Corals burning!

[jenkins2212]

So I just hung my LEDs and have been light acclimating for about two weeks. I'm running blues for 8 hours but only running whites at 15 percent for a few hours a day. We'll I think so e of my coral is bleaching/ burning. I swapped from 500 watt halides over a 72 bow. Some corals actually look burnt others have white edges. Any suggestions?

 

[atlfishes]

What % do you have the blues at?

 

[chris s]

Blues look dim to us but they are very powerful as far as corals are concerned.

 

[jenkins2212]

Even from 500 w halides?

 

[atlfishes]

BigChiquita;859285 wrote: LEDs bleach corals they are too strong learned my lesson

LEDs bleach corals when you don't properly adjust your corals to the light. If your corals are bleaching, lower the intensity and the photo period.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Bleaching corals can be caused by a HUGE number of things, not just light too. Check all the watre parameters. But change in light is a culprit for sure. Not necessarily just low intensity to high, or vice versa. ALL corals should be light acclimated from ALL intensities.

 

[butch]

atlfishes;859289 wrote: LEDs bleach corals when you don't properly adjust your corals to the light. If your corals are bleaching, lower the intensity and the photo period.

+1. You can also lay several pieces of screen over the top of your tank. Just peel a layer off every week to acclimate.

 

[chris s]

BigChiquita;859285 wrote: LEDs bleach corals they are too strong learned my lesson

WOW. That's a pretty general statement.

When corals get photo burned it's the reef keepers fault. Any time you change lighting there is the chance of burning. It doesn't matter if it's T5, MH or LED. You have to properly acclimate to the new lighting.

 

[atlweb]

I never really had problems adjusting corals to LED's. Most LED's have MH wattage comparisons that are very similar. For example... I believe when the radion first came out it was compared to a 250watt halide. Since I had a smaller tank, I kept it at about 70-80% to get my desired output.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

atlweb;859409 wrote: I never really had problems adjusting corals to LED's. Most LED's have MH wattage comparisons that are very similar. For example... I believe when the radion first came out it was compared to a 250watt halide. Since I had a smaller tank, I kept it at about 70-80% to get my desired output.

However, the spectrum can be enormously different.

 

[ksicard]

I use 3w LED's and a over-kill amount of them for my 75g tank and I start my lights at 40% and up the intensity by 3-5% every 5-10 days. Never had issues this way.

 

[jenkins2212]

What's an over kill amount

 

[ksicard]

for my 75g tank I have 84 3w LED's with 90 degree optics, it results in an extremely high par. I don't expect to ever go above 80-85% power. Luxeon 3w LED's. 28 nuetral whites/28 royal blues/14 true blue cools/14 hyper violet. I keep the violets about 20% lower than the rest.

 

[john wright]

I have 200w of LEDs over my 30 gal cube I can't get them higher than 40%.

 

[ksicard]

lol now that is over kill.

 

[john wright]

ksicard;859502 wrote: lol now that is over kill.

I know it is I was building for the future

 

[bluespot]

The blue LEDs can be deceiving. Most people think you need to crank them up compared to the whites because they look dimmer to your eye. Very easy to overdo it when you first make the switch. The whites look a lot brighter at a comparative power setting. Listen to the above posts. They have good tips about transitioning to LEDs and acclimating. Remember that LEDs tend to put out a lot more PAR per watt than metal halides but tend to look slighty dimmer on comparable settings.

 

[jenkins2212]

We'll I have two 55x3 LEDs about a foot over my 72 and I throttled way back yesterday. I just really didn't think that the blues all the way up would be that much more par than my halides were

 

[90galguy]

Anymore input on the length of time and percentages to run if switching from quad t5s to LED? I have had them at no more than 30% for both whites and blues for about 2 weeks now. I'm going to up them this weekend but I was wondering how much and if I was waiting too long or maybe I can even shorten the acclimation periods?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[bruce 1]

What about BTA can they get to much light from LEDs?