2 month growth w/LED's

[NatureNerd]

I posted these picture in another thread but I thought they would be good here and I could get a question answered.

The first picture was taken in early March, two weeks before I bought LED lighting and shortly after I acquired this frag. The second picture is of the same frag today. It has had about two weeks of my old 10k MH's and now almost two months of LED lighting. Parameters in the tank have remained stable.

The growth really surprised me. I did not think it had done so well. The growth rate is stunning.

Now, look at the color. Under the 10k MH's the purple was intense but there was a lot of brown too. With the LED's (set to mimic 12-14k color) we see nice blue and much lighter overall coloring. Purple has all faded. Of course, the appearance would look, and photograph, different under "blue-ish" light vs "yellow-ish" light, but the colors are certainly not as rich.

I would say this coral is healthy and happy based on growth and PE but should I infer anything about the lighter colors? I do realize that the colors in this colony are still changing. What do you think?

before:

after:

Hope you all don't mind me sharing this one little data point.

 

[batt600]

Lighting has very little to do with growth its all on stable parameters manly alk and cal . If those are stable all the time growth will be great.

 

[hk855]

That's looking great. Yes stable params are required for growth but with your new lighting you are definitely getting beter color. I would not expect the tan to fade much more but the tips should color up a bit more over time and spread a bit further down the branches. I have a frag of bonsi which looks the same I got 3 months ago, about the size of your right branch and it grew, changed colors, about the same as yours. Now it's got a good 1/4" growth beyond the frag plug. I just added 72w of blue LEDs and 36w of white to my 4 bulb t5 so I'm looking forward to what mine looks like in a few months.

 

[klepto]

Lighting has very little to do with growth its all on stable parameters manly alk and cal . If those are stable all the time growth will be great.

You are suggesting that corals which depend on their photosynthetic zooxanthelle aren't impacted by changes in lighting. :rolleye1: I strongly disagree. Proper lighting which provides PAR is crucial to obtaining good growth. Parameter stability is important, but it is far from the only factor influencing growth.

 

[karsseboom]

You are suggesting that corals which depend on their photosynthetic zooxanthelle aren't impacted by changes in lighting. :rolleye1: I strongly disagree. Proper lighting which provides PAR is crucial to obtaining good growth. Parameter stability is important, but it is far from the only factor influencing growth.

Assuming you have good par already changing to different lighting will not yield great growth. Switching from mh to leds that have the same or close to the same par wont gain better results.

 

[klepto]

I would say this coral is healthy and happy based on growth and PE but should I infer anything about the lighter colors? I do realize that the colors in this colony are still changing. What do you think?

I agree that your growth rate looks fast. :thumbsup:
When running a 10K halide, certain pigments were accentuated.. and now with the cooler color temperature lighting the coral's colors have shifted. I don't think it is a major cause for concern, unless you see the tissue thinning radically.
What kind of LED fixture are you running over what dimensions? And where was this acro in regards to the 'hot spot' of you old MH setup? Perhaps it is getting substantially more or less PAR than previously due to the difference in the spread of the lighting fixtures.

 

[klepto]

Assuming you have good par already changing to different lighting will not yield great growth. Switching from mh to leds that have the same or close to the same par wont gain better results.

Ah, I wasn't suggesting that it would. Only that a change in lighting is going to impact growth.

 

[batt600]

You are suggesting that corals which depend on their photosynthetic zooxanthelle aren't impacted by changes in lighting. :rolleye1: I strongly disagree. Proper lighting which provides PAR is crucial to obtaining good growth. Parameter stability is important, but it is far from the only factor influencing growth.

In the oceans reefs there are somtimes mounths that there no light due to storms and thay have growth without lights sps can produce there own food source with no light and feed from the water column . So light playes a small roll in growth here .

 

[batt600]

Ah, I wasn't suggesting that it would. Only that a change in lighting is going to impact growth.

No it does not . It just stress the coral out more

 

[tmgrash]

Here are mine, everything was added as a small normal sized frag.

Nov '09

Current

 

[olee]

I posted these picture in another thread but I thought they would be good here and I could get a question answered.

The first picture was taken in early March, two weeks before I bought LED lighting and shortly after I acquired this frag. The second picture is of the same frag today. It has had about two weeks of my old 10k MH's and now almost two months of LED lighting. Parameters in the tank have remained stable.

