Overkill led for ulns sps dominat tank

[Hunt3r]

My tank is a 40g cvue tank with 2 ai prime non hd 12” off the water. As the title suggest my tank is an unls. 0 phosphate for months and nitrate. So i lean towards keeping sps dominant tank. As of now it still a mixed reef tank with euphyllias zoa and mushroom garden and chalices. I have all my sps on top of my aquascape small frags still biggest will be red planet. Now i wanted to add another light for it. Should i go for an ai prime hd/ ai hydra/ radion xr15/ for the middle tank since all my sps are in the middle.

[Joevember]

Triple prime would do the trick. Any of the lights you mentioned are high quality and would definitely work. Have you tried ramping up the 2 primes you are running currently?

[Hunt3r]

13 minutes ago, Joevember said:

Triple prime would do the trick. Any of the lights you mentioned are high quality and would definitely work. Have you tried ramping up the 2 primes you are running currently?

I did. My red planet losing a little bit of of its red becoming more greenish. Im looking for ai prime with mount but all i see are hydra 26hd or radions xr15 and it makes me bite them both.

[Clown79]

What is the concern? The 2 lights should have no issue with growing sps.

 

People used these lights for sps tanks alk the time.

 

Maybe it's the spectrum/settings that need tweaking.

[Hunt3r]

38 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

What is the concern? The 2 lights should have no issue with growing sps.

 

People used these lights for sps tanks alk the time.

 

Maybe it's the spectrum/settings that need tweaking.

I felt its not strong enough although cant say without par meter but some sps-head told me to add another one. 

[Clown79]

I'm not sure why ppl think the Ai's are weak because they aren't. Many ppl have used them on sps dominated tanks for years.

[MainelyReefer]

4 hours ago, Clown79 said:

I'm not sure why ppl think the Ai's are weak because they aren't. Many ppl have used them on sps dominated tanks for years.

It's not that they are weak, and actually no one said they were.  With two primes he will have 100w of light if they were maxed out, in a 40g tank that's only 2.5w/gallon and my basic minimum threshold is 3w/gallon. Add the other light! I would go with a prime HD right in the middle of the two non HD or find a cheap used one on a local forum.  

[A Little Blue]

Perhaps you should look into other aspects of your system aside from lightning. 

Seems like you are running ultra low nutrients tank..... ever thought about pros/cons of that methodology? 

[Cannedfish]

You already have two Primes, I think adding another non-HD Prime would probably be best as they would all be the same and be controllable from one interface. I don't think adding another Prime or even two wouldn't be overkill for a 40 gallon if you wanted to go the SPS dominant route. However, as many have noted lighting is one one aspect of the equation. The lighting spectrum, flow, and water chemistry matter just as much. What are the light settings you are currently running?I'm curious about your tank being ulns? What filtration are you running? What are you using to test?

[Hunt3r]

10 hours ago, A Little Blue said:

Perhaps you should look into other aspects of your system aside from lightning. 

Seems like you are running ultra low nutrients tank..... ever thought about pros/cons of that methodology? 

 

9 hours ago, Cannedfish said:

You already have two Primes, I think adding another non-HD Prime would probably be best as they would all be the same and be controllable from one interface. I don't think adding another Prime or even two wouldn't be overkill for a 40 gallon if you wanted to go the SPS dominant route. However, as many have noted lighting is one one aspect of the equation. The lighting spectrum, flow, and water chemistry matter just as much. What are the light settings you are currently running?I'm curious about your tank being ulns? What filtration are you running? What are you using to test?

My filtration with my tank is just filter sock on one side and floss holder on the other end. One chamber is cheato two softball size and i have skimmer thats been off for 3weeks already. Heavy feeding every other day and almost overstock tank. I use salifert and hanna phos ulr checker by me and my lfs. The only thing that i need to watch out is burnt tips for my acros cause my alk swings little crazy. Ca and mg are alway on the safe side. My light settings right now uv,blues, violet are on max and white are 40 red and green on 15 with ramp up and down of 2hrs from 6-5. Now im going to try pirates with custom whites. My i have so enough flow in my tank too thats why acan dont like my tank for some reason. Im using red sea abcd and doing 20% water change every 3 weeks. 

 

Check my water today by my lfs and me

salifert lfs

alk 8.3

mg 1430

calcium 470

nitrate 0

phosphate 0

Ph 8.2

red sea/hanna phos

Alk is 8.5

mg 1430

cal 470-480

nitrate 0

p04 0

 

[Reefkid88]

Try adjusting the spectrum,I mean look at tge spectrums people are running and compare notes. I feel like the lights are capable if used right. 

 

 If people can use chinese black boxes and grow sps fine,Primes can too. 

 

 Also too,read up on ULNS's. Not saying you don't know the exact keys to hit on the system but its a difficult method to get down but those who do have phenomenal results. 

[Clown79]

If you are having 0 nitrates/phos and alk swings a lot, those are more likely the cause then how many lights you have.

 

My experience with my corals has been high whites and high reds have not been beneficial. 

 

My white at its peak is 19% and only for 3hrs.

 

I use David Saxby's respite method but custom settings like the ABS settings.

 

Low whites, very low red/green, high everything else

[A Little Blue]

If your focus is SPS, you probably could use an extra light. Better coverage, less shadowing, more control over intensity are certainly benefits of additional light fixture. You can play with these 3 factors to get decent results: Alk/intensity-spectrum/nutrients. Several months ago I started as ULN tank with one Kessil at %50. Now, I’m maxing out 2 Kessils, run higher nutrients tank as well as high Alk. Getting to this point took a while tho so make your adjustments slowly. 

[Clown79]

It also depends on the sps. I have monti's and birdsnest growing mad under 1 regular prime.

 

I had sps growing under a par38.

I have them growing under a micmol at 65%.

 

 

If you are looking at Acro, it's a whole different story but  the alk swings will need correcting because acro need very stable water conditions. 

 

Alk swings are a major cause of coral issues.

[A Little Blue]

True. 

[Reefkid88]

Stability is a HUGE factor,especially with Acro's & Mille's. Light is a another huge factor as well. You can have a $2000+ nano with the best of equipment money can buy but if params aren't in check then it does you no justice. 

 

 In my old pico I had tons of Acro's that looked amazing with a cheap diy fixture and things looked amazing because the tank was rock solid,fast forward I had a more expensive diy light thought I had it all figured out slipped on the tank for awhile and things looked terrible,that goes to show how stability can cause more of a issue than lighting. 

 

 Messing with settings and nutrients pay a big part,get params stable and stick with a lighting scheme and see how things look after a few weeks then adjust. Or add T5's to the mix and call it a day. 

[Hunt3r]

Thanks guys for the insight. I might get a doser and im still playing with my apex. Still my tank is 0 phos so i started dosing phos and nitrates a little not a whole lot but also doing heavy feeding every other day. params are near on point on what i want for my system. Im still doing manual dosing.

[Ebn]

Maintain stability if you want to get heavily into SPS (especially alk). 

 

As for lighting, here's one of the tanks at the LFS. These corals were grown using 3x AI Primes for reference. The tank lighting was changed out for 3x Kessil 360X recently, since the owner didn't like the spectrum that the AI were producing. They grew corals perfectly fine as you can see. Not sure which reefer series tank this is so not exactly sure on the actual volume.