Light acclimation to 165W black box light for 10 gal tank with all groups of corals? Height, initial settings, speed of increase, max settings

[ubpr]

Just bought 165W black box LED lights, WILLS, and have to proceed with caution, doing light acclimation right, reducing risk of burning corals.

 

Any advice on how high it should be above water level, initial settings, how fast progress to the nest setting, what should be max settings for 10 gallon tank? Thought about 10-12" above water level.

 

Have all kinds of corals, starting with requiring 50-80 PAR and ending with montiporas, porites and common acroporas. Have no PAR meter, only LUX meter.

[DaJMasta]

Even that high above the tank. I'd be hesitant to max out at more than 30% total output.  That light is way overkill for a 10G tank, and I would realistically start around 10%-15% as a starting point.

Without a PAR meter it's sort of a guess for initial settings, and it's likely a different spread than what you've got, so I'd start on the low side then slowly ramp up until things needing more seem happy.  Since the settings are probably 1% increments, that may actually be too coarse for the speed if increase of lighting (my target is a little under 1% per day, but that was at a significantly higher total level, meaning the step size was a lot smaller), so I would probably step up 1% each day on different channels to avoid that large of an increase over a single day.  I would also give things at least a week at the starting output level to get a good idea of where things are and whether a low start point is already too much.

[ubpr]

On 5/7/2022 at 7:28 PM, DaJMasta said:

Even that high above the tank. I'd be hesitant to max out at more than 30% total output.  That light is way overkill for a 10G tank, and I would realistically start around 10%-15% as a starting point.

Without a PAR meter it's sort of a guess for initial settings, and it's likely a different spread than what you've got, so I'd start on the low side then slowly ramp up until things needing more seem happy.  Since the settings are probably 1% increments, that may actually be too coarse for the speed if increase of lighting (my target is a little under 1% per day, but that was at a significantly higher total level, meaning the step size was a lot smaller), so I would probably step up 1% each day on different channels to avoid that large of an increase over a single day.  I would also give things at least a week at the starting output level to get a good idea of where things are and whether a low start point is already too much.

Thank you, this is real practical help, now I know how to start and what to do. The lowest settings for blue are weaker than a moonlight from other economy lights.

 

I found a recommendation to remove lenses from diodes and add acrylic panel to make it less focused. Less intensity for depth penetration, but there is no depth worth of speaking of.

[DaJMasta]

Do they just appear to be weaker than the moonlights, or do they measure weaker?  Especially with differing spectra, what it looks like can be misleading in terms of intensity.

I wouldn't remove lenses, personally, it could effect blend and output in unexpected ways (and sometimes the lenses are bonded to the dies, so the risk of damage is very high), you could try something like a thin diffuser sheet in front of it if you want more even spread and color blending without an issue of reducing output - this is basically what the diffusers for Radions and AI fixtures do.

In any case, the safest option is to start low, turn it up, and maybe keep a log of how things work.  A coral can survive in dim for a while, so as long as there's enough to survive, you can slowly ramp it up until the coloration is full again if it started low.

[Jakesaw]

16 hours ago, ubpr said:

 

I found a recommendation to remove lenses from diodes and add acrylic panel to make it less focused. Less intensity for depth penetration, but there is no depth worth of speaking of.

I wouldnt' mess with that.  Just place light 12 - 15 " above tank.  It'll spread fine throughout tank.  I've got a Viparspectra over my 10 gallon standard tank.  Vipar has 1 - 100 digital settings.  I have the whites on 1 and blues in teh low 20's if I remember correct.

 

Don't know what to recommend setting wise with the Willis.  I just chose a visual that I liked.  Just slightly blue.