Are LEDs killing my corals?

[BClute]

Got to home depot and get a pair of T5 strip lights and a 4x GE 6500K bulbs. See if these arrest your fall and help a bit. These are great spectrum for coral, but bad to look at anymore where people want a bluer tank. If so, then ditch your LEDs and get a nicer T5 setup.

I think this is a good idea


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[Jcohen9999]

Have you tried uploading one of the tried and true lighting schedules that are readily available and then setting an acclimation since you now have a new (presumably fully functioning) fixture???

 

[cdearing]

Do you know what your current Alk value is?

No I do not know what my current alk is.

 

[cdearing]

Have you tried uploading one of the tried and true lighting schedules that are readily available and then setting an acclimation since you now have a new (presumably fully functioning) fixture???

I have been searching but everyone has a different idea. The AI site has some crazy photos of the lighting schedule which I don't want to try. I have tried multiple different lighting ideas from people, some saying red and green need to be very low, some saying white needs to be super low, some saying UV can burn your corals. It's very confusing. After lowering my lights as suggested in the previous posts and being gone from home a couple of days, my green hammer is worse. Maybe I need to try the cheap lighting like suggested to see if that works.

 

[cdearing]

I think it's very unlikely for lights to kill corals rapidly. Corals can survive with no lights for 5 days and even if you blast them with bright lights after that they may be unhappy and the may start to bleach, but it's unlikely that they would flat out die like you describe. I suspect that there may be more going on here than just the lights.

Especially if the lights were replaced with the same lights and you had them at the same settings as the old ones then there shouldn't really be a problem there.

I would test your water parameters and do so quickly. Check for ammonia as that can definitely kill things quickly and check the pH and alkalinity check the salinity. If you're using a cheap hydrometer, maybe get a refractometer to make sure it's really where you think it is. Go out and buy test kits if you need to. If you've done water changes make sure that no chlorine or chloramines in the new water.

As far as the lights go, just set them to a low to medium value and run them 8 hours a day. Setting the lights to 60% instead of 50% or 40% instead of 45% isn't going to rapidly kill corals. I really think that there is something else going on here. Once you figure out what's happening and why your corals are dying then you can work on fine tuning the lights.

I can't imagine I would have ammonia in my water since I have RO DI and check tds pretty regularly. Had my whole system redone last summer at a cost of about $500. Also, we are on well water so don't think I'd have chlorine either. We change out a whole house filter and iron filter regularly.

I have a refractometer that I use with regularity.

My corals are not bleaching, just shrinking. The soft corals don't seem to be bothered in the least.

 

[Jcohen9999]

I have been searching but everyone has a different idea. The AI site has some crazy photos of the lighting schedule which I don't want to try. I have tried multiple different lighting ideas from people, some saying red and green need to be very low, some saying white needs to be super low, some saying UV can burn your corals. It's very confusing. After lowering my lights as suggested in the previous posts and being gone from home a couple of days, my green hammer is worse. Maybe I need to try the cheap lighting like suggested to see if that works.

I just set up my hydra using the Saxby presets. His tank looks awesome so it can't be all that bad.


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[BrettDS]

Are LEDs killing my corals?

I can't imagine I would have ammonia in my water since I have RO DI and check tds pretty regularly. Had my whole system redone last summer at a cost of about $500. Also, we are on well water so don't think I'd have chlorine either. We change out a whole house filter and iron filter regularly.



I have a refractometer that I use with regularity.



My corals are not bleaching, just shrinking. The soft corals don't seem to be bothered in the least.

Ammonia comes from fish waste and can also come from dead fish or corals as they decompose. If you have a smaller tank and something dies and isn't removed from the tank it can create an ammonia spike that will kill other things and create more ammonia. Sometimes something can die behind a rock and you have no idea that it's causing problems.

While a regularly functioning tank shouldn't have detectable levels of ammonia and you shouldn't need to routinely test for it, when you are having problems of unknown origin and especially when you are starting to get some die off which can cause ammonia it definitely makes sense to test for it. I don't know for sure that's what's happening here, but I think it would be prudent to test for it and rule it out at least.

 

[LQT]

No I do not know what my current alk is.

Do you have a test kit for it?

 

[cdearing]

Got to home depot and get a pair of T5 strip lights and a 4x GE 6500K bulbs. See if these arrest your fall and help a bit. These are great spectrum for coral, but bad to look at anymore where people want a bluer tank. If so, then ditch your LEDs and get a nicer T5 setup.

