AI Hydra Lighting recommendations?

[GoobieGoo]

So I was fortunate enough to snag a great deal on a 75 gallon reef tank with these lights. There are so many setting I can't even begin to wrap my head around it all. I eventually want to do hard corals, but not until the tank has been up and established long enough. That said, I noticed you can sync the lights with weather patterns of different places, which seems really cool, but I'm not sure if this is something that's actually useful.. same for the storm and cloud cover settings. I feel like maybe these are more for the "wow that's cool" factor, for me, than it would be for the live stock.

So, with that out of the way. Thoughts? If someone could direct me to a knowledgable thread about using these with the AI Director and setting them for coral happiness, that would also be great.

I'm usually a stalker, silently reading posts and trying to learn that way. This is me trying to branch out and be social for once! Thanks in advance for any advice.

[thegrun]

You are correct as far as the weather and lightening features, they are fun to play with at first but something you will likely never use again after the first time you play with it. Likewise setting your tank up to mimic the Red Sea, a South Pacific atoll, the Rock of Gibraltar of the Eastern most corner of Antarctica is just a gimmick. I use a 5 hour ramp up, 3 hours at peak intensity and then a 5 hour ramp down which seems to work well for me and is pretty close to natural conditions (except perhaps for Eastern Antarctica).

[vhuang168]

There is a huge thread on AI Hydra settings in the lighting subforum.

[GoobieGoo]

I thought so on the weather and such. Seems such a cool concept. Ahh, well. Thanks for the info guys, I've been immersed in reading about these things and still totally lost in it all!

[Sandrock.e46]

Weather effects were cool at first but then I got over it pretty quick. I seem to have good results with just running the easy timer set up. 2 he ramp, blues favored, and all less than 35%. I have it on a jbj 30 gal aio set up