Are your reef's LEDs optimized for your corals or is it all about you?

Suppose your LEDs are evenly spaced around your tank. In that case, you might want to stick around because although it looks appealing to your eyes, here we'll find out if this aesthetically appealing light placement also benefits your corals. Or can we do better?

What is the Ideal Way to Space 2,3, or 4 Light Fixtures Over your Reef Tank?

There are over 20 different light configurations of varying brands, sizes, & shapes to look at today. And they're driven into four groups:

  • Two fixture group
  • Three fixture group
  • Four fixture group
  • Eight fixture group

Overlook at what light spacing interval the middle part in the left and right tank edges comes within 7% or more of the middle position in the dead center.

This way, you have eliminated any hotspot in the center where the lights intersect and spread that light out towards the edges for ultra-flat par distribution. 

2-Fixture Group

For two fixtures over 40-inch tanks, dividing the tank length evenly into thirds shows us a balanced placement of each institution perfectly centered at 16 inches from the left edge and 16 inches from the right edge. 

However, looking at the data, only two of the 11 meet or exceed our 75% PAR distribution goal without adjusting them.

And when you see the prominent form factors of these two lights, it's straightforward to see why. However, the most exciting part is what happened to all nine pairs of LED combos when we spread the two fixtures apart. Each lighting option, each mounted at its optimal mounting height, surpasses the 75% goal when we center each institution at 13 inches from the left and right edge.

Therefore perfectly balancing a pair of lights over a rectangular tank will yield the optimal results, especially when nine different lights show the best result when spaced wider than what is aesthetically appealing.

3-Fixture Group

To find the best results for the three fixtures, we leave the center module fixed in the center of the tank and then move the left and rightmost modules outwards. When we do that, we find that the AI primes require the widest spacing to achieve 75%, with the left prime centered at 8 inches from the left edge.

Again, spacing these lights wider than evenly balanced wound up creating more 24% more even distribution of light throughout the entire tank.

4-Fixture Group

In the 4-fixture setup, each light was centered at 9.6 inches increments across the tank. But the most optimal result is achieved when the lights are placed at optimal spacings. 

A good rule of thumb is you don't need a PAR matter to achieve better-spread performance. For example, if you have two lights to mount, just put them wider than what your gut would tell you by about 2-3 inches each. Three lights, definitely keep one center and move the outer two slightly closer to the edges.

In the case of a 4-fixture, consider moving the light slightly away from the center to reduce that inevitable hotspot.

8-Fixture Group

In the case of an 8-fixture group, we used zoning to balance out the distribution. By keeping the outer 4-prime at 100% intensity and then reducing the center four primes to 40% intensity, we were able to eliminate the hotspot in the middle and have an 84% even spread across the 48 inches.

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