Yet another MH bulb question.

[FutureInterest]

So I put a 400 watt halide on my frag tank. It consists of a coralife 400 watt ballast, large lumenbright reflector, and 12k reeflux bulb. This was suggested to me by Jeremy and a few others. I do love the coloration of the bulb but everything that goes into the frag tank is browning out or burning up! The par though only registers at 150-200 whereas the frags before were under at least 300-400 par under t5s. The underside of some of the frags are still colored properly but the exposed portions are losing their color and sometimes flesh...

The colors really have taken the biggest hits and I'm seeing no growth. I also lost a few frags... :sad:

Questions:
Is this simply symptomatic of being acclimated to a different type of lighting? Is this related to the "burn in" of the new halide bulb? Is this related to too much UV radiation since t5s generate very lil UV?

 

[skriz]

Mh bulbs have a uv shield, so that really shouldn't be an issue. You should have much more par than that though. Hmm, have you checked to see if the bulb casing is cracked?

How's the temp?

I've found that some corals do better under less intense lighting. Maybe this is what you're experiencing?

 

[FutureInterest]

The frag tank is plumbed with the display, so its the same water temp and same water period .

It's not just a few corals that are doing so poorly but rather all of em under the MH. The browning out would not be so much of an issue, its the burning that is problematic.

Zoas and palys are doing just fine though and from the look of them they're getting plenty of light.

Bulb isn't cracked.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Jin, it can be a number of things. The UV shield s do block a lot of the harmful UV, but there ius still a fair amount that gets through. Secondly, the corals have adapted to a specific spectrum of light, and mroe than likely, the chromoproteins has set the colors based on that spectrums. The T5s and the MH surely make totally different spectrums, and as such the chromoprteins will fail or thrive based on this.

What is your photoperiod? I hope it is really small. Ramp it up slowly.

 

[nickskains]

jmaneyapanda;231347 wrote: Jin, it can be a number of things. The UV shield s do block a lot of the harmful UV, but there ius still a fair amount that gets through. Secondly, the corals have adapted to a specific spectrum of light, and mroe than likely, the chromoproteins has set the colors based on that spectrums. The T5s and the MH surely make totally different spectrums, and as such the chromoprteins will fail or thrive based on this.

I went through this same thing on my 90g when I swapped from MH to T-5. After about 2-3 weeks the corals started opening more and regained some color. I did loose about 4 or 5 in the transition though. Like Jeremy said, try running a small photo period and gradually increase it to the desired time. This was about the only thing that I was able to do to.

Best of luck Jin. It sucks to loose a coral. :sad:

 

[FutureInterest]

Hmmm sounds like I shoulda matched the lighting in my display to my frag tank. Its going to suck if I have to do this with every frag.

Right now the photo period is just 3 hours.

 

[sailfish]

I can say that I do not think the reeflux bulbs are as good as everyone says. Just because of the 250 watt doubled bulb I tested on my tank. I used it for a week and then sold it. I guess what I am saying is that if you tested the par and it's that low I would trust the reading and try a different bulb. I like the Helios I am running right now. I have a usiho SE 20k you can try.

I am sure there is a big difference between the t5 and MH and there effects on the corals.

I know for me I have gotten two frags from two different T-5 people that were mostly purple and very nice for them. Then for me are brown with bright blue tips they look like any average tri color. Now this could be from other things then light but I do think that is part of it. One of them was from you.

Joe

 

[acroholic]

I would think the best thing for the corals is to match lighting from your main tank to the frag tank, be it T5 or Halide.

Plenty of stories on Reef Central about folks cooking their acros when they go to Lumenbrite Reflectors.

You don't mention how far from the water the LB reflector is. 14" from water to the bottom of the reflector, or 18" from water to bulb (same thing), is the standard recommended height for large lumenbrite reflectors, and 16" from water to bulb for the Lumenbrite Minis.
Dave

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Acroholic;231462 wrote:

Plenty of stories on Reef Central about folks cooking their acros when they go to Lumenbrite Reflectors.

You don't mention how far from the water the LB reflector is. 14" from water to the bottom of the reflector, or 18" from water to bulb (same thing), is the standard recommended height for large lumenbrite reflectors, and 16" from water to bulb for the Lumenbrite Minis.
Dave

Also a good point.

 

[purplegorilla]

Not sure if I am reading this right? So basically the corals you have in your frag tank are only getting 150-200? Are you sure they are burning up or starving. Coral needs 400 to thrive. Why don't you try lowering your lamp, moving them to your main tank to see if they color back up. The zoas are thriving because they don't really need much light. If you need your pars reading again let me know, I still have my light.

 

[FutureInterest]

Thanks Trinh for the offer, I've got the club's meter atm.

The reflectors are 16" off the water and they are the large lumembright reflectors. The par from them is actually not very impressive. At max I'm seeing maybe 380 in the dead center right under the waterline. Right under the waterline in my display I get around 580. Yet I'm still seeing corals in the lower lighted frag tank getting fried... which means its not about the par.

When corals don't get enough light they lose their color... but when they're getting too much of some type of light they also tend to lose color and in addition they "burn". I'm seeing the latter and especially the burn where the flesh just melts off the SPS. They're only frags afterall so its not a big deal but its a lil confuzzling.

