sps system with Radion color temp favors?

brad65ford

brad65ford

New member
Wondering what kv / colors you guys like to run your Radion and SPS's. I'm a huge montipora coral lover and wondering what KV/color temp to run during the high intensity lighting time of the day. Ready that some have found lowering the reds/greens and or uv has help with growth or color though not sure if that true with everything results. Thanks in advanced for your help.

Brad
 
I would recommend you give Adam, Battle corals, a call. He has had great success converting all his SPS over to LED and his corals are gorgeous.
 
Interesting, this is a vendor that grows and sells coral running just Radion Fixtures? If so very cool. Drop him an email, would like to purchase some other corals from them as well.

TY,
Brad
 
Adam does run radions and his corals are amazing. I believe he has them a little higher than usual and runs them full blast. I was running his program for a while, but was too long and not enough blue for my taste. That said it was nice and I may fall back to it if my current one does not work out.
 
Well if he is growing to sell its most likely that he is running a high nutrient system which allows the ability to run higher light from my experience. But i'm really wondering what others like too when it comes to ideal kv to run for good growth yet good color. Kind of looking for the special sauce of kv ;)
 
There is no special sauce, otherwise you could just get special sauce and call it a day:p

I'll let you know in 6 months if my program is working, LOL!
 
brad65ford said:
Well if he is growing to sell its most likely that he is running a high nutrient system which allows the ability to run higher light from my experience. But i'm really wondering what others like too when it comes to ideal kv to run for good growth yet good color. Kind of looking for the special sauce of kv ;)
Click to expand...

So this is interesting you mention this. I had a huge nutrient issue for almost a year (cyano, hair algae, etc, etc) and the SPS that I had at the time had good vivid color. I have sinced figured out my issues, and now can't get PO4 or NO3 over .00 no matter how much I feed. My SPS are growing like crazy, and are slowly getting more color from being rather pale. I'm running Radiant Color @ 65% with lights about 9" from the water line. You're probably right in that with a higher nutrient level you can run higher lights (at that time I had it at 100% on shallow reef!) and now at 65% it's probably blasting with with the water being much clearer\cleaner. I'm being patient, it's just taking things a long while to color up :-)

BTW, I have a local reefer who has beautiful high end acros under his Radions, and I am going to at some point use his profile. I reached out to Adam at Battle Corals to get his profile as well. Always good to have more information than less!
 
Talked with Adam via emails, seems like a great guy and very willing to help which is awesome to see in the hobby.

I have his file and was suprised to see how long of a duration lights are on during the day but only about 6 hours of full intensity. Just like anything else in life I had to play with it some :)

BYW 17k with UV being at 100 % seems to be the average for his lighting. Really that was the one of the subject i was after with the thread.
 
My buddy runs a couple of Radion Pro's over his SPS tank and is getting great colour running a custom setting which is VERY close to the preset 14K setting.
 
Just want to add that his SPS corals really kicked up a few gears in terms of colour after my buddy got the parameters stable and began to feed his tank and corals very well. He had a single Radion Pro in a smaller tank and didnt get the same results he is currently getting.

So, as long as you have a decent LED unit; I wouldnt worry too much about the light setting as long as the setting isnt something wild. The presets are pretty good actually. Incidently, from seeing various LED lit tanks and talking to various people with LED's, IMO the Radion Pro is probably the best...the AI Hydra 52 is likely just as good if not better but I havent seen enough tanks in person yet. Anyway, sorry to go off topic.
 
So what's the verdict? Have you been running at 17k if so @ what intensity and for how long? I'm starting my 3rd month with Radion Pros with the modified Radiant @ 40% but I started with the 14k the first month. Looked at Battle corals file and his settings run way too long for me but I did like the 17k look. Always wondered what was better for color and growth, a constant kelvin over 8 hours or so or a ramping up to a 10-12k then back down to a 20k over 8-12 hours.
 
In the morning I ramp up at 20k, then high noon is 15.5k... So far I'm not getting the colors I like but it's likely a variety of factors (nutrients, low intensity or underfed). I'm using the radiant color profile.. I had brought my intensity down to 60% and boy my PAR was barely there at the sand bed.. So I've been slowly ramping up, started acro power and colors are beginning to come back... Will report back in some time obviously.
 
My Radion profile:

Noon-2pm, ramp up from 0% to 30% at 10K.
2pm-4pm, ramp up from 30% to 60% at 14k.
4pm-6pm, ramp up from 60% to 80% at 18k.
6pm-9pm, peak up from 80% to 90%, then drop to 80% at 20k.
9pm-11pm, ramp down from 80% to 50% at 25k (no Red, Green, or White).
11pm-12:30pm, ramp down from 50% to 0% all Blue/UV.

In addition I cast feed coral food daily fortified with amino acids. I run bio-pellets and GFO 24/7 and have a massively over-rated skimmer that draws black sludge from the tank.

Brown fuzzy sticks don't stay that way with these conditions. I can brighten up a deep brown stag in a few days.
 
This is my schedule
ScreenShot2014-04-04at21855PM.png

and this is how my SPS look
IMG_2723.jpg

IMG_2724.jpg

IMG_2725.jpg

IMG_2721.jpg

IMG_2727.jpg
 
I've recently changed my lighting intensity from 75% to 55%. They are Radion Pros 9" from water line. Over the past two weeks my colors have becoming much from rich and full. They were pale. I have also been feeding much more. (1 time a day before, 4 times a day now).

I'm very surprised that they only need to be run at such low intensities. I use 14k color temps for the first half of the day then switch to 20k on the second half.

I would be interested in how intense everyone else is running their lights.
 
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