Sps coloration under LED

[genesis]

kzoo;1047194 wrote: This is my tank and im running 2 ,16in -165w -90deg optics and one 24 in 185w no optics. All Chinese black box led, same as reef breeders.

Can you post some more pics of how you have your lighting setup. I'm curious as to where you have which lighting placed?

 

[snowmansnow]

So as an update, I have dialed things back. To 30 and 75. I'm seeing more Pe. So, that's a good thing.


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[crew]

Like everyone else said, I'd bet your LEDs are just too bright.

I have Kessils and I'd say they are as easy as T5s or MHs ever have been to me. I get great growth and great color without all of the heat or cost.

In terms of measuring PAR, it's kind of a crap shoot. LEDs are very bright in very narrow spectrums, like others have said. The problem with PAR meters is they don't read narrow spectrum light. The result is usually a reading that might be way higher or way lower than what your LED is actually putting out. If you are going the LED route, it's best to assume that your light is more than strong enough, start it on the low end of brightness and go up from there.

With the expected lifespan of LEDs, I would assume they put out the original guess of 50,000 hours due to the life expectancy of the diode, but now that we have actual tests completed in reef settings they probably have a much more accurate reading.

30,000 is still over 10 years.

 

[nickh06]

SnowManSnow;1047107 wrote: Reefkeeper. I'm a T5 guy. If I wanted a bullet proof lighting solution id buy an ATI power module today, but I'm giving the LED thing a fair shake.
I do think a LOT of the LED failures we read about are due to inexperienced reefers having far too little patience. I see a lot of "I've had this setting for a week and poor results so I'm moving things", and the corals never catch up. OR, maybe something is out of whack and the lights are just an easy target.
If, at the end of a year or so I'm still frustrated I'll sell my fixtures and go T5 I've only been around for a decade, so I have plenty to learn, but I don't mind giving a fair amount of time to the process. Heck I don't even mind building my own stuff if that's what it takes.

I may fail in the end (or maybe not), but I'm having a good time experimenting.

Right now my corals have been y see the LED lights for a while, and are GROWING, but like the op states the color is wonky.... And at that it's only half the corals haha.




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I am running the same lights over my 180, 3 OR's. Color results were similar but growth was still good. When I added a 4 bulb t5 fixture to my setup it cured all my problems with color. Might want to think about doing the same.

 

[snowmansnow]

I have considered adding t5, as most know I know and love t5 haha, but I'm wanting to see if i can dial in LED first.

There are some omissions in the spectrum in these fixtures, namely under 420nm and around 6500k, so I'm thinking of doing a diy bar to hang between the fixtures to add these wavelengths.

here is what is in each of the 3 fixtures I am running. :

Red 660nm 2pcs
Green 520nm 2pcs
Blue 470nm 8pcs
Royal Blue 450nm 16pcs
Violet 420nm 6pcs
Cool White 12000K 8pcs
Cool White 10000K 6pcs

QUESTION... (and I'll use simple numbers)
IF I have a 10k bulb and a 5k bulb, and they are exactly that nm, and I run them at the same intensity, does that give me 15k yield, or do I still have 10k and 5k wavelengths ?

The reason I ask is... because if I'm tuning my setup to look like a 14k lamp..... to my eye.... but it is actually a combination of 2 10 and 2, which may not be all that useful to corals... I could be being deceived into thinking I have what I need, when actually I needed an actual 14k lamp...

 

[snowmansnow]

ok i realize I posted about Kelvin and NM...
to clarify, I want to concentrate on nm..
I suppose K is the perceived collection of nm, right??
BUT, is it K or nm that matters to coral?

 

[reefkeeper]

Crew;1047453 wrote: Like everyone else said, I'd bet your LEDs are just too bright.

I have Kessils and I'd say they are as easy as T5s or MHs ever have been to me. I get great growth and great color without all of the heat or cost.

In terms of measuring PAR, it's kind of a crap shoot. LEDs are very bright in very narrow spectrums, like others have said. The problem with PAR meters is they don't read narrow spectrum light. The result is usually a reading that might be way higher or way lower than what your LED is actually putting out. If you are going the LED route, it's best to assume that your light is more than strong enough, start it on the low end of brightness and go up from there.

With the expected lifespan of LEDs, I would assume they put out the original guess of 50,000 hours due to the life expectancy of the diode, but now that we have actual tests completed in reef settings they probably have a much more accurate reading.

30,000 is still over 10 years.

Grawford, can you please educate me on what you mean by reading par is a crap shoot with LEDs? Reading par with a par meter has nothing to do with spectrum. I'm confused with your statement.

 

[snowmansnow]

Reefkeeper;1047501 wrote: Grawford, can you please educate me on what you mean by reading par is a crap shoot with LEDs? Reading par with a par meter has nothing to do with spectrum. I'm confused with your statement.

I THINK this idea comes from the problem of spotlighting that some LED fixtures exhibit, I too have heard of trouble getting accurate PAR readings from LEDs, but admittedly I don't really understand the argument .

B

 

[davidinga]

I wholeheartedly believe your seeing sps bleaching not because your running your leds to high, but from improper acclimation. I've seen guys running eBay boxes at 100% both channels and zero bleaching. It's all about proper acclimation.

