Orphek LED lighting

[fishcatdog66]

I'd like to start a new thread for owners of any Orphek lighting. I am running 2 v1 Atlantik units and a new v2b. I'm interested in what kinds of tanks you are running and your experience with settings of the lights and the corals you keep.

[gregr]

I've got 2 Atlantiks over a 5 foot 150g 24" deep tank. The tank is full of mixed coral types- softies, LPS, SPS, clams and anemones. While all the corals are growing well and have great polyp extension I'm still experimenting with the settings on the lights. A few days ago I changed to this:
Ch1- 82
Ch2- 100
Ch3- 42
Ch4- 32
The overall look of the tank is awesome with those percentages so I'm hoping the corals like it. It's been like this for a few days only. Before that I had ch1 higher and ch3 lower- that was a bluer overall look that was ok but the change made it look a lot better to my eye. If anyone sees this and has only recently installed their Atlantics don't run these numbers right away- I took months to acclimate to the high output.

[fishcatdog66]

Are your Atlantiks v1or 2? I have my v2b centered over my 180 and a v1 on either side. The channels are different between the v1 and v2b so I have to try to balance the lights by eye. I'm looking into a par meter though. My v2b is 69,100,100,50. The v1 units are 100,71,100,88. I had them all set higher for a few weeks but I lost some corals so I brought them down but kept the duration the same.

[gregr]

Mine are the latest version. I'm a little surprised that your corals aren't turning white (or closing up) with ch1 and 3 being high. I hope you can keep us posted on how the corals color up under those percentages.

[FirstContact]

Just starting a 120g with the two of the new Atlantik WiFi pendants. I also have a 46g with two PR72s connected to my Apex and a DIF50 in the middle. I run the PR72s between seventy and eighty percent. Haven't started with the Atlantiks over the 120 yet.

[gregr]

Just made a short clip of my tank. This is with the Quick program and all sliders to 100%:

[fishcatdog66]

That is an outstanding video! How old is the tank?

[getindavan]

holy crap nice tank

[gregr]

Thanks. It's been running for 15 months now roughly. Orpheks have been on for about 5 months. Before that I had Radions... and even 5 months later I still say hallelujah every time I think about those Ecotechs and the decision to ditch em!

[FirstContact]

Pretty awesome tank. My skills are not there yet.

Here's a pic of the Atlantik pendants at 100% all channels.

[gregr]

Looks like it's going to be great.
I think the best thing I ever did for my tank was get an Apex controller. It's responsible for incredible stability and peace of mind. That and the lights ;-)

[gregr]

...

[fishcatdog66]

Greg, are you still using those settings on your lights? What is your schedule? I set my v2b to match yours and then tried to visibly match the v1 units to it.

[fishcatdog66]

FirstContact, those new compact Atlantiks look great. I thought they were diff 100's at first glance.

[gregr]

Originally Posted by fishcatdog66

Greg, are you still using those settings on your lights? What is your schedule? I set my v2b to match yours and then tried to visibly match the v1 units to it.

I made a small change a couple days ago that had a huge impact on the look (whiter, less blue overall) and the corals didn't react at all so I think this will be my final recipe since I love the look. Or not... I may raise channel 1 even higher and lower 3 to get an even brighter whiter look. Anyhow, here's what I have now:
Ch1: 82% with a two hour ramp morning and night, ten hours total (6@82).
Ch2: 100% with a one hour ramp in the am and 90 min in the pm, 12.5 total.
Ch3: 42% with one hour ramp in am, 2 in pm, 11.5 hours total.
Ch4: 32% with 90 min ramps on each end, 10.5 hours total.

[FirstContact]

Originally Posted by fishcatdog66

FirstContact, those new compact Atlantiks look great. I thought they were diff 100's at first glance.

Thanks a bunch. Just set them up last weekend. Waiting for water barrels and need to order more rock. Also need to finish the rock work.

[gregr]

Great. Just want to make sure you know you'll want to acclimate new corals to those levels unless they came from right under big metal halides or other strong LEDs- they'll probably fry otherwise.

