Light acclimation

[Rocks Reef]

Just placed an Ai Prime HD over my Fluval EVO 13.5. What would be a good acclimation period for the light? I have the intensity turned down to 50% with an acclimation period set to 4 weeks where it will reach the "max" settings. I have the "max" at 65% blues/35% white.

[jestep]

That's a good time-frame IMO, could always go longer but 4 weeks is a good staring point, much more conservative than many I've seen. I'm assuming you messed with the channels to get what you want the final intensity to be?

I guess just watch the corals for any sign of bleaching and back off it you start seeing them lose too much color. I use AI SOL's and I really can't push much more than 25 - 30% running 3 of them on a 90 gallon 24" deep tank. My max daytime intensity is 25/16/28 White/Blue/Royal Blue. I'm not sure what that would translate to on a 2 channel setup, but too high of intensity blues will definitely cause bleaching in my experience.

[Rocks Reef]

No the Ai Prime HD has 7 channels.

Mine are set up like this for the acclimation, though at 50% of those percentages ramping up over the next 4 weeks. At the end of the acclimation the settings will be what I have below. I may go higher after the ramp up...will see how things respond.

UV 65%

Violet 65%

Royal 65%

Blue 65%

Green 15%

Deep Red 15%

Cool white 35%

My frogspawn shriveled a little the first day because I was jacking with the settings and think I nuked it a little bit. Its recovering, but slowly.

[Neon Reefer]

I believe that light at 110 uMol at 24" / 55 watts is ~ equivalent to 175 watts MH or in old school about 12 watts MH per gallon

That's enough light to fry even Nems.

I think the stock light on this tank is ~ 15 0r 16 watts HO LED I would consider that a total ramp up to 50% on the HO AI is about X2 the stock light and still puts 6 watt MH on the coral which is more than enough to bleach SPS when not accustom to the intensity. I would start at 25% intensity and move up to a total of 40% or 22 watts over 3 to 4 weeks and then rest tank for 6 weeks prior to increasing output again At 22 watts you are putting ~ 66 watts MH or 4.5 watts per gallon. You may find this is plenty of light for that tank. .

[Rocks Reef]

Awesome! Thank you so much for the info Neon

[Rocks Reef]

Neon... What settings should I use then for the final result of 40%

[Wade]

Hey Rocks,  I just picked up an AI Prime HD for my frag tank.  I've got it as high as the arm will go above the water.  It's been on there about a week now and I've noticed some bleaching and have backed it way off.  Now that you've had yours in operation for several months, what have you found to be the best color intensity (%) combination and schedule?