Is my LED Screw in TOO Close? W/pic

Robswdiver

New member
So...my tank is in a cabinet and cannot be moved to another location.

It is a 12"cube ~ 7.5 gallons and I have a 19W LeDiO Reef Blue 22k Screw in Bulb (Spotlight) over the tank. The bulb sits 4" from the water line and 10" from the rockwork where coral will be placed.
This is the first time that I have ever used LED's and must say that my previous MH's looked much brighter. I am not sure of the PAR on the bulb but feel that the "brightness" is a bad way to judge LED's.
I want to start out with a few SPS frags and let them grow out, possibly add some NPS in the caves.

Is the bulb simply too close to the water line/future corals, or do you think I will be able to acclimate them to the light?

 
Brightness means green light, that LED bulb will have next to none of, so it will look dim.

Raise the light up by another 6-8".

I wouldn't put NPS in the 'caves' as they will need good flow and they must be easy to get to to get food to them.
 
The light cannot be raised and the tank cannot be moved. My question was would I be able to acclimate corals to the light or would the light be too intense this close that acclimation may not even be possible. In a perfect world I would raise 8".
 
With tight lenses, the light is too close. You will need a PAR meter to find out whether or not the intensity is truly too much. I would at the very least remove the lenses.
 
So I took the "lenses" off of the bulb and the light spread is more diffused and not as concentrated. It was actually one lense cover with 7 built in lenses. It makes everything look much better and has less of a spotlight look. Hopefully the spread light will make it a little less powerful. .
 
Back
Top