AI Vega Color/Blue Owners Thread!

[Seng]

Another sps tat growing about 5 months time but it grow into odd shape don't know why ?!

[Psionicdragon]

are you guys running your vegas on an uncovered or covered top?

[Seng]

Mine running in a covered top & I have overheat problem the single puck individual turning OFF/ON very often ...

[Psionicdragon]

Originally Posted by Seng

Mine running in a covered top & I have overheat problem the single puck individual turning OFF/ON very often ...

me too. Did you check the fan? AI gave me a replacement fan, but didn't seem to do much. Something keeps preventing the fan from spinning correctly without outside help.

Get a compressed air can and blow out any dirty / dust out of the fan.

[Cinder01]

All my sps would fry at 100% with my Vegas. I don't understand how people set there LED's so high and have success?

[Cinder01]

I have a covered top. Clear plastic mesh with screen framing! I blow my fans out with an air can. works great to get them humming again.

[Seng]

Originally Posted by Psionicdragon

me too. Did you check the fan? AI gave me a replacement fan, but didn't seem to do much. Something keeps preventing the fan from spinning correctly without outside help.

Get a compressed air can and blow out any dirty / dust out of the fan.

Mine fan running good without problem but still not able to cool down the unit if put inside a canopy so just need a fan to blow inside the canopy will solve the problem ...

[ihigh]

covered with BRS mesh.

I still don't see how some of you run the vegas @ 100% or over 70% without bleaching. I'm at 7inches above water and once i hit the 60white/70blue range i'm starting to bleach corals.

[Cinder01]

Originally Posted by ihigh

covered with BRS mesh.

I still don't see how some of you run the vegas @ 100% or over 70% without bleaching. I'm at 7inches above water and once i hit the 60white/70blue range i'm starting to bleach corals.

I totally agree. I have to be down in the 50% range for all blues and I only have whites around 18%. Red and Green are at 1% because I hate the disco/spotting effect, and when I replaced some of the Red/Green with UV/V I fried $500 worth of SPS in 1 day. I had set them to 50%. I now have them down to 3% and too afraid to adjust. Good Growth on most now!

[hkgar]

I believe that the intensity at which the Vegas produce best is very dependent on tank size, # of lights, height AWL, depth BWL

I believe that Seng's tank has the lights 9 AWL and the corals 8 or more BWL

[Cinder01]

I agree. I have a 90 Gal with 2 Vegas. About 9" off water line. But at the rate I fried SPS. I could be 20" AWL and still wouldn't be able to go 100%?

[Psionicdragon]

Mine is a mix. The blues are all at 100% white at 80%

But I had them acclimating for a long time.

[ihigh]

I've had mine for 8 months now and I'm still running into an issue with rampage higher than 70%.

Well, maybe some of you can help me out if I'm a bit more detailed
my tank is a 120g (48x24x24) - mounted each light right in the middle at about 6-7 inches AWL. Should I go ahead and lift it up to 8-9inches. there's that shaded dead spot in the middle of the tank as well...lol

Another thing - any of you intending on going from vega->hydra52 when its announced/released for the upgrade kit?

[Seng]

I have try to dim individual color led of my Vega to 70% & 50% for 1~2weeks but found sps color fading but not affecting the grow especially the deep blue led affected so much of sps color but the green led is likely nothing affected to sps color & grow even turn off 0% for 2 weeks thats why i run all led at 100% to get best coloration of sps ... I have some sps especially stylo, pocci & birdnest etc bleach at the beginning but all still survive and color up back after 2~4weeks ... btw, what is the spec for Vega deep blue led ?

[Seng]

I don't take much picture during sps bleach but have some to show here ...

A stylo fully bleach during 1st time running the Vega at 100% and below pic showing it start to recover the color back


another 2 pic showing it fully recover back the color especially on the tip can compare on below 2 pics ...



My purple monti also bleach even put very low position near sand bed but it recover after few weeks without dimming the Vega light ...

[Cinder01]

That's great Seng! Do you have any soft corals? I have been able to get the light % up for SPS but it kills all the softies.

[ihigh]

I keep my softies all low for this reason. So you run pretty much white, all blues at 100%, but the red/greens at 0%?

this might be a good reason why some people still get bleaching, the greens seem utterly useless, but they still produce lux/par that can burn coral - drop it to 0% and we might be able to get more stability?

[kajung2k]

My tank is open except for the brs mesh top as well.

My Vegas come on at 6am. Ramp up to all blue channels to 100 percent by 1pm and hold until 3pm.

The other channels ramp up to 65 percent and hold until 3pm.

3pm until 6pm the blues hold at 80 percent. 6pm they start to ramp down to 0 at 9pm.

3pm until 6pm the other channels hold at 45 percent and ramp down to zero at 9pm.

My tank is 48x30x24. Most sps in my tank are between 6-12" from top of the tank. The lights are about 6" above the water. I have three Vegas.

The lights are mounted parallel with the tank and are spread evenly across.

My problem is I do not get enough light in the back or front of the tank. I was thinking if buying three more Vegas so they will cover 100 percent.

I have tried raising my lights to 12" to get more spread and turning the lights up to 100 and my corals start to brown out.

I'm thinking also if upgrading them to 3 hydra 52 because they are more powerful. This way I can raise them and still get the same amount of par/penetration to the bottom.

