intensity my lights are outputting anybody wanna give some tips?

W 15%
UV: 45%
G: 5%
R: 5%
Both B: 65%
V: 45%

The lights are about 2 inches off the water line so I can't go too crazy with the settings i'm looking more for some suggestions on the spectrum needed for that sweet sweet purple encrusting algae
Is there a reason 2" off the water. Seems like you will get a little better spread by raising them up. Also have a better chance of salt creep and splash.
 
Is there a reason 2" off the water. Seems like you will get a little better spread by raising them up. Also have a better chance of salt creep and splash.

yeah it's definitely better if they were higher but I can't use those hanging kits, I used AI's "Classic Mounting System" so they can't go any higher since they're rails that are put on top of the tank.

any idea if my spectrum is off? corals are fine it's just coralline that has a problem in the display.
 
As soon as I added AI Hydra HD's, my coralline started and has continued nicely. I'm about 8" above water and settings lower (roughly U:39, V:39, RB:39, B:25, G:7, R:3, CW:9). I love the light from the Hydra HD's, but I'm finding the software is garbage. One of my lights will NEVER respond to the automatic schedule and just stays off. The only way to control it is manually in the buggy app between crashes. My other light works perfectly, although over time it seems that the auto-schedule has a de-acclimate setting, as in over time the settings become lower and lower on the automatic schedule all by themselves. But at least the schedule continues to fire. AI Support has been competely useless, and limited to restart the light, rebuild the schedule, unpair and re-pair, all which have zero effect in the end.

I would never buy another AI Hydra HD, even though the light they produce is awesome and my corals have loved them. But I can not rely on the software and schedules to work correctly at all, so what's the point. I'm not going to sit there and manually change the settings throughout the day every day, which is the only way for them to be reliable.
 
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