[fishcatdog66]

gregr,I'm going to give your program a shot. I fragged what remained of a half dozen mini colonies tonight. Some came from a fellow reefers tank and the only difference was lighting. Water tests between the 2 tanks were reasonably close.

[moondoggy4]

I was at Reef A Palozza today in the OC I was hoping to see Orphek there but I did not see them there. They were there last year and had a great show so I thought for sure they would be attending the show.

[gregr]

I was there too- was also sorry to see that Orphek was not. Aside from that it was a great show.

[FirstContact]

Coming along with my rock design. DT under Orphek Lighting:

[Scooby1]

Originally Posted by gregr

I made a small change a couple days ago that had a huge impact on the look (whiter, less blue overall) and the corals didn't react at all so I think this will be my final recipe since I love the look. Or not... I may raise channel 1 even higher and lower 3 to get an even brighter whiter look. Anyhow, here's what I have now:
Ch1: 82% with a two hour ramp morning and night, ten hours total (6@82).
Ch2: 100% with a one hour ramp in the am and 90 min in the pm, 12.5 total.
Ch3: 42% with one hour ramp in am, 2 in pm, 11.5 hours total.
Ch4: 32% with 90 min ramps on each end, 10.5 hours total.

Hi Greg,

I have just purchased 2 of these and currently acclimatising. For you setup is the start time for each channel the same ?
Thanks
Nick

[gregr]

Sorry for the delay Nick. The start times are not all the same- channel one starts 2.5 hours after the the first [channel 2] lights come on. Chanels 3 and 4 start 2 hours after first light.
The look of the tank and corals seems to be much better now that channels 3 and 4 are greatly reduced (38/32%) and channel 1 is greatly increased (90% now). It took me a long time to get around to these levels because I incorrectly thought UV should be kept low-ish and the whites [3] at high settings would be best. Now that I've ran basically the opposite it's obvious that the corals are happier and the tank looks great with high channel 1 and low channel 3 settings. I may even bump channel one all the way to 100 to see what happens.

[Scooby1]

[QUOTE=gregr;23257022]Sorry for the delay Nick. The start times are not all the same- channel one starts 2.5 hours after the the first [channel 2] lights come on. Chanels 3 and 4 start 2 hours after first light.
The look of the tank and corals seems to be much better now that channels 3 and 4 are greatly reduced (38/32%) and channel 1 is greatly increased (90% now). It took me a long time to get around to these levels because I incorrectly thought UV should be kept low-ish and the whites [3] at high settings would be best. Now that I've ran basically the opposite it's obvious that the corals are happier and the tank looks great with high channel 1 and low channel 3 settings. I may even bump channel one all the way to 100 to see what happens.[/QUOTE

Thanks Greg that's useful to know. No point re inventing the wheel if somebody else has gone through the learning phase to establish some settings. I am going to set mine to the same how many months did you take to get to these settings and what adjustments did you make at each change ?

Thanks
Nick

[gregr]

You're very welcome. I took forever to get here. Started out with channel 1 medium, 2 high, 3 and 4 medium-ish, gradually increasing channel 3 over time- about 5% a week til it was around 90. Corals didn't bleach and the coral color was good- not great but everything was happy. I didn't like the look though- too blue. Then Scott told me one way to look at the options was that channel 1 and 2 are for color and growth, 3 and 4 are for making the overall color look good to my eye. If I got that wrong blame me not Scott
That led me to basically swapping 1 and 3 levels- that's what has made the biggest improvement overall. 1 and 2 high, 3 and 4 medium to low- tank looks great and corals are showing very good color. I've had this one millepora that has always been brown since the day I bought it. Since I changed the lighting that brown is slowly turning red.
Since I wasn't just raising one color but raising 1 and lowering 3 I did 10% at a time, one change per week. Don't know if it means anything but there has been no reaction from the corals. Back when I was raising channel 3 anemones and leathers tended to retract for a day or two with each change.