Too much PAR
- Thread starter Mirugai
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battplus
New member
It has been covered quite a bit, try searching this SPS forum, it also depends on what kinds you want to keep...montipora, milliporas, stags,.....etc. Some like a tremendous amount of light, others lower levels to maintain colors and overall health. What are you trying to set-up?
IMO all sps will do well with a PAR of 200 and above
With 600 PAR seeming to be the breaking point of being too much
Some corals like more light and some like less, it takes your own knowledge to figure out visually which ones like more or less (it's something i'm still not 100% good at but i'm always learning)
LPS and softies can thrive with between 50 PAR and 150 PAR so anymore and you can keep sps
With 600 PAR seeming to be the breaking point of being too much
Some corals like more light and some like less, it takes your own knowledge to figure out visually which ones like more or less (it's something i'm still not 100% good at but i'm always learning)
LPS and softies can thrive with between 50 PAR and 150 PAR so anymore and you can keep sps
allsps40
New member
I dont know what my par was but 300 watts with me bulbs over my reef was too tuch for my sps. Switched to 250 watt and all is much better. So there is a point where there is to muck. What I see typically is between 200-350 ish on most tanks. Just going from wht I have read from PAR related threads of people testing PAR levels in their tanks. I go more on watts then I do on PAR. Some sps the seem to like light, well I cant think of to many that dont. Superman montis like high light as do rainbow, sunset. Most caps do very well under stronger light. Red planet gets cool color under strong light, in fact most all ORA sps like strong light. But every sps is different and you just need to find where they do best. IMO 250 or 400 watt halides depending on your set up are best for keeping sps.
FYI I'm running AI LED sol blue, so far I have arrange some acros 6" below the water surface and the light hanged 4" above the water. Current Setting is 40% white and 30% blue. I started with 35% about a week ago and slowly bring the intensity up. From what it seems, I think I need to purchase a light meter before I increase the intensity more.
Huh? This doesnt make any sense. If you had a 1,000,000 watt incadescent you couldnt grow a weed.
To the OP, careful with the AI they put out an incredible amount of par. Sanjay has a review of their par you can run a google search on it. I have the Sol white so cant speak for the blue, but at the distance you are talking about, with the white anyway, your looking at 500-600 or better PAR (aclimate slowly).
XSiVE
New member
how deep is the tank?
I just recently took some PAR readings from a friend's 50g cube. We had the AI unit about 18" above the tank, width wise just like you have yours.
We got something like 300-350 par where your top corals are (im guessing at distances here)
With the lights only 4" above the water I'd guess you're getting something like 600+ par at that same spot at 100% both colors.
I decided to raised my fixture to 8" above the water. I think this gives more evenly spread around the corners. I'll carefuly observe the reaction to the corals.
rhys123
New member
rhys123
New member
No I don't run supplemental lighting (I like the natural look) all natural sunlight for 9 months of the year the other 3 months is 3 250W MH (1 over 2 separate tanks for Zoa and Morphs 2 over the SPS tank) on a light rail
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