Are my lights too bright? Bleaching issues

[BrettDS]

I recently upgraded from a 75G to a 220G tank. I had been running two gen 3 Radion XR30W Pro's over the 75 and I added a third when I upgraded to the 220. I currently have a 14 hour photo period, but I start the lights at 0% and slowly ramp them up to 100%, then slowly ramp them back down to 0%. There are only about 8 hours where the lights are over 60%. My graph looks like this:

The graph was modeled after a graph of solar intensity that I found a while ago. When I had the 75G tank with two of the Radions I had the same 14 hour photo period with the same curve, but they only ramped up to a max of about 80%. I figured that since the 220 was 10" deeper than the 75 that the extra intensity would be necessary. Especially since nothing is really close to the top of the tank.

I don't have a lot of corals in there yet, partially because the ones I do have aren't doing as well as I'd prefer and I'm beginning to wonder if the lights are too intense. When I first added this bird of paradise on March 17th it looked like this:

It has been getting paler and paler and today, about 2 and a half months later it looks like this:

On the other hand, I also added this pavona at the same time and it hasn't shown any signs of bleaching:

Do you think that reducing the max intensity or even the length of the photo period might be beneficial or might there be some other issue. Should I just break down and get a PAR meter so I can see what I'm really working with?

 

[toothybugs]

I took my PAR meter over to a buddy's tank yesterday running Gen 3 Radions so he'd know what he was putting down - at full power, halfway down in his 220 we were reading 660-680 PAR and north of 250, sometimes 300 if directly under the light, at the sandbed. He doesn't have anything higher than that up in his tank so we didn't read it. But almost 700 is some serious power and would definitely take some getting used to.

 

[BrettDS]

I took my PAR meter over to a buddy's tank yesterday so he'd know what he was putting down - at full tilt halfway down in his 220, we were reading 660-680 PAR and north of 250, sometimes 300, at the sandbed.

What lights did he have over that tank?

 

[toothybugs]

Edited

 

[Squidmotron]

I have 210 gallon or so and my radion G3s never go above 65%. I have all manner of SPS growing at high rates and a magnificent anemone.

My tank is only a couple feet deep though.

I suppose it also depends on how close your light are.

I would be very very careful. A radion G3 is just SUPER intense. If you do plan to go up, go up by very small increments only and observe. I would back down immediately.

 

[BrettDS]

Are my lights too bright? Bleaching issues

Thanks guys. I guess I'll try to back down a bit and see if that helps. The lights are at Ecotech's recommended 9" above the surface and the tank is 30" high.

 

[BrettDS]

I brought the all the points down by about 10% to keep the same curve and photo period, but now it's only hitting a max of 90% brightness. I'll let that run for a few weeks and see how things do.

 

[alton]

I was looking at a friends 65 gallon tank this weekend that is full of SPS and LPS. He is running 1 Gen.1 Radion that is four years old, and said he finally raised it to 70%.