Hi SoCali I just wanted to share some of my observations I’ve noticed. These are just my opinions. So a little back story. I use to have a 300 gallon reef, that I ran 5 gen 1 radions on. I ran them for about 14 hours a day with a 2 hour ramp up to 100%. They ran 10 hours at 100% then a 2 hour ramp down to 0%. They ran that way for a few years. After breaking down tank I kept 1 of the 5 radions.
Flash forward a few year and I recently setup a 150g back in October. Well I planned on running metal halide‘s on this new tank two 250 watt DE. So I bought new MH bulbs. I set the MH to run for 6 hours a day. Well I wanted a little accent lighting. So I used the one radion I had. I set it up in between the 2 MHs. Well I ran the radion the same way as I did on the 300.
Ok we all know new tanks go through the typical algae blooms. After my surgery I really couldn’t do much to the tank and I just let it run on auto pilot. Well most of the algae is gone away except for a circle in the middle of the tank that was directly underneath the radion. The sides where the MHs hit look crisp and no algae.
This leads me to believe that LEDs change spectrum when they age. Just like MH and T5 bulbs do. Maybe I was an idiot thinking LEDs were the perfect technology and didn’t age even tho they do have a rated life span.
So I turned the radion off to see if any changes happen. I did set the MHs to run for 10 hours a day to see if the extra time will cause algae to bloom.
Flash forward a few year and I recently setup a 150g back in October. Well I planned on running metal halide‘s on this new tank two 250 watt DE. So I bought new MH bulbs. I set the MH to run for 6 hours a day. Well I wanted a little accent lighting. So I used the one radion I had. I set it up in between the 2 MHs. Well I ran the radion the same way as I did on the 300.
Ok we all know new tanks go through the typical algae blooms. After my surgery I really couldn’t do much to the tank and I just let it run on auto pilot. Well most of the algae is gone away except for a circle in the middle of the tank that was directly underneath the radion. The sides where the MHs hit look crisp and no algae.
This leads me to believe that LEDs change spectrum when they age. Just like MH and T5 bulbs do. Maybe I was an idiot thinking LEDs were the perfect technology and didn’t age even tho they do have a rated life span.
So I turned the radion off to see if any changes happen. I did set the MHs to run for 10 hours a day to see if the extra time will cause algae to bloom.
