Talented Lighting People, I need you 🤓😂

[Sapere_Ceta]

I broke out my old Finnex Planted+ CC. I am pretty unfamiliar with lighting, although I’ve been doing some research on lighting to try and understand it better. 
The Finnex CC was barely used, as it was on the last aquarium I had to take down shortly after my brain and spinal surgery years ago. Being a 48” fixture, I strung it through two setups, my crayfish’s (Gandr’s) setup, and over my 20G tall I am starting over. 

Plant wise, they’re low to medium light plants (I’d say 3 are medium to high): Ludwigia peruensis, Ludwigia arctuata, Cryptocoryne undulatus ‘Red’, Red Tiger Lotus, Bolbitis huedelotii ‘Difformis’, Cryptocoryne petchii, Cryptocoryne balansae, Bucephalandra Kapuas Brownie Ghost, Hydrocotyle tripartita ‘Japan’, and Hygrophila pinnatifida.

I’ll have Eco-Complete as a substrate, with root tabs, liquid fertilizers for them, if that’s useful knowledge to you all, if it makes an impact on lighting.

I don’t have the specific percentiles decided, because I wanted to see if there were any blatant flaws from this point already. But this is what I was roughly jotting down as a lighting idea, though I’m wondering if it’s adequate, assuming I’ll get the specific percentages in order. 

Normal would probably represent a higher intensity lighting period, though that will likely need heavy refining. 
I’m wasn’t necessarily intending for a sort of weird dim siesta time frame, but I get extremely light sensitive at certain points in the day, especially from 3-5pm, any time after 8pm, and in the morning at 9-10am (depending on my symptoms, I can have all day severe light sensitivity, as I already cover most of blinds on the windows with blankets haha, but generally, those are the times I really notice it at).

I was curious to see if I would be able to keep the fixture in a certain dimness, but not poorly affecting the plants. Would this work decently, or would it *likely* need adjusting, and if so, what would you all recommend? I do have red some plants, though I’d say they’re not as difficult as most red plants, so I’m sure that will also come into play on any lighting schedule. ALSO, these plants are all new, so if I should start out lower on any hypothetical high intensity lighting periods, feel free to let me know. 🙂 

[Sapere_Ceta]

I refined it a little more so it matched the remote times. Maybe something like this to start off with the spectrum percentages, keep them low and gradually go up 10% every week to few weeks while they adjust (so long as I am not seeing any signs of excess light)? The B (Blue) would likely stay the same. 

[gardenman]

I'm not much help. Most of my tanks come on at 100% at 6 AM and go off at 9 PM. (The tank in my bedroom gets a half hour delay starting at 6:30 AM and going off at 9:30 PM. My ramshorn snails and Super Red bristle nose plecos take care of any algae and everything does fine. The plants do fine, the fish do fine. I like it as the tanks are lit when I'm around them. It works for me.

[Eric R]

5 hours ago, Sapere_Ceta said:

I refined it a little more so it matched the remote times. Maybe something like this to start off with the spectrum percentages, keep them low and gradually go up 10% every week to few weeks while they adjust (so long as I am not seeing any signs of excess light)? The B (Blue) would likely stay the same. 

I don't personally have experience with this light. From looking it up, it seems to be capable of medium output in terms of PAR. My guess is that white is your main channel, both in terms of the output of the light as well as having the most LEDs. The r/g/b channels are mostly going to be there for effects and for you to play with how the light looks to you in terms of color with your fish/plants/crayfish(?). I'd recommend starting with your white channel maxing out at 50% and adjust your other channels until you like how the light looks. I'd also make adjustments once every few days to once a week until you get it where you want it, I don't believe that plants need such long acclimation times to adjust to changes in lighting.

 

[Sapere_Ceta]

3 hours ago, gardenman said:

I'm not much help. Most of my tanks come on at 100% at 6 AM and go off at 9 PM. (The tank in my bedroom gets a half hour delay starting at 6:30 AM and going off at 9:30 PM. My ramshorn snails and Super Red bristle nose plecos take care of any algae and everything does fine. The plants do fine, the fish do fine. I like it as the tanks are lit when I'm around them. It works for me.

All good! That’s awesome that it works well for you! It sounds like you have a great setup, figuring out what works for it and all! 

[Sapere_Ceta]

3 hours ago, ererer said:

I'd recommend starting with your white channel maxing out at 50% and adjust your other channels until you like how the light looks. I'd also make adjustments once every few days to once a week until you get it where you want it, I don't believe that plants need such long acclimation times to adjust to changes in lighting.

 

Got it, that definitely makes sense. I’ll give that a try! Thanks so much for the help! I’m excited to finally use this light. It’s also nice to be on a forum where people are incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. This light apparently isn’t made anymore, so it made it tricky to try and figure the lighting out, especially since new models kept being brought up or talked about instead of the CC. 

[BigRedd]

I think the plants will be fine. They're receiving the full spectrum during the day, although less intense, but as long as they are getting light, I think they will be alright.

It's easy to give plants too much light and get a tank full of algae so I think your approach of starting low and going higher if needed is good start. Especially when plants are just getting started in a tank, they probably won't be able to use all of the light anyways so it's good to start lower. 

I run a white-LED that's not very intense all day from 8am to 6pm and then turn on my full spectrum RGB light around 11am and run it to 2pm. The room that my tank is in has light that often lights up the tank enough to view it, so turning light off early for me isn't a problem for my viewing pleasure. 

My only suggestion would be to maybe increase the white-light around mid-day if you can, that way some of the more light hungry plants get some extra. 

[Sapere_Ceta]

8 hours ago, BigRedd said:

I think the plants will be fine. They're receiving the full spectrum during the day, although less intense, but as long as they are getting light, I think they will be alright.

It's easy to give plants too much light and get a tank full of algae so I think your approach of starting low and going higher if needed is good start. Especially when plants are just getting started in a tank, they probably won't be able to use all of the light anyways so it's good to start lower. 

I run a white-LED that's not very intense all day from 8am to 6pm and then turn on my full spectrum RGB light around 11am and run it to 2pm. The room that my tank is in has light that often lights up the tank enough to view it, so turning light off early for me isn't a problem for my viewing pleasure. 

My only suggestion would be to maybe increase the white-light around mid-day if you can, that way some of the more light hungry plants get some extra. 

Awesome! Thank you for the recommendation! I’ve been adjusting it, based on everyone’s advice here. It’s been very helpful.
My light has always been a little weird, especially with certain buttons. I noticed it didn’t cycle all of the way through, so I’m having to mess with it again, and I’m hoping I can get it to cooperate for me haha. Although it’s been unused for years, it was stored away nicely, so hopefully it works well. 

[Isaac M]

I agree with @BigRedd, I like your idea of starting out on the lower end. I would definitely keep the blue light very low. I use floodlights suspended over some of my aquariums and the plants do well. I think our lights are too strong the majority of the time. 

Also, from 3-5 when you are the most light sensitive serves as a great siesta period. I think you are on the right track. I wish you the best with your light functioning well!