PAR too high?

Banana Man

Reefing newb
I tested my PAR and Lux for the first time today with my Seneye Reef. I have a shallow tank and am running 6 x 80W T5's. I am only running them at 80% power. The results were:

PAR:
Bottom: 470
Middle: 600
Top: 815 (1 inch below water level)

Lux:
Botom: 17,000
Middle: 22,000
Top: 31,000

I have done a bit of Googling and from what i have seen so far my readings are a bit too high. Should i lower the power output a little bit more or should this be ok?

Thanks
 
I thought the bottom reading should be 150 - 200 PAR, but that's for a deeper tank. If you have a shallow tank maybe you don't need your T5's running at 80%. What kind of corals do you have? If your tank is full of SPS corals then you are probably OK but, I'm not a PAR expert. Are your corals doing well? What's the photoperiod exposure? Just curious.
 
PAR is too high for most LPS and soft corals.I'm not an SPS keeper but that might be good for those.

What corals do you have?Are any of them bleaching?
 
I have a mix of both LPS and SPS. I have the LPS at the bottom of the tank. Everything seems to be doing well except for my Montipora Capricornis which has small bleaching going on the last week. I had put my lights up to 100% a week before that so im hoping that is the cause. I put 2 Blue on at 12:00. Another 2 Blue and 2 White and 13:00 all gradually up to 50%. At 14:00 i bring everything up to 80%. At 18:00 i bring everything down to 50%. Then the reverse of the start with everything completely off at 20:00.
 
How far from the tank are the lights hung? It could be that the light is too strong and that's why your corals are bleaching, maybe if you hang them a little higher it could help to stop it.
 
I've got a hard time believing those PAR results only be a use you're posting higher readings then from 250w MH which penetrate better.

A while back CcCapt posted these from his meter.

250w XM 10k 1" below 1060, 12" 520, 24" 340

With that being said, a T5 fixture will never mimic the intensity of the sun.
 
I believe those PAR readings if the OP is using the ATI Powermodule.It sounds like from their description.I do like to say 470 is a lot of PAR for LPS corals.I'm running 100-200 PAR at the sand bed..which is considered moderate.
 
Hmmm, my tank is only 17" high and the lights are fairly low over the water. Maybe i'll have to reduce the intensity dow to 60-70%. And there was me thinking more light was always better!

It probably explains my green hair algae problem as well. I have Nitrates at 0 and Phosphates at 0.06 and yet i keep on getting large amounts of Green Hair Algae on the upper rocks.
 
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