Dimmable LEDs and lighting period

[dylpik27]

I bought a dimmable 120watt LED fixture from another member after he bought 5 of them from China. It is pretty typical of all the Chinese dimmable fixtures - half and half 3 watt LED bulbs - both blue and white can be dimmed individually.

I'm seeking recommendations regarding how much I should dim the light and how long I should leave it on per day. I currently leave the blues (not dimmed at all) on for 12 hours a day and the whites (dimmed to about 60%) on for 8 hours a day (blues on for 2 hours before and after the whites). What are y'all doing with success? I like the look of the whites being dimmed to only 25%, but I don't want to lose the growth I'm experiencing.

FYI: I have a mixed reef with mostly zoas, LPS, and SPS (red dragon, farmer's blue milli, a few montis, etc.)

Thanks!

 

[jef4y]

All of it depends on your tank setup, but what I can tell you from experience is that blue light penetrates the water FAR better than the white light, so you might want to consider your balance between white/blue. I run my whites at 100% and blues ramp up to around 60-70% at peak, but whatever works for you & gives you good growth.

 

[kirkwood]

if your corals look happy then all is well.. I do think your light cycle seems long for just adding LED's. I've had LEDs for about 8 months (combination of eshine and MM boxes) and I run my blues for 7 hours and my whites for 4 hours. My lights are not dimmable so I would say they are running at 100% although I know that the drivers only push the 3w bulbs at 2w so do we call that 66%??

You could start with 2 cycles / day of 3 hours blue and 2 hours white... Then after a month I would go to a single cycle of 6 hours blue and 4 hours white... But once again if your corals are happy then go with it.. I had bleaching on favia's on the sandbed when i was running longer light cycles of 10 hours blue / 8 hours white. But whatever changes you make, remember that patience is key and it could take a month or months before you can really see results or see what is working best for your corals... I think that changing lights can have a significant impact on SPS especially the more finicky... Over the next couple months you might take a step backwards in terms of coloration and growth as they adapt to new spectrum, PAR, etc.. I would say 6 months is about the full cycle for some corals to adapt to LED lighting.

Lets see some pics of that red dragon...

 

[dylpik27]

I've had the LEDs for about 4 to 6 months now and I slowly worked up to the amount of time I leave my lights on for. I did notice some bleaching of my war coral, meteor shower, and a prism favia, but everything is starting to color up and grow nicely now. I guess my main question was what ill effects would I see if I dimmed my white lights down more?
As for the Red Dragon, it's only a small frag I got a couple weeks ago from Ralph, but I'll try to post a pic tonight.

 

[dylpik27]

here's the red dragon frag. It's already starting to grow a little.
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[kirkwood]

dylpik27;833556 wrote: here's the red dragon frag. It's already starting to grow a little.

Keep us updated on how things progress with the red coloration of the china LEDs. I have heard that reds don't do that well on SPS.

 

[dylpik27]

will do