Maxspect 420 on 33Gal, LPS / SPS possible?

PachoGinetai

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Hello community,

i have a 33 Gallon Tank with this specs:
81x36x50 in cm

I started with freshwater LEDs, so I bought only soft corals. Yesterday I bought a sealed Maxspect r420 with 120watt, also included the 120° lens to fully liqhten out my tank.

I ran it with Chan 1 90% // Chan 2 75%.

I have flat rockwork, so my question is, can I now buy easy sps or lps with this light?

I mounted the light 20cm high, so there is room to bring it bit more down.

Im happy to recieve your answers.

My phone is not waterproof, so I can not measure the par in water.

IMG_20230522_135711.jpg
 
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PachoGinetai

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So I testet the par on the water surface, it says 520 par. My tank is 50cm deep, can you estimate if this is enough for montipora? Thank you
 

RichReef

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My Razor had no problems with SPS. Grew like weeds. I am actually using it on my frag tank now.

On top of that the fixture is 8 years old and still doing great.
 

BaliReefBox

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i am no expert and barely a novice but your tank looks way too immature to try sps imo. mine is 12 mths old,live rock initially and has been stable for quite awhile and i keep killing the buggers..... good luck but imo give your tank some time
 
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PachoGinetai

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Hey,
in Germany its common to fill the tank with easy SPS and other corals in the first 4 weeks if the Parameters are right. Then over the time we change the easy SPS like Montipora to Acropora if you want. But we don't Start with soft corals that we don't want to cycle the tank. So if you want a SPS tank, we put easy SPS from the beginning, or if you want LPS tank then LPS. Thats way is also communicated from our supply companies here. Greetz
 
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PachoGinetai

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So i have another question. Ive tested everything, and on the sides on the bottom i get 150 PAR and in the middle about 200 - 250 PAR. This is measured on maximum intensity. Now i have a questions about ramping, there are different ramp settings to read, some ramp 30min in the morning and afternoon, another ramp 4 hours up - peak 4 hours - and ramp 4 hours down. But when i ramp like this: 4 up - 4 peak - down, then i have only 4 hours the full 150-250 par... and the 8 hours left not enough. So why should do that ? Have i a misconception ??? I thought my montis need 150-250 par, so i think they should get it complete over the day. Can you help please :D ?
 

alain Bouchard

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the light is good for SPS, had it for a few years, only started having issue with it after 4-5 years with blue channel burning; parts becoming unavailable due to age; and after some more years of running it on salvaged parts, spectrum shifted a bit on the led causing some algae problem and reduced growth, that got fixed when I changed the lamps. As stated earlier, its usually better to wait for everything to stabilize in your tank before going in SPS; but in the end, if you believe biology works differently where you live, its your money, you do as you wish. And if that statement came from your LFS, dont forget that they might WANT to sell you corals.
 

alain Bouchard

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what I used to do is count my 4 hours ramp up/down as only 1 hour of useful light. better set program manually, even though its a pain with this little button.
 
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