I'm happy with the Vegas. Just wish the spread was better and the lights were more powerful.

I have had my Vegas for about 1 year and a month or two. I had problems with one if my lights over heating and AI replaced the fan and it solved it. Though my fans are not in a canopy.

[qfrisco]

My experience having had the Vegas since launch (I started this thread :-)) is that the whites are extremely powerful and might be the main reason for much of the bleaching. I bleached quite a few SPS at the beginning, even though I was extremely careful in acclimation.

Over the last few months, I have dropped my whites down to 40% and pushed all blues up to 85% to make up some of the PAR. My red and greens are down at 10%. I'm going to experiment with pushing the blues past 85% so we'll see.

I keep mostly SPS and I've also come to realize that the whites being up so high were the reason my colors were turning bland. I've gotten the colors back by dropping the whites down.

Lastly, I had a problem with algae growth down at the sandbed, and I also think the whites were the main contributor to that. Dropping down to 40% has greatly reduced this.

[ihigh]

Originally Posted by qfrisco

My experience having had the Vegas since launch (I started this thread :-)) is that the whites are extremely powerful and might be the main reason for much of the bleaching. I bleached quite a few SPS at the beginning, even though I was extremely careful in acclimation.

Over the last few months, I have dropped my whites down to 40% and pushed all blues up to 85% to make up some of the PAR. My red and greens are down at 10%. I'm going to experiment with pushing the blues past 85% so we'll see.

I keep mostly SPS and I've also come to realize that the whites being up so high were the reason my colors were turning bland. I've gotten the colors back by dropping the whites down.

Lastly, I had a problem with algae growth down at the sandbed, and I also think the whites were the main contributor to that. Dropping down to 40% has greatly reduced this.

I've seen/noticed a lot of people feel the same way. I believe the whites are 5W cool whites? I'm just not into a really blue look on my tank=/

[Hooked4life]

Originally Posted by qfrisco

My experience having had the Vegas since launch (I started this thread :-)) is that the whites are extremely powerful and might be the main reason for much of the bleaching. I bleached quite a few SPS at the beginning, even though I was extremely careful in acclimation.

Over the last few months, I have dropped my whites down to 40% and pushed all blues up to 85% to make up some of the PAR. My red and greens are down at 10%. I'm going to experiment with pushing the blues past 85% so we'll see.

I keep mostly SPS and I've also come to realize that the whites being up so high were the reason my colors were turning bland. I've gotten the colors back by dropping the whites down.

Lastly, I had a problem with algae growth down at the sandbed, and I also think the whites were the main contributor to that. Dropping down to 40% has greatly reduced this.

Good info - I've been getting algae growth on the sandbed too and I couldn't figure out why. I'm going to try cutting the white back.

[Seng]

Originally Posted by Cinder01

That's great Seng! Do you have any soft corals? I have been able to get the light % up for SPS but it kills all the softies.

I do have zoa, paly, star polyp, clove polyp, leather in my tank and all doing very very well color up & grow more crazy than my sps under 100% lighting even some zoa at the highest position without problem ... I have try to get an acan lord 2~3 weeks ago for a testing because I dun have any LPS in my tank but seems like Vega is not able to color up it ...

Another possible reason why I running 100% but not burn all the coral is my nutrient at very high level because of over feeding too many fishes ... I use to control PO4 at 0.1~0.2 range and NO3 at 10~20 because if nutrient go too low my magnifican anemone will melt away but without testing for months and last month my PO4 reach 0.34 & NO3 at 80 ...

[Seng]

some picture taken long time ago but sorry for poor quality pic ... all growing under 100% lighting without problem ...

my clove polyp growing more than half of the rock ...


my skin polyp fully out grow the rock ... (Before open)


after fully open ...


some zoa and paly also growing very well color up and big polyp until no space to grow ...

[HPballer76]

hey guys i will be switching to a pair of vegas later this week. I've been doing lots of reading trying to figure out where to start with intensities. i am coming from a custom built 8x54w t5 fixture that uses ati reflectors and ati bulbs. just wanted to see if you guys that have been running these could critique my settings? so far this is what i have setup but the lights aren't hung yet so i still have a few days to make changes.


sunrise 12:00 pm
sunset 9:00 pm
ramp time 2:00
sweep dir: L->R

White 30%
red 20%
green 15%
blue 60%
deep blue 60%
royal blue 60% (5% nite)

coral acclimation enabled
reduction 50%
ramping up over 1 month from start date (tbd)

does that seem like a good starting point coming from the 8 bulb t5 fixture? if not what changes should i make?

my current settings are as follows.

9am led moonlights on
noon leds off, 2 bulbs on (blue plus)
1pm, all 8 bulbs on (4 blue plus, 3 coral plus, 1 purple plus)
7:30pm 6 bulbs off (2 blue plus still on)
8:30pm remaining 2 bulbs off (blue plus) led moonlights on
11pm led moonlights off

[sclaussen]

Two things:

1. When/if the power goes off, my Vegas typically don't come back on properly, often only a single puck starts, or none at all. I typically restart a few times - is there a better way / process?

2. When I clean my tank I would like the lights to all be on at say 75% - is there a way to set this so it's easy to toggle from programmed / manual mode to 75% (or something similar)?

Thanks,
Shane