**The GHL Mitras LX7 LED**

You should not ever have to run these lights at 100% in high power mode unless you have your lights way far above the water and or don't have enough lights for your display. On my frag tank, I run the LX7 around 65% and on my main display, I run around 75%. That said, these lights are very strong in the blue spectrum which is very hard to distinguish intensity. It's the white light that makes things look brightter but our corals get most of their usable photosynthetic radiation from 420nm to 460nm which is the blue spectrum. As such, using your eyes to judge intensity won't do you much good. Heck, even a par meter has some trouble in that spectrum. The only I use my PAR meters for is acclimating tanks to new lights.

I suspect your issue is low nutrients and in fact, low nutrient systems typically prefer less PAR than a high nutrient system.If I were you, I'd back the intensity way off. You could bleach your corals.

I have actually the opposite problem that you address. I do not mean that it looks not bright enough for eye, I mean that I despite all these blue light etc, do not see that colour response that I should. My colour is simply a little too dark, far away from bleaching, telling me that they could stand a lot of more light. This despite not very high N and P. It should be lighter corals with so much light, so I suspect it is actually not so strong. I think it could be cause of no lenses...? There are good PAR meters today which can measure LED range, so I think I have to get my hands on that such device, because I can of course be wrong. Have to be proved. I will be back with results if I can achieve thus PAR readings.
 
I'm with Sleif on this one. There's no need to run it at 100% all out. On my tank, I do have the LX7 set to 100% HO for the Energy Settings, but on the schedule itself, I don't push the intensity beyond 80%.

I think PAR numbers are grossly overrated and don't really tell us whether a coral is getting "enough" light or not. There are so many other variables to consider such as nutrient levels, flow, bacteria content, organic deposits, etc. I measured my PAR just for the heck of it and was getting between 170-210 on the sandbed with 2x LX7s over a 3ft long tank. If I were to test a single fixture, I'm sure it would have fallen to the mid 100s. PAR numbers used to heavily influence my LED color adjustments, but not anymore, especially after seeing how much my colors have improved under this light compared to my previous ATI Hybrid which threw out lots of PAR by the way, 300 at the sand!

My schedule is primarily on the bluer-end of the spectrum:
UV 385nm - 60%
HV 425nm - 100%
RB 455nm - 100%
BW - 100%
B 475nm - 80%
White 7500k - 40%
White 6500k - 18%
Green 528nm - 12%
Red 656nm - 12%

I run this spectrum for about 7 hours and have the PB feature set to 130% with HV, RB, B, BW.

It's been working well for me. I posted a few photos a couple pages back.

My corals looking good, and light is nice in many aspects, just think it is not so bright. if I run at lower modes as you suggest ( I started with that) I can see on the pH response that there is considerable lower photosynthesis, as an indirect indicator of lower PUR. I simply have to run att max, to get what I want. If I lower, pH lowers and corals even darker. Could it be due to lack lenses as a cause of lower PAR and PUR??. I simply have to measure, and as you say, take care so I have a PAR meter which in a fair way measures also the blue properly. I agree with you that PAR chasing is not good, but too low is of course not good either. And, of course there could be other factors in my tank explaining dark corals, like higher N and P than I think I have. Absolutely that could be the cause. Just this observation surprises me. I have a st.pist 20 cm under a cluster and this coral is very dark, but very very healthy. That is strange. I shall admit that I have not measured N and P since maybe a month, but I think I have seen this trend quite long time back. In many other aspects I like the light.
 
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It was strange last night one light some how decided it was in storm mode, it scared everyone lol... The flashes are very bright in a dark room. I dont have storm mode enabled. I unplugged it. This morning I think I see what happened.

The buttons on one of my Mitras LX7s are self pressing. The buttons on both also dont press very well when im using them (rarely). I always just ignored this. Has anyone had issues like this ?
 
Connect to the fixture with GCC and run a key calibration - this will reset the sensitivity on the buttons and should prevent this from occurring :)
 
Anyone else get banding or flickering under their LX7's with an iphone? I have an iphone x and noticed today that the flickering is crazy under these lights. Not sure why I haven't noticed before.
 

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Anyone else get banding or flickering under their LX7's with an iphone? I have an iphone x and noticed today that the flickering is crazy under these lights. Not sure why I haven't noticed before.

If you go into the GCC, there is a photo mode that you can enable that will eliminate the banding. At least it does with video. It's a setting that you enable that if I am not mistaken changes the hz of the diodes for this purpose.
 
I run my lights at 70% ho intensity 22 inches above the water line on a 14" deep tank and if I lower it three inches I bleach fairly quickly. There's got to be something wrong in your settings because these lights pack a huge punch in light out put. I run a very high nutrient tank with way to many fish in my tank that I should. All my corals are high end sps and love this light. Check your settings and make sure everything is correct because I get the exact opposite effect from these lights.
 
I measured my PAR just for the heck of it and was getting between 170-210 on the sandbed with 2x LX7s over a 3ft long tank.

How many would you recommend for a 72x36x27? Seems like I would need 6 oriented 3 in parallel like this:
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I'm thinking just garbing one for now since I have two Hydra HD 26'S that will be mounted on each side of the 150 and have the GHL fixture in the middle.
 
Anyone else get banding or flickering under their LX7's with an iphone? I have an iphone x and noticed today that the flickering is crazy under these lights. Not sure why I haven't noticed before.

The flicker has to do with the frequency of the diodes vs the refresh rate of the camera and is totally normal. There is a photo mode in the settings of GCC that elimates the flicker for photo/video shooting. When you want to take video or shoot a picture, just switch to photo mode.
 
How many would you recommend for a 72x36x27? Seems like I would need 6 oriented 3 in parallel like this:
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If you're going to or already have mainly SPS, definitely go for 6 LX7 fixtures. That number will definitely cover the whole tank and eliminate potential shadowing that you may get with less fixtures.
 
Recommendations on how many fixtures would be needed for a 60x24x24 sps dominant tank? Fixtures would be mounted in a canopy, so height off water would be limited to 9-10" give or take.
 
Recommendations on how many fixtures would be needed for a 60x24x24 sps dominant tank? Fixtures would be mounted in a canopy, so height off water would be limited to 9-10" give or take.

3 would be best but you could get away with 2.
 
Would there ever be a need for 4 on a tank this size once tank is mature with full sps colonies? Or would 3 still do it without shadowing?

I think 3 should work fine at 9-10” off the water. Especially considering the aquascape likely won’t be touching the sides of the tank. If you want to reduce/eliminate any chances of shadowing, angle the two fixers on the ends of the tank towards the center so they are tilted a bit. You can see how I mounted these on my friends tank with the ends one angled inwards for that very reason. This tank was about 60” long if memory serves me correct.
IMG_5826_zpsahaldl0m.jpg


I have all of mine angled towards center as well to eliminate shadowing but my tank is much larger with a lot more lighting.
IMG_4462_zpsjolhwncj.jpg
 
Just when I think I have my lighting decision figured out, I run across another dang d2mini max length thread.

Sounds like a year after this thread started, everyone is still happy with these bad boys? I like the 6 puck spread a lot and think 2 over my 48x24x24 will be killer.

Now I might as well jump in and get a profilux too and be done with all the internal back and forth I have been going through on the last two pieces of my (initial) puzzle for the past month.

I hope you boys get commision...

Any thoughts on good online sources?
GHL USA direct the best way to go??

Thanks.


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