At what settings should I run my Hipargero?

[CC26]

Sorry if this has been asked before. I did a quick search (on Google and also this forum specifically) but couldn't find anything conclusive.

 

I currently have the Hipargero 30W LEDs over my 25 litre (~5.5 gallon) pico. The dimensions of the aquarium are 25cm×25cm×40cm (~9.8'×9.8'×15.7') in terms of H×W×L.

 

When I first set up my tank, I ran both blues and whites at 100%. My assumption was that I wouldn't have to worry about these lights being too powerful due to how cheap they were, and that I should squeeze as much out of these cheap lights as possible by running everything on maximum settings. This assumption was proven wrong when I added my first Montipora capricornis frag and it bleached due to light shock (the softies that I had in my tank for a month before I added the monti didn't show any signs of stress). I have since dialled back my lighting to 100% blues and 0% whites (I do prefer a bluer look) and everything has been doing okay so far. The bleached monti frag has also recovered completely.

 

Now that the dust has settled, I am starting to wonder what intensity I should run these lights at for optimum growth (I did say I preferred a bluer look for aesthetic purposes but I'm willing to give that up to prioritise growth). Like I mentioned earlier, I did a search but it seems that everyone has theirs at different settings (depending on the size and dimensions of their tanks as well, no doubt) and I couldn't find an example of a tank with similar dimensions to my own to best compare it with.

 

I would really appreciate any suggestions or, even better, firsthand experiences if you happen to run these lights on an aquarium with similar dimensions to mine.

[teenyreef]

I can't talk to that specific light or tank, but most LED lights seem to give the best growth and coloration when they are significantly more blue that white. When I've had lights that had a blue channel and a white channel, I got good results with the whites at half of the blues level (at most). In other words a 2:1 blue to white ration. Many people get good results with even less white - I run my Nanobox over the 10g tank at about 4:1.

 

You're right about the total power of the light, though. You may not get enough PAR if you lower the whites as far as they could be for the best spectrum. But give a 2:1 ratio a try and see how you and the corals like it.

[CC26]

28 minutes ago, teenyreef said:

I can't talk to that specific light or tank, but most LED lights seem to give the best growth and coloration when they are significantly more blue that white. When I've had lights that had a blue channel and a white channel, I got good results with the whites at half of the blues level (at most). In other words a 2:1 blue to white ration. Many people get good results with even less white - I run my Nanobox over the 10g tank at about 4:1.

 

You're right about the total power of the light, though. You may not get enough PAR if you lower the whites as far as they could be for the best spectrum. But give a 2:1 ratio a try and see how you and the corals like it.

Thanks for your input. I've set the lights to 80% blues and 20% whites. I plan to raise the whites to 40% over the next few days but I don't want to do it too quickly in case I shock something again.

[teenyreef]

That's a good plan. Most of the guidance I've seen says to adjust lights no more than 1-2% per day. So I'd bring them up to 40% a little bit at a time over the next two weeks or so.

[Clown79]

I don't run that light but I run 70% blue, and 10% white on my 25g

20g 80% b 10% w

 

Leds are deceiving in power.

 

 

 

There are a few members here that use the hiperagero, maybe you can check their builds to see if they listed settings. 

 

[CC26]

21 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

I don't run that light but I run 70% blue, and 10% white on my 25g

20g 80% b 10% w

 

Leds are deceiving in power.

 

 

 

There are a few members here that use the hiperagero, maybe you can check their builds to see if they listed settings. 

 

Yeah, I saw quite a few. The problem is that a lot of them have bigger tanks than mine so what works for them might not work for me.

[Clown79]

3 minutes ago, CC26 said:

Yeah, I saw quite a few. The problem is that a lot of them have bigger tanks than mine so what works for them might not work for me.

But it gives you an idea of where you can set it for your tank.

 

Ex. If it's a 20g set at 80%/10% then you know for a smaller tank, you should go lower

[CC26]

3 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

But it gives you an idea of where you can set it for your tank.

 

Ex. If it's a 20g set at 80%/10% then you know for a smaller tank, you should go lower

Yeah, I'm just not too sure how it scales, y'know? It might be a bit more complicated than to simply scale it back linearly.

[MainelyReefer]

2.5g dropoff(more like 1.5g after alterations) running a hipargero.  Blues 80-100% depending on how my kids messed with them, and 10-30% on the white, typically 10% though

[CC26]

1 hour ago, GraniteReefer said:

2.5g dropoff(more like 1.5g after alterations) running a hipargero.  Blues 80-100% depending on how my kids messed with them, and 10-30% on the white, typically 10% though

Great, for now I've decided to settle on 80% blues and 20% whites. Has your growth been decent?

[Red1]

Hi, I have just purchased this light for my Fluvel evo 13.5 (it should be arriving today)

I've currently just got 2 clownfish in there & my tank is nearly at the end of its cycle. Once my tank is fully ready for corals in a month or so I will be adding soft corals.

My question about this particular light is about a YouTube review I saw about it, they said that when you first plug the light in you can't program the timer to come on at a specific time of day for the following day ie if I plug the light in on set up say this evening & I wanted the light to start at say 10am the following day this particular review said the light would have to be physically plugged in at whatever time you want it to start up on its first time of using (if that makes sense?) & from then on the light will come on every day at the specified time.

Is that correct or can I set it up this evening & program it for say the 8 hour cycle & for it to come on at say 10am each day for instance & it will come on tomorrowat selected time?