Utah Reefs Homepage
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - AI Hydra Settings
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

AI Hydra Settings

 Post Reply Post Reply
Author
jdubb925 View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
Avatar

Joined: May 31 2012
Location: Pleasant Grove
Status: Offline
Points: 225
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote jdubb925 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: AI Hydra Settings
    Posted: March 15 2016 at 8:31pm
I know there are quite a few people who use AI lights. I have a Hydra over my 30g. I was wondering what setting you use I am struggling to find the lighting that really makes my coral POP!! What are you all using?
Justin W.

Back to Top
Mark Peterson View Drop Down
Paid Member
Paid Member
Avatar

Joined: June 19 2002
Location: Murray
Status: Offline
Points: 21436
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Mark Peterson Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 8:34am
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this hobby is a very visual one. I call it "living art".

If it were me, I'd go see a couple tanks and at the one you like best, ask the hobbyist what ratio of white:blue:violet:red:green is being used. I would hope that everyone that answers this here, would post a pic so what they say as far as ratio can be verified visually.

When setting up lighting ratio I would start with blue and violet set at 25%, then increase the white until it overpowers the blue/violet and then turn it back to where I like it. Some people like more red combined with violet so red is the next one to adjust and so on.

Not knowing what power level you've been running, remember it's important to keep the average power level low(<30%) at first to avoid sunburning the coral.

On one of my messy old coral farm tanks I was playing around with the light ratio on an old 2 channel black box LED last year. This LED fixture has ~4 blue LEDs to 1 red LED on one channel and ~4 white LEDs to 1 green LED on the other channel. In this pic the blue-red was turned up to dominate the white-green. Talk about color pop, I've never seen such bright red Nemos. Wink



(As you may know, LED lighting is difficult to photograph because the limited wavelength fools the camera light sensors. The real color is not fully reproduced in the digital image and exposure lasts too long, resulting in blurry images.)

Below, turning up the white-green and turning down the blue-red produces a more natural(real) color:



Aloha,
Mark  Hug


Edited by Mark Peterson - March 16 2016 at 9:03am
Reefkeeping Tips, & quick, easy setup tricks:
www.utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9244
Pay it forward - become a paid WMAS member
Back to Top
phys View Drop Down
Guest
Guest
Avatar

Joined: March 04 2011
Location: Capitol Hill
Status: Offline
Points: 1982
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote phys Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 11:07pm
most of the pop from corals comes from fluorescence. it is created by blue wavelengths of light so if you keep your blues around 80%, royal blues at 100%, violet at 90%, uv at about 50-70%, whites about 50-80%, greens & yellow to about 10-20%, you should get a good pop and decent growth. Those numbers are based on an upper end, high output level so if you don't need as much, then decrease the numbers relatively to try to get the same ratios.  
Back to Top
kevin.st View Drop Down
Paid Member
Paid Member
Avatar

Joined: September 06 2015
Location: Riverton
Status: Offline
Points: 430
Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote kevin.st Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: March 16 2016 at 11:28pm
When I used ai's, I used one of the auto settings. It worked well enough for a year until I broke that tank down. I didnt find that any fine tuning or custom settings were necessary.

Is it possible that your expectations are a little too high?
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply
  Share Topic   

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.03
Copyright ©2001-2018 Web Wiz Ltd.

This page was generated in 0.375 seconds.