Reef Radiance LED intensity and schedule suggestions needed

[marco j]

Good morning All,

I consider myself new to the hobby and have been running my system coming up on 3 years now. I have had moderate success growing some softies and a few LPS. Not a ton of growth but some. I have also have a patch of hardy plating montipora that is growing like mad. This brings me the my quandary.

My water parameters are fine and I believe I have eliminated other possibilities why the little sps I have are growing far better than my softies and lps. This has me considering changing my light settings. I have Reef Breeder 165w led fixtures over a 25" deep tank. I forget the model # but I'm certain they aren't their photons or whatever they sell now (I'm not a fan of the company).

My blues are set to ramp up for 90 minutes at 11am and the whites begin at noon. The whites ramp begin to ramp down at 8pm and are off at 9:30. The blues follow and are off by 10pm.

Blues - 70%
Whites - 15%

The obvious to me would be to increase the intensity of the whites but I really do not like the way my tank looks not to mention it looks like my corals will get fried?! Anybody else here run cheaply led lights like this with similar issues? I would appreciate some feedback from the community. Thanks in advance.

TL;DR
What intensity should I run my led lights at?
Currently 70%blue and 15%white

 

[outy]

I have the ocean revives which are similar. In a 30" deep tank I have mine set to 40 blue and 25 white and love the color. All coral is thriving, have been on MH and VHO for 2 decades.

almost same hours as yours 11-9 B and 12-8 W

Its not always about light for growth, my LPS thrived on 175W MH in a deep tank with 2 454 VHO's.


You could ramp up whites to 40 ish and maybe, an extra hour of blue and bump it up 80%

Your also fine where your at. Best LPS growth I have ever had was with old dirty water just shy of a GHA outbreak.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Your thread title says you have Reef Radiance (some well made fixtures by EverGrow but crappy customer service IMO) and in the text of your post you say you have Reef Breeders 165w basic fixture. So which is it?

BTW, either of those fixtures will grow any kind of coral. You wrote, "...I believe I have eliminated other possibilities why the little sps I have are growing far better than my softies and lps." I don't think you have.

I don't think adding more white is unlikely to help the softies or LPS. It may help the corals color up a bit better and improve their overal health. Zoas, softies, LPS and SPS have different requirements and it can be quite difficult to get all 4 to grow well in the same tank. I think you may have coral nutrition issues (food or supplements) or flow issues. Just my best guess given the info you shared.

 

[marco j]

Your thread title says you have Reef Radiance (some well made fixtures by EverGrow but crappy customer service IMO) and in the text of your post you say you have Reef Breeders 165w basic fixture. So which is it?

Thank you for the feedback. They are Reef radiance fixtures not Reef Breeder. I am not sure why i confused the two.

My levels all appear to be on. Any suggestions what trace elements I️ should test for?

@Outy
I bumped the whites up to 30% but the tank looked bled out to me. I ended up bumping the blues to 80. Currently sitting at 80/30. I'll give it a few weeks and see how everything responds. Hopefully I won't get too bad of a bloom.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I don't know that it's trace elements, but it could be. How much and how often do you do water changes. That should take care of trace elements.

I've had very good coral growth ever since I started feeding a wide variety of foods and supplements to the tank. I mix at least 4 to 6 different foods and some supplements to a large glass of tank water. After it's mixed, I shut off all the pumps and feed wirh a turkey baster. I manually feed my anemones (to promote growth and reproduction, even my rock flower anemones have produced babies). Than I spry food all over the tank and let it settle for 10 to 15 minutes. Then I turn the pumps back on for 30 to 60 seconds to stir things up again and then let it settle again for 10 to 15 minutes. I feed every other day. It's just my opinion, but I think the variety of food and some added supplements (mostly for corals) has made for much better growth.

BTW, I'm also an advocate of slightly higher flow rates in the tank.

You could try bumping the blue to 90% or even 100% to offset the additional white. Just pay CLOSE attention for and bleaching. I keep a couple of inexpensive corals very high in my tank so if I should go too far with the lights they should be the first to bleach.

Here is what I run my Reef Breeders Photon V2 at:

 

[marco j]

Alright, I am currently sitting at 80% blue 26% whites. Nothing has bleached and no discernible growth changes yet. I still think my tank looks entirely too bright though.