I think you guys are right that the different light frequency is probably at fault. I'm still thinking its the addition of UV that may be doing the majority of the burning. As such, I'm going to soak them all in spf 30 and put them back in the tank and see what happens. Also as of last night I dropped the photo period down to 2 hours and we'll move from there once things improve or the beatings will continue...

 

[acroholic]

purpleGORILLA;231481 wrote: Not sure if I am reading this right? So basically the corals you have in your frag tank are only getting 150-200? Are you sure they are burning up or starving. Coral needs 400 to thrive. Why don't you try lowering your lamp, moving them to your main tank to see if they color back up. The zoas are thriving because they don't really need much light. If you need your pars reading again let me know, I still have my light.

You know, I'm not sure if that is really the case all the time (corals needing 400 PAR).

I have an AGA 210, with 3 x 400 watt Lumenbrite Minis with 400 watt Reeflux 12k bulbs. The par at sand level on the bottom of the tank is about 220, and at this level, which is about 40-41 inches from the bulb, I have 15-20 different ORA, Tyree, ATL acoporas on frag discs, and all of them are growing, branching, encrusting, and full of color.

PAR readings were taken with the club's Apogee Quantum Meter (sunlight calibration) with all pumps and powerheads turned off (still water).

 

[acroholic]

FutureInterest;231572 wrote: Thanks Trinh for the offer, I've got the club's meter atm.

The reflectors are 16" off the water and they are the large lumembright reflectors. The par from them is actually not very impressive. At max I'm seeing maybe 380 in the dead center right under the waterline. Right under the waterline in my display I get around 580. Yet I'm still seeing corals in the lower lighted frag tank getting fried... which means its not about the par.

When corals don't get enough light they lose their color... but when they're getting too much of some type of light they also tend to lose color and in addition they "burn". I'm seeing the latter and especially the burn where the flesh just melts off the SPS. They're only frags afterall so its not a big deal but its a lil confuzzling.

I think you guys are right that the different light frequency is probably at fault. I'm still thinking its the addition of UV that may be doing the majority of the burning. As such, I'm going to soak them all in spf 30 and put them back in the tank and see what happens. Also as of last night I dropped the photo period down to 2 hours and we'll move from there once things improve or the beatings will continue...

Another area you might look at regarding the par readings you are getting is your ballast. Most folks using Reeflux bulbs use CoralVue ballasts, IME. Lots of folks are not happy with the Reeflux bulb performance except with Coralvue electronic ballasts.

Might be worth it to borrow a CV ballast and try it on your tank. I have an extra modular cord (connects ballast to reflector cord) you are welcome to borrow.
Dave

 

[FutureInterest]

It is a CV 400 watt dimmable ballast. I got suggestions and did my research appropriately. I'm not sure why the par readings are so poor.

 

[acroholic]

FutureInterest;231585 wrote: It is a CV 400 watt dimmable ballast. I got suggestions and did my research appropriately. I'm not sure why the par readings are so poor.

Sorry, you said it was a Coralife ballast in your first post.

 

[FutureInterest]

:doh: Yep, they sound similar and I got confuzzled.

You have a similar setup don't you? What were your readings?

 

[acroholic]

I have the same setup except with LB Mini pendants. Just above the water 1/2"), dead center below the bulb, PAR was about 1000-1100, just below water about 500-600. Most corals midway to upper parts of the reef are getting 350-450, and like I posted above, PAR at the sand bed, 41" from the bulb, is about 210. These reading are in still water. I found it impossible to get stable PAR readings with the return pump and Tunzes going.

I don't understand the low PAR readings either, as long as you are inside the 24" x 24" coverage area the LBs are good for?

Have you played with the dimmer on the ballast to boost up par a bit? In the upper most point of the range before the dimmer switch "clicks" into normal operation, the bulb is supposed to be overdriven by 10%, I think. I haven't used my dimmers since I bought the ballasts, but for only $10 extra, not a bad feature to have if you ever do need it.

I tried to find his post, but Lee (Glxtrix) stated somewhere that it took the colors of his corals SEVERAL months to adapt and start popping after he switched to the CV/LB/Reeflux setup he has.

I like the colcors I am getting. I had a tricolor valida that was completely brown under the 250 watt Phoenix 14Ks I had, that has gone blue, green and purple under the current setup.
Dave

 

[acroholic]

Just some thoughts:

Could you have a bum ballast? I had to send one of my CV ballasts back because it actually strobed and blew out one of the new Reeflux 12k bulbs I bought along with it the first time I fired it up. Both replaced no problem by CoralVue.

I like CV products, but they are not without quality control issues.

LMK, but if you want I could swing by with one of my CV 400 watt dimmables one day/evening and you can hook it up and take some comparison readings with the PAR meter to see if your ballast is the issue.
Dave

 

[FutureInterest]

Hmmm. Thanks, I may take you up on that some time. I understand the minis are bound to have better numbers than the large but I didn't think it would be this drastic. I'm trying to dig up some numbers on the large LBs with similar bulb/ballast combo to see if I'm on track.

 

[glxtrix]

Another thing to think of that I know some of the people on RC were commenting about when we were testing these....make sure the nipple on the bulb is facing up. If it's down or sideways it may effect the PAR....granted not a lot, but it will reduce it some.