Sps coloration under LED

[snowmansnow]

Ok. I, like so many am trying to find the balance of LED light over my tank for sps.

I present this coral for consideration.
This first pic is the side of the coral facing the light. (It is bleached, but not as severely as the pic seems to show)

The second is the underside of the coral. (A MUCH healthier color)

I'm currently at 50 and 75% blue and white.

Thoughts?

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[snowmansnow]

By my estimation this is a CLEAR indication that the lights are simply too intense. Half the coral is healthy looking the other half bleached as it sits horizontal in the tank.


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[snowmansnow]

As clarification it is 75blue 50% whites


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[angel]

I'm agree 100 % with you brandom

 

[ringo®]

I do about the same on blue. My whites rarely go past 30 on a similar fixture.

 

[reefkeeper]

Raise your lights and gradually raise the intensity. Your intensity may be too high and your burning up your corals. I originally put LED's on my DT and all my high end chalices and other LPS were starting to bleach. I had 90 degree optics and the par readings on the sand were out of control. While I had them installed, I raised them and lowered the intensity drastically and things started to get better.

 

[snowmansnow]

They are already 16" up


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[snowmansnow]

I'm definitely going to lower intensity. Should I lower blue intensity too?


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[ringo®]

SnowManSnow;1046974 wrote: I'm definitely going to lower intensity. Should I lower blue intensity too?


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You could try and see how things look after a little while. It really depends on how white you want your tank to be. I like my tank a little on the blue side. I set my blues so par is just a shy of what I'm aiming for and adjust white to a color I like. I also only run my white channel for about 4 hours out of the day.

 

[snowmansnow]

I understand what you're saying, but I'd be more concerned w the health of my sps than how the tank color is.

I'm just concerned that lowering the white too much will take away the spectrum the corals need.

On the plus side.... The corals are growing and surviving... I just need to find the sweet spot. Now I'm anticipating it will be at a much lower intensity than I originally thought


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[snowmansnow]

Reefer... I'll correct a statement. They are 12" from water now.


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I'm going to work on raising them today

 

[reefkeeper]

Brandon, I would suggest you not run your intensity about 50-60% for now. And that's just a estimate. I would also suggest you get your hands on a par meter and play with the settings till you get to the point where the corals adapt. With LEDS, par is deceiving and your really not going to be able to determine the spectrum of the lighting unless you have a spectrum meter.

 

[snowmansnow]

I'm also dealing with a shallow tank. So that punch goes to the bottom


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[mattgee87]

Throw away the LED's and get T5's or Metal Halides!

 

[snowmansnow]

Geez here in Rome I'll NEVER find a par meter


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[snowmansnow]

mattgee87;1046988 wrote: Throw away the LED's and get T5's or Metal Halides!

Don't think I'm not tempted.


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[tngyen813]

I run Chinese LEDs and was having a similar issue until I took of the optics. I get much better color mixture with no spot lighting.

 

[cment]

honestly, ive found with LEDs that the lower the better to start off at. On a tank as shallow as your I would lower the intensity to 20% white 30% blue and go from there. i thought I had water quality issues bc of lack of PE and it happened to be my lights were just too much. i lowered the intensity and within a couple days PE had begun to come back.

 

[lsu_fishfan]

I have a deep blue 60 gallon with ai sols hanging 16+ inches above the tank, and the blues are at 55% and whites around 35%.

 

[grouper therapy]

How is the par different on LEDs? Higher? I ran 3 400 watt metal halides over driven 14" from the water with a very nice reflector on a 5 foot tank and never experienced bleaching from the light. Help me out.