PAR requirements for LPS and softies

[LiamFalconer]

I am planning on getting mostly softies, (zoas, mushrooms, xenia, kenya tree, etc..), with a few LPS (hammer, frogspawn, maybe blasto). I have decent par (levels in pic below), and was wondering if they are enough to sustain those corals light-wise.

400 Par @ 2"

108 Par @ 8"

50 Par @ 16"

P.S ik blastos are lower light, will keep towards bottom.

[Thrassian Atoll]

I would think so.  I have been told a lot lately that people are running sps tanks now with par as low as 200 and doing great with leds.  I don't know a ton about lighting but I think leds do a lot better at lower pars than metal halides do at higher pars.  If that makes sense.  Maybe somebody will chime in that knows.

[LiamFalconer]

okay thanks

this will be my first reef, just waiting on rock to get started cycling

 

[MuffinMonster]

8 hours ago, LiamFalconer said:

okay thanks

this will be my first reef, just waiting on rock to get started cycling

 

My LPS were doing fine in low light (around 30PAR) I didn't have a par meter until recently and could never measure- after finding my PAR readings were so low I turned my LED up, I have a maxspec razor r420. I have now acclimated them and got my lights dialed in to where its about 140 par on the sand and 250par near the top, and my zoas have come alive since then, theyre poppin. As far as LPS I have a torch coral- trumpet coral- zoas, then I have an acro and a monti cap for sps. Still a relatively new tank, but those are my par readings. Corals are very adaptive, as long as its not a super picky sps I'm sure your lights will work perfectly fine for LPS. They will adapt and thrive as long as you keep water params in check:)

[NanoRox]

any recommendations for a reasonable PAR meter?  I would love to check my tank but dang those things are expensive for a one time measurement 

[MuffinMonster]

16 minutes ago, Duane Clark said:

any recommendations for a reasonable PAR meter?  I would love to check my tank but dang those things are expensive for a one time measurement 

I got one with a complete apex system I bought of a friend for pretty cheap. If I wouldn't of got that one, I would try to find a friend with one in your community that is nice, or another friend of mine picked up a seneye one recently and said it was pretty solid. Maybe look into the seneye one.

[Thrassian Atoll]

I heard par meters suck with leds.  Anybody got any experience with that?

[MuffinMonster]

1 minute ago, TILTON said:

I heard par meters suck with leds.  Anybody got any experience with that?

I used the apex par meter with my LED's. Seemed to work just fine with the par measurements. Of course I'm not quite sure how it works with anything else, i don't have T5 or Metal halides, just LED. I run a maxspect razor r420r 16000k led light over a nuvo 30L. I also brought my par set up over to a friends house and measured his AI hydra fiftyfive's or whatever they're called. Par seemed to read in his tank just fine too.

[Clown79]

I've never tested the par of any tank I've had.

 

I use an regular Ai Prime over a 25g IM lagoon. The tank is full of sps and lps.

 

Aquamaxx nemolight on my 10g- softy and lps tank

 

 

A 12 watt par38 on my 5g with softy and lps

 

Gives you an idea of what corals like- each light is completely different with different par and all have successfully grown corals