The growth really surprised me. I did not think it had done so well. The growth rate is stunning.

Now, look at the color. Under the 10k MH's the purple was intense but there was a lot of brown too. With the LED's (set to mimic 12-14k color) we see nice blue and much lighter overall coloring. Purple has all faded. Of course, the appearance would look, and photograph, different under "blue-ish" light vs "yellow-ish" light, but the colors are certainly not as rich.

I would say this coral is healthy and happy based on growth and PE but should I infer anything about the lighter colors? I do realize that the colors in this colony are still changing. What do you think?

before:

after:

Hope you all don't mind me sharing this one little data point.

Hi i got this frag 1 year ago and i changed LED for 9 months, the color gave me suprise, it's more purple and vivid, i love this purple nana~~

 

[mic209]

What kind of LEDs are u running?

 

[NatureNerd]

What kind of LEDs are u running?

I have three AI Sol Super-blues over my 75g 48" long tank. I slowly ramped them up from around 50% to around 75% peak power in the two moths I have had them. So far so good.

 

[Walking_Target]

It's a somewhat known issue. LEDs tend to spike in the blue and yellow color bands with a bit of green, the lower red spectrum as well as some of the higher violet are left out, which makes for visible purple, red and some oranges to be left kinda 'washed out'.

There's also the issue of which spectrum fluoresces which colors, I've got some absolutely fantastic looking 'pink ring' zoanthids which look dull and brown under lower color temps (10k-12k aprox) but when i crank the white balance to the 15k-18k range they pop out very nicely.

The big thing i've noticed after a year of running LEDs is that some of my corals have 'lost' the warmer colors I was getting under PC fluorescents; my mushrooms are a perfect example of this, they appear very purple, even still, under any fluorescent, but because Royal Blue LEDs stimulate the green fluorescing pigment so much they appear metalic purple-green (not a very attractive color) under my lighting.

In other corals, like my acans, the pink pigment has picked up nicely, but lost some of the nice white/grey that gave them more 'definition'.

In short, LEDs are both good and bad, good, in that you don't get much 'spectrum leak', so you know what peaks you're nailing and they don't change much over time. Bad, in that you are nailing a narrower spectrum, thus certain algae and pigments in your coral will thrive more than others.

I've seen some nice results mixing in a couple of red and violet LEDs on low power.

 

[Tortuga78]

I have three AI Sol Super-blues over my 75g 48" long tank. I slowly ramped them up from around 50% to around 75% peak power in the two moths I have had them. So far so good.

Have you taken any PAR readings on your tank, before and after switching over to LEDs? Starting at 50% may have been too high- it was for me. I bought the same LEDs and was suprised when I bleached my corals with the same settings. After getting a PAR meter I reset the lights to only get about 120 PAR on the top of my reef (setting was 35%). Im at 50% in 2 months. Things are starting to color up again (slowly). Your second picture looks like a coral thats bouncing back after being bleached.

 

[NatureNerd]

Have you taken any PAR readings on your tank, before and after switching over to LEDs? Starting at 50% may have been too high- it was for me. I bought the same LEDs and was suprised when I bleached my corals with the same settings. After getting a PAR meter I reset the lights to only get about 120 PAR on the top of my reef (setting was 35%). Im at 50% in 2 months. Things are starting to color up again (slowly). Your second picture looks like a coral thats bouncing back after being bleached.

Good point. I really should have tried harder to get a PAR meter. I guess it is possible that this frag did bleach a little. The tan color in the shaded areas went to light tan from brownish but the purple tips just shifted to more blue in color and a bit less rich.

This frag has great PE at night and some PE during the day. It continues to grow well. The green of the polyps has not changed at all. It doesn't seem too stressed to me, but perhaps that is what happened. It continues to get more blue every day. Most of my acros did not change color so drastically. I am running my Sol's at around 75% now after two months.

 

[olee]

What kind of LEDs are u running?

My LED lighting was DIY, i am using
10w blue x8 + 10w 12000k/14000 x14 + 3w blue x3 + 3w purple x3 + 20w 10000k x2
totally 320W with contraller from 9am - 8pm
the color for me is better than HQI
many sps keepers prefer to DIY in my area
http://www.reef.hk/forum/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach_red_module=post&attach_id=35544

 

[liquidarts]

Olee,

Would you mind posting some pics of your tank and lighting set-up please.Am wondering about the 10w LEDs also.