LED Intensity Setting Help

[Rduhb]

I finished my RapidLED build with 24 royal blue, 12 neutral white, 2 cool white, 6 violet UV, 2 green, and 2 red. My tank is a 75g with mostly LPS and a few SPS (monti cap, acro, and pink birds nest). I currently have the blues and UV at 75% intensity, whites at 25%, and remaining colors at 20%. What I'm trying to figure out is what temp does this represent. 10K, 20K...??? I've had no luck researching the topic online. I've learned that more blue, less white equals a higher color temp, but how does a certain % intensity correlate to a specific color temp? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[mrvincent]

For the color temperature, you'll find it for each leds on the manufacturer website probably...

Increasing intensity of a red LED for an example will bring the overall color lower in kelvins, and blue is doing inverse (K+).

According to some leds setups I've seen, try to put a general color that look purple... Dim blue channels on the morning, the whites, and inverse for the sunset.

For overall intensity, I'll say start something that doesn't look too strong, and increase a bit overtime. If there's any coral bleaching issues, then bring all channels 10-15% lower and increase slowly of 7% over some days for example... Does that help ?

 

[bribo12]

Honestly just play with it until you get a color look you like and that makes the corals look good. A lower kelvin will give better par but a higher kelvin will give much better color

 

[Rduhb]

For the color temperature, you'll find it for each leds on the manufacturer website probably...

Increasing intensity of a red LED for an example will bring the overall color lower in kelvins, and blue is doing inverse (K+).

According to some leds setups I've seen, try to put a general color that look purple... Dim blue channels on the morning, the whites, and inverse for the sunset.

For overall intensity, I'll say start something that doesn't look too strong, and increase a bit overtime. If there's any coral bleaching issues, then bring all channels 10-15% lower and increase slowly of 7% over some days for example... Does that help ?

THANKS!! My sunrise ramp up starts with UV, then blue, then white over a 3 hour period. My daytime peak setting are for about 5 hours, then I ramp down white, blue, UV over a 3 hour period. Hope that makes sense. So far things look good, but growth is slow. I know there are other parameters that can impact growth. But lighting is what I'm still trying to fully understand.

 

[mrvincent]

Yes, colder colors in the evening, warmer in daytime and colder before the night. You can have a moonlight by keeping 1% during night on a blue channel.

For growing rate you must know some more parameters.

The mains importants parameters are (by order)
[Salinity, temperature, PH]
[KH or Alk, Calcium, Magnesium]
[Optionals like strontium, iodine, bla bla bla bla] but most people like me don't check them.