What percent do you run your Photon V2/+ MAX?

[Reef Breeders]

Hey Everyone,

We are going to be doing weekly polls, tips, and products. For the first weekly poll, we are asking something that comes up a lot:

What percent do you run your Photon V2/+ at MAX?

Let us know what you think, and see what others are running their lights at!

 

[DonTavo27]

I run my 24” V2 at:
10% red, green, whites.
Blues and purple peak at 50%.
I also have the fixture hung 16” above the water line. Sps, nems, softy’s look happy. I’ve been running it like this since day one.
This is on a basic 40gal.

 

[SinCityRee4r]

 

[drcrook]

That is awesome. Do you have a video on how to do this?

 

[SinCityRee4r]

That is awesome. Do you have a video on how to do this?

this excel sheet is available at reef-breeders website. her is the link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fav7c4yo9ouzh15/Photon V2 Program Guide.xlsx?dl=0

 

[drcrook]

So I started programming mine. I don't have a lot of coral in there yet. I peak my Cool Blue at 40%, the rest peak at 30%. I'm not sure if this is good or not. The only corals I have are a zoa, an alvepora and some kind of blue hitchiker.

I'm not sure if this is too much light, or too little. The zoas come out; but don't appear to fully extend. As it progresses further, they seem to retract; making me think it might be too bright? Of course there could be other issues as well (hoping to narrow lighting down out of that list of possible culprits).

Any recommended settings for various types of corals? I do have a square anthias as an inhabitant as well. The tank is 27" tall.

 

[SinCityRee4r]

So I started programming mine. I don't have a lot of coral in there yet. I peak my Cool Blue at 40%, the rest peak at 30%. I'm not sure if this is good or not. The only corals I have are a zoa, an alvepora and some kind of blue hitchiker.

I'm not sure if this is too much light, or too little. The zoas come out; but don't appear to fully extend. As it progresses further, they seem to retract; making me think it might be too bright? Of course there could be other issues as well (hoping to narrow lighting down out of that list of possible culprits).

Any recommended settings for various types of corals? I do have a square anthias as an inhabitant as well. The tank is 27" tall.

Try this one I started here with pretty good response now I am much higher

 

[Battlecorals]

Apparently I "am nuts" lol

 

[TexasTodd]

Adam, how high above water and how deep under to first corals?

I'm still ramping my V2-50 up. Peak for 6 hours at 12 on red and green, 15 on white, and 48 on blue type channels. So far so good on acros, Montis have not done well even from a very low setting.

 

[Reef Breeders]

Apparently I "am nuts" lol

Haha! Growing out corals commercially would be the exception. Most home tanks have the lights way lower to the water, and don't have quite as much surface area, so the lights end up being run far below the max intensity.

 

[SinCityRee4r]

Apparently I "am nuts" lol

how do you run your settings?

 

[CNDReef]

how do you run your settings?

I believe he runs themat 100% on all channels but they’re a few feet off of the water( not sure on exact mesurement)

 

[Vaughn17]

Apparently I "am nuts" lol

Me, too, lol.

 

[Dan I]

I am with Adam...I run all my blues at 100% and I keep red and greens around 20% and my whites at 15%.

 

[Mark Gray]

Apparently I "am nuts" lol

Ah but you're never supposed to admit it lol ;Woot

 

[drcrook]

I think I need to reduce my lights significantly. My water params are perfect, my flow is good. All of my corals though are shrinking into their skeletons. My light is much brighter than the LFS I got them from where they looked healthy.

I'll probably peak mine at 20%. My lights are only like 4-6" above the water line.

 

[Reef Breeders]

I think I need to reduce my lights significantly. My water params are perfect, my flow is good. All of my corals though are shrinking into their skeletons. My light is much brighter than the LFS I got them from where they looked healthy.

I'll probably peak mine at 20%. My lights are only like 4-6" above the water line.

Keep them low- they are deceptively powerful. It's hard to gauge brightness with the human eye. And most stores tend to have just the blues on at lower intensity, so when your new corals get into your tank, they may need to adjust to the lights. It's a good idea to start new additions on the sand bed, and gradually move them up and into position.

 

[drcrook]

Do you know of a relatively inexpensive par or lux meter I can use? Its pretty much just guess work unless I can actually measure something. I found one for my phone that I tried out.

I did measure that my lights are 6" above my water surface with a surface area of 18" x 72". I've now moved to a R. Blues peaking at 75%, whites peaking at 20% and Cool Blue peaking at 50%. Rest peak according to a color preference I have. 2 hour ramp up and ramp down with a few hours on the later side where I have low light but just to be tasteful for viewing. The measured lux from my phone is 10.5K at peak at the surface.

I've got the tank near a bunch of windows; so I'm kinda looking at outside, then the tank and back and forth and trying to get something similar but more blue.

 

[TexasTodd]

Some folks in the lighting forum have mentioned you can get PAR meters that aren't waterproof for pretty low cost. Then put in a plastic bag and seal.

 

[drcrook]

Some folks in the lighting forum have mentioned you can get PAR meters that aren't waterproof for pretty low cost. Then put in a plastic bag and seal.

I'll have to see if I can find one in those forums. It appears to be easy to find target PAR data for a reef; but LUX is just not a whole lot out there; which is too bad because it appears most cell phones have a LUX meter which works well on it and PAR is another $100+ from the looks of it.

I ended up measuring the sunlight outside a few minutes ago with my phone LUX meter and got 100k; so I bumped up my whites to 40% peak which is now a LUX of 25k at the water surface. Ambient LUX in my home is about 150 near the tank.

I think I might be able to do a good job if I can now find an equation which gives me the dispersion of light through a medium (ocean water preferably). I can then use this to under stand my LUX at the surface, convert that to LUX at levels in my tank and also compare that to a variety of reefs around the world. It won't be PAR; but it will be hopefully similar enough to get a good judgement on it.

Then I adjust my LUX at the surface to get the correct LUX at the depth to match the LUX at the depths reefs naturally occur at.