Went to Home Depot today. They don't have 6500k lights only 4100. Ideas?

 

[jda]

They are pretty cheap online, or see if a specialty lighting store has them. Go slow... they put out a lot of spectrum.

 

[cdearing]

Home Depot only has 4100k light bulbs. I wonder where else might have them. The reduction of the power on my LEDs didn't seem to help so far.

I'm going to try water changes with water from a different source to see if that helps.

 

[cdearing]

They are pretty cheap online, or see if a specialty lighting store has them. Go slow... they put out a lot of spectrum.

Sorry, didn't see your previous post. I just ordered an alkalinity test kit so will try that too.

 

[cdearing]

Alkalinity

Alkalinity

My alk is about 8.6 so a little high. What should I do about that? I have reduced the lights to
10% UV
33% Violet
35% Royal
35% Blue
3% Green
4% Deep Red
24% Cool White

Changing the lighting doesn't seem to do much for my neon hammer which used to be the showpiece of my tank and is not shrunken to almost nothing.

 

[cdearing]

I've been using water from a different RO system for top off last week and just did a 5 gallon water change with that same water. Will see if that makes any difference.:headwally:

 

[mitch91175]

Do not only look at TDS when you are doing your RO/DI. What filters are you using in it? I had an issue where I had 0 TDS but still had ammonia because of chloramines in my water. Issue was resolved with getting a filter that removed both chlorine and chloramine.

 

[BrettDS]

Are LEDs killing my corals?

My alk is about 8.6 so a little high. What should I do about that? I have reduced the lights to

10% UV

33% Violet

35% Royal

35% Blue

3% Green

4% Deep Red

24% Cool White



Changing the lighting doesn't seem to do much for my neon hammer which used to be the showpiece of my tank and is not shrunken to almost nothing.

Keep in mind that once the corals start to decline they won't recover overnight. It will take weeks or maybe even months of stability before you start to see improvement. And making frequent changes will set that back further. Corals are fairly robust and able to adapt to many different water chemistries and light levels, but it takes time for them to adapt. If you keep changing the light levels or lights or raising it lowering the calcium and alkalinity levels you're just going to set them back further.

The best thing you can do now is to stop making changes. An alkalinity of 8.6 dkh is well within the good range. You will be much better off trying to keep it stable at 8.6 than trying to make another change and lower it. Keep an eye on your corals and make sure they don't continue to get worse, but don't expect them to recover in a few days or even in a week or two. And don't think that not seeing them recover soon means that something is wrong.

Keep things stable and give them time and they will recover and start to flourish again.

 

[mitch91175]

Keep in mind that once the corals start to decline they won’t recover overnight. It will take weeks or maybe even months of stability before you start to see improvement. And making frequent changes will set that back further. Corals are fairly robust and able to adapt to many different water chemistries and light levels, but it takes time for them to adapt. If you keep changing the light levels or lights or raising it lowering the calcium and alkalinity levels you’re just going to set them back further.

The best thing you can do now is to stop making changes. An alkalinity of 8.6 dkh is well within the good range. You will be much better off trying to keep it stable at 8.6 than trying to make another change and lower it. Keep an eye on your corals and make sure they don’t continue to get worse, but don’t expect them to recover in a few days or even in a week or two. And don’t think that not seeing them recover soon means that something is wrong.

Keep things stable and give them time and they will recover and start to flourish again.

You hit the nail on the head with just sitting back and waiting. It is hard to do in our instant gratification society. I myself am guilty as charged with being impatient. I told my wife now that I am keeping SPS that I WILL learn patience. May spend more money than I need to on frags in the mean time, but still have to be PATIENT! :headwally:

 

[cdearing]

T5 6100K bulbs

T5 6100K bulbs

Got to home depot and get a pair of T5 strip lights and a 4x GE 6500K bulbs. See if these arrest your fall and help a bit. These are great spectrum for coral, but bad to look at anymore where people want a bluer tank. If so, then ditch your LEDs and get a nicer T5 setup.

I found these on Amazon. These are hydroponic grow lights. Would these work? How high off tank should I set them? Shorten the time period too? This is scary.


T5 4FT 8 Lamp Fluorescent Fixture
$132.00
ETL Certified - High Quality Components - Quality Guaranteed
4 High Output 6500K Vegetative lamps included
Multiple Hanging Options - Vertical or horizontally