Added more lights, will blue LED's bleach?

[splix]

I'm running 4x of the 65w Sunspec (mars aqua rebranded) LED's along with 2 80w coral pro t5 bulbs in my 72"x18x22" deep tank.

The LEDs have been fine, coral was mostly always happy but I had minimal growth. I added the t5 bulbs sunday which made the tank very bright. I turned my LED's way down to compensate for the added par from the t5's. I've got my whites at 25% and blues at 40%.

I'd like to turn the blue only LED's up a tad more, to around 50% to get more antic color going, but I dont want too much PAR.

Will increasing the blues start to bleach coral, or are blue/antic not going to matter so much?

 

[ReefWreak]

2 80w Coral Pro bulbs over 22" deep tank might change the PAR readings a little bit, but you shouldn't have to acclimate for them. This isn't an 8 bulb fixture we're talking about here, or going from power compacts to T5s/Halide/LED.

You shouldn't have adjusted your LEDs at all when you added those T5s. 2 bulbs will barely make a dent in your PAR. I would put your LEDs at whatever you had them at before, and adjust them for coloration to your liking.

You won't bleach anything by adding 2x80w T5s if you already have reef-ready lighting as it is, which you do, unless they have always been turned down.

Blue in LED is just as powerful as white in LED as far as PAR is concerned. Metal Halide you used to trade off color of blue for power of white, but that is not the case with LEDs, and I do not believe it is the case with T5s either.

 

[splix]

Ok cool. The tank was just so much brighter and whiter that it concerned me. I've bleached corals in the past due to too much par and I didnt want to make the same mistake again. I may have always had my lights a bit on the dim side due to this.

 

[ReefWreak]

One thing that is really interesting/different with LEDs (and probably some T5 bulbs too) is that brightness =/= PAR. That's why people add Lime LEDs to custom LED fixtures. It adds almost no PAR, but it makes the light look much brighter. When I added one to my full-spectrum LED fixture, it made my light look "crisp white" with some blue, like a Radium bulb. But that's what is cool about playing and learning with DIY/custom LEDs.