Reef Tank Lighting Videos

Ryan and Randy sift through the sea of options and pull out the best reef tank lighting choices for 2019 to help eliminate some of the confusion and help you make the best decision for your tank

Choosing the most economical lighting option for your reef tank is not best approached by simply looking at the cost of the LED module, instead you want to find a way to avoid the endless cycle of upgrades and replacing failed equipment.

There is almost no other area in reefing where $50 can have as big of an impact on your tank as renting a PAR meter. Now that BRS offers a PAR rental service, you can get all of the benefits of setting up your LED lights with a PAR meter for a reasonable cost. For LED lights, the Apogee MQ-510 Full Spectrum Par Meter is the ideal option because it is tuned specifically for underwater use with LED light. The Apogee MQ-210 Quantum Meter is more appropriate for use with T5 and Metal Halide lighting. Using a PAR meter to set up your LED lights will benefit you in three major ways. 1. Ensure you are getting maximum performance from your high-end aquarium LED lights. Lets face it, quality LED lighting is not cheap and it is safe to assume all of us want to get the best performance possible. By guessing or relying on others you are leaving room for error and essentially wasting all of the money you spent on high-end LED lights for your reef tank.

Finding the right height to mount your reef tank lighting, specifically LED lights, can be confusing because the advice is often conflicting. The reason this gets a bit tricky is because every tank is different in size, shape, depth, what is in it, the lights themselves and how they are used. All of this will have an impact on finding the right mounting height for your LEDs. When it comes to mounting height, there is simply no one right answer. Thankfully, with the human eye and a bit of intuition from the facts we share with you today, you can find a near perfect mounting height for your individual tank and lighting solution quite easily. Intensity vs. distribution Mounting height does have an impact on PAR but the controllable nature of LEDs give you the power to adjust intensity to match your desired PAR value. Mounting height is more about spread and even distribution of light as opposed to PAR intensity. The higher you mount

LED manufacturers do not make clear recommendations for how many LED fixtures you need and how to space them over your tank. The reason is because when it comes to reef tank lighting, every tank is different and the recommendations they make are based on one very specific generic type of tank. We are going to split this up into two tank types that will cover 90% of reefers to help all of you understand exactly what you need to provide the best LED light coverage over your reef. We are also not going to specifically cover every single LED light available but that is ok because most all popular LED lights can be grouped in categories by wattage. LPS, Soft Corals, Polyps - medium to lower light demanding reef tanks This is the majority and also includes a true mixed reef tank that really only contains a few SPS corals. These types of tanks are just a lot easier to light and really what most of the general recommendations manufactures give are based on.

Randy compares the top two T5/LED Hybrid light solutions, the Giesemann Stellar and Aquatic Life Hybrid.

Slide and pray is becoming a tired story about reefers trying to find the right PAR values and reef tank lighting schedule. The proven results with simple plug and play T5 and metal halide lighting is a thing of the past because the high-powered LED lights of modern reefkeeping gives users complete control over intensity, photoperiod and spectrum. In our latest Reef FAQs videos we set out to show all of you our best tips and tricks for setting LED lights for success without investing in really expensive meters or going through the pains of costly trial and error. In this episode we approach PAR or intensity as well as photoperiod to help you dial in the right amount of light for your tank. Here’s the facts The intensity sliders ranging from 0-100% are a popular option used by manufacturers to give users control over LED light spectrum and intensity. These slider percentages really mean nothing in terms of actual measurement of intensity/PAR or

PAR VS. PUR. At First it was as simple as the number of bulbs we needed then someone measured PAR and told us that was the holy grail and we all need to set our LED’s to a PAR number. Now, we all hear about PUR and that it is a better measurement for aquarium light output. Here’s the facts The difference between the two measurements of light is subtle in the name. PAR is the number one way we measure the intensity of our lights and that is generally accurate for reef aquarium purposes. The thing is it will pick up and measure some wavelengths of light that are not valuable to our application of growing corals. So it is a good but less than perfect tool for measuring and adjusting lights. This is where PUR comes in which measures the light wavelengths that corals are capable of using and excludes some of the unusable spectrum that a PAR meter will measure. Why not use a PUR meter? The answer is clear, because there

With 90% or more of reefers using LED lights, the days of plug and play simplicity you get with metal halides and T5 bulbs are long gone. The controllability of LED lighting gives us the power to adjust spectrum and intensity but sadly most of the manufactures don’t bother to instruct users how to make these adjustments without risking the lives of coral. The slide and pray approach is becoming all to common and, unfortunately, the results are often slow growth, poor coloration and even mortalities. We have decided it is time to show all of you how to program your LED lights through our next ReefFAQs videos series and our focus in this episode will be sharing our unique solution to tuning spectrum. Stability is king Some reefers get lucky, some are just intuitive guessers but many fail when attempting to dial in an LED light using the custom controls. Luckily, you don’t need to be a marine biologist to get this

T5 reef lighting makes it easier to get results and are often much cheaper. It is not that T5s are inherently better than LEDs. In fact, it is possible to achieve even better results with LEDs but is it worth the necessary effort and expense? The answer to that is based on your personal experience and budget. Many experienced reefers will agree that in terms of properly lighting a reef tank, if it is not T5 reef lighting, it should behave like T5s. What exactly does it mean to act like a T5? You can answer this question with 5 major attributes that will really make it clear why T5 lighting is still quite popular. Produces Results Above all, T5 lighting is plug and play and will produce results without any tuning. Choose a T5 fluorescent fixture and bulb combo, plug it into a timer and you can be certain that lighting will never be the reason you are not successful. The facts are, for the most part, LED’s do not produce plug and play results.