Negative LED Experiences??

[cosigner]

If you have had a negative experience with led lighting regarding coral growth, particularly LPS & SPS, let me hear a little about it.

I just removed my LEDs from my tank today and replaced them with a 150w MH. All of my corals colored up really nice under the LEDs for the first couple of weeks, but now they all look dull. All of the softies love the LEDs, but it seems as if nothing else in there does. I have a Favia colony that was not doing well, I set up a temporary tank for it, with T5's, and in about two weeks it has fully recovered!

If the MH doesn't help them I'll know for sure that the LEDs had nothing to do with it and I'll go from there, but as far as I can tell it is a big possibility.

On a side note, progress on my 40B is coming along nicely and will hopefully be completed within a month. I can't wait to get away from this effing BioCube!

 

[curtismaximus]

My Leds have been great for a year except for one coral. For some strange reason I cannot keep torch coral. I had a huge green one and a small purple one. Watched them both wither away!

 

[nickh06]

What kind of LEDs were you running? I have two kessil a350w's over my 90 and everything loves them. I have a torch that is doing awesome.

 

[cosigner]

Nickh06;922548 wrote: What kind of LEDs were you running? I have two kessil a350w's over my 90 and everything loves them. I have a torch that is doing awesome.

I'm running 20 3W LEDs (2 red, 2green, 4 6K white, 8 royal blue, 2 430nm violet, 2 405nm violet) from LEDgroupbuy.com... some are CREE, some are Exotic. They're all on a sunrise/sunset controller...

 

[kirkwood]

what optics did you have on your LEDs??? the 90 or 60 optics can produce some pretty intense PAR levels that will temporarily have a negative effect on your corals... I'd say it could take 3-6 months for your corals to adapt to the new lighting...

i will say from your list of diodes I don't see any cool whites... all the units I've seen on the market have a good number of cool whites at least 10K.

 

[cosigner]

Kirkwood;922583 wrote: what optics did you have on your LEDs??? the 90 or 60 optics can produce some pretty intense PAR levels that will temporarily have a negative effect on your corals... I'd say it could take 3-6 months for your corals to adapt to the new lighting...

i will say from your list of diodes I don't see any cool whites... all the units I've seen on the market have a good number of cool whites at least 10K.

I didn't add any optics, they're so close to the water it would've caused too much of a disco effect. 10K lighting is only popular because it allows white lightning without a yellowish tint. Natural sunlight is 7.5K, so my 6Ks are right there.

As far as the intensity goes, I have tried all combinations of dialling back certain leds, all LEDs, and everything in between.

 

[ringo®]

Best thing anybody with LED's can do is get there hands on a PAR meter. What looks like the correct brightness to our eyes would likely be cooking your corals.

 

[cosigner]

Just wanted to update this thread and mention that the LEDs were NOT the culprit. I actually had my lawnmower blenny burrow under the sand and die, causing water quality to drop and my pistol shrimp went soon after. I believe now that in such a small system that proved to be too much stress to quickly.

I did however notice terrible colors on my zoas when compared to the LEDs...