I agree with what others have said, lower your intensity, raise your lights, reduce on time, etc. Then re-start a slow acclimation process to bring the power back up.


I have a 210gal tank and now I have three eBay boxes (AquaStar brand) that are running at 60/75% (I don't like the blue look hence the high whites) for 12 hours a day and zero bleaching. I run those PLUS I run 4 80w T5 tubes for 6 hours (both led and T5's are run at the same time). Even with all those T5's and my leds pretty high I still have no bleaching.

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Personally, I would bite the bullet and add some T5's versus trying to go led alone; that's just from my own personal experience though

 

[kirkwood]

Snowman,

I think 3 of the ORs is a lot of light over the 80. With that you should dial the intensity back even more than if you had 2 ORs. I ran a hodge podge LED setup of 2 BBs and a 36" 60 LED eShine all of which were non-dimmable and the BB's were no optics and the eShine had 90 degree. Lets just say you have no greater challenge to "dial it in" than that. My results were positive with great growth on just about everything except some higher level SPS of which I can't confirm were light related losses.

I don't know how much of your frags are from LED systems but that will impact their success in your system. If I'm to assume everything in your system needs to acclimate to LEDs, and given your 3 OR setup I would be at 20% white and 50% blue. Incrementally you could increase the white about 2%/week and the blue 5%. I have found that over time the more your corals acclimate to LEDs the more tolerant they will be to the blue spectrum. So over the next 6months you could max your blues to 60-65%. After that I'd sit tight for awhile. The whites I would probably max at the 30-35% range and then wait for 6 months. I just replaced my entire LED setup with 2 ORs that I started at 25% and 50% and I have followed the exact same process of incremental intensity increases I just explained to you and everything is looking better than ever.

 

[reefkeeper]

SnowManSnow;1047503 wrote: I THINK this idea comes from the problem of spotlighting that some LED fixtures exhibit, I too have heard of trouble getting accurate PAR readings from LEDs, but admittedly I don't really understand the argument .

B

I have new Apogee Par Meter I just bought a couple of months ago. I just spoke to a lighting engineer and Apogee Tech Support. What it is the led sensor intesity or nm wavelength varies with different LEDS and the readings are someone off. Apogee told me there Meter reads greens, Reds or UV's leds at 6% less and the whites are 10-11% less. So what that means is your Par readings from the Par Meter with leds are really higher. Apogee told me you should add another 10% when reading par with LEDS. Now that may vary with other Par Meter brands.

Oh I forgot to mention he informed me the purpose of lower readings are due to the diffenent sensor spikes in various leds.

 

[snowmansnow]

Kirkwood;1047506 wrote: Snowman,

I think 3 of the ORs is a lot of light over the 80. With that you should dial the intensity back even more than if you had 2 ORs. I ran a hodge podge LED setup of 2 BBs and a 36" 60 LED eShine all of which were non-dimmable and the BB's were no optics and the eShine had 90 degree. Lets just say you have no greater challenge to "dial it in" than that. My results were positive with great growth on just about everything except some higher level SPS of which I can't confirm were light related losses.

I don't know how much of your frags are from LED systems but that will impact their success in your system. If I'm to assume everything in your system needs to acclimate to LEDs, and given your 3 OR setup I would be at 20% white and 50% blue. Incrementally you could increase the white about 2%/week and the blue 5%. I have found that over time the more your corals acclimate to LEDs the more tolerant they will be to the blue spectrum. So over the next 6months you could max your blues to 60-65%. After that I'd sit tight for awhile. The whites I would probably max at the 30-35% range and then wait for 6 months. I just replaced my entire LED setup with 2 ORs that I started at 25% and 50% and I have followed the exact same process of incremental intensity increases I just explained to you and everything is looking better than ever.

Thanks for the advise. The reason I have 3 is that I have them turned so the reading is facing out... I had them long ways like normal, but the front to back coverage was bad, so I just bought another and turned them around. Right now I do have them dialed back quite a bit.
The one thing I'm noticing with LED, is that the visible strength doesn't = punch like with other sources, which is kind of refreshing hahaha. I don't have to set the room ablaze to get the light that the corals need.

B.

 

[reefkeeper]

Brandon, I stopped by a fellow ARC members house today and you'll be happy to hear that he's been running full Spectrum dimmable LEDS on his tank for over two years and his SPS is striving so well there huge. There so huge there pretty much taking over his tank. The fixtures he has is the same fixture I have and he stated that he started with very low intensity to help acclimate the corals and he's now at a slow ramp up at 100% and his corals are striving just like Reggie's or "Reefermans".

It can be done just as other members have stated and I've seen it myself.

 

[glxtrix]

SnowManSnow;1047524 wrote:

The one thing I'm noticing with LED, is that the visible strength doesn't = punch like with other sources.



B.

That's what I was saying in my earlier post about the Kessils. So little light spill, and I think the reason some people have issues from the start. Just rock the lower settings for a month or more and see how it goes.


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[snowmansnow]

Another update. A while ago I took in a coral frag that was white (bleached), but it wasn't growing algae on it. I've noticed that it is turning a light blue. That's good it's recovering.
Other corals are slowly gaining pigment back, the ones that had experienced any bleaching.
I haven't actually lost any more sps, which is also good.




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