Attempt to color up SPS under LED

[jda]

Read up on PAR vs PUR (available vs usable). PAR is radiation from 400-700. PUR is a subset of PAR. In a LED fixture with too many white LEDs putting off damaging green/yellow spectrum, the PAR might be very high, but the PUR is terrible and your SPS can hate you or die. Each coral will want a different PUR, so this is very hard to measure.

Spectrum is more important that PAR. By reducing the PAR you are likely reducing the good, as well as the bad since the didoes put out both.

Neither PAR, or the subset PUR, track true UV or IR, which MH and flourescent do emit in varying quantities. Little is know if these have anything to do with coral, but it is totally possible that some deeper SPS absorb the UV and emit a less active spectrum which adds to the color - totally conjecture, but why do we suppose that coral stops using light at 400 just because human eyes cannot see it?

 

[power boat jim]

I took PAR measurements on my tank. They were 1200 to 900 near the top 450 near the middle and 150 to 225 on the bottom. The spread was pretty consistant everwhere in the tank except in the corners. There is no reason to believe that you need to run an LED tank at 150 par for it to be a success with LEDs. Flow and water chemistry are probably more important then a perfect light source.

 

[Posseidon]

Read up on PAR vs PUR (available vs usable). PAR is radiation from 400-700. PUR is a subset of PAR. In a LED fixture with too many white LEDs putting off damaging green/yellow spectrum, the PAR might be very high, but the PUR is terrible and your SPS can hate you or die. Each coral will want a different PUR, so this is very hard to measure.

Spectrum is more important that PAR. By reducing the PAR you are likely reducing the good, as well as the bad since the didoes put out both.

Neither PAR, or the subset PUR, track true UV or IR, which MH and flourescent do emit in varying quantities. Little is know if these have anything to do with coral, but it is totally possible that some deeper SPS absorb the UV and emit a less active spectrum which adds to the color - totally conjecture, but why do we suppose that coral stops using light at 400 just because human eyes cannot see it?

JDA, there are some points that I have a different opinion on.
Most of the White:Blue LED fixtures have either 1:1 or 1:2 configuration. And none of LED whites throw out as much green/yellow spectrum compared to MH bulbs. This is why the new LED fixtures come with additional red and green bulbs to cover the deficiency.

PAR/PUR is Photosynthetically Active/Usable Radiation. It is well known that the range 400-700nm is the only range of spectrum which can be used for photosynthesis. That part of the research is well established. UV is not photosynthetically usable. Hence, corals develop pigments to reflect UV back at higher wavelength which can be used for photosynthesis. Hence, we notice the fluorescence.

Moreover, UV gets filtered with depth in ocean. Hence, deeper SPS do not get much exposure to them. On the contrary, its the SPS on shallow reefs that get exposed to the UV.

 

[Posseidon]

Did you have the Radion Pro? I heard that version is a lot better for coloration..I currently have gen 2 and was thinking of upgrading to the Pro. Maybe when they release the new models early next year...

Here's an article that might help you make the choice:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/aafeature

 

[Posseidon]

I took PAR measurements on my tank. They were 1200 to 900 near the top 450 near the middle and 150 to 225 on the bottom. The spread was pretty consistant everwhere in the tank except in the corners. There is no reason to believe that you need to run an LED tank at 150 par for it to be a success with LEDs. Flow and water chemistry are probably more important then a perfect light source.

My water chemistry is pretty good. Everything is in good range. Light intensity/spectrum is something I'm trying to finalize on this thread.

However, I have no idea how water flow impacts colors of SPS. can you share more on that or provide some good links?

 

[power boat jim]

My water chemistry is pretty good. Everything is in good range. Light intensity/spectrum is something I'm trying to finalize on this thread.

However, I have no idea how water flow impacts colors of SPS. can you share more on that or provide some good links?

I dont know if water flow directly impacts color. It impacts the overall health of coral though, which could indirectly effect color. If coral does not get enough flow as it grows the center of the colony starts to collect detritus. This will then cause tissue loss and algea will grow on the bare skelton slowly choking the healthy tissue.

You can get the coral to recover if you cut away the center of the colony and place it an an area of better flow. Flow is the only way coral gets oxygen brought to it also. If it is deprived of oxygen and cant rid itself of waste from respiration it will start to fade away as decribed above. Does this effect color the way we think of it? I dont know, but it certainly is a big factor in overall coral health and growth.

 

[Posseidon]

Ok. Thanks. That I'm aware of. And in that sense, yes I have enough flow. They look healthy and show growth. They don't have algae on their polyps. Just not well colored.

Btw, those are some seriously hugh PAR levels! What test kit are you using? And how long did you take to ramp it up to that level?

 

[jda]

If my comments are not helpful, then I will back out, but a 4:1 blue to white ratio is enough white and the green, red, etc. are added back in to simulate a white/full spectrum without the white LEDs, if they are done right... and surely not all of them are. If you have a 1:1 or 2:1 fixture, 20-40% on the white is enough or you can damage the coral with the spikes in yellow, green and red. A fixture with so little white, however, might be unappealing to some human eyes and increase disco, which is where the multi colors come in.

There is some awesome stuff on this thread from the R&D teams from a few sponsors about the deficiency of white LED chips and some coral, especially those in deeper water where it is mostly filtered off and can be harmful:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315500

FWIW, I can get over 900 PAR at the top and near 500 on the sand bed using multiple HQI fixtures with 14K Phoenix bulbs and everything thrives from the few zoas, acans and chalices that I have to SPS.

 

[Posseidon]

JDA, you provide some valuable info too. We're all here to share our knowledge, which may be different at times. Nothing wrong there. In fact, it helps at times to improve our understanding of this complex hobby.

I'll check that link out. Thanks.

 

[power boat jim]

Ok. Thanks. That I'm aware of. And in that sense, yes I have enough flow. They look healthy and show growth. They don't have algae on their polyps. Just not well colored.

Btw, those are some seriously hugh PAR levels! What test kit are you using? And how long did you take to ramp it up to that level?

The PAR levels Im getting are from 6 AI blues over a 180 gal tank. They are set at 51/70/72. It did take a while, nearly 14 months to find a color combination and intensity that looked good and the coral liked. I also found during that time that the higher I put the lights the better color became.I now run all my LEDs 18 in high. Since I had 3 400w MH over it before that things used to a pretty strong light so I only bleached a few pieces in the transition.

 

[Posseidon]

That's great JIM. I guess your corals were used to high intensities.

However,, we got reefers here who've kept SPS from 75 PAR to 1200 PAR. And I believe they all are maintaining them at decent coloration.

Do SPS have great tolerance of light intensity or am I missing something here?
Can the fellow reefers please help me understand this. I use Apogee PAR Meter to get the intensity on my tank.

 

[jda]

SPS can take more of the right kind of spectrum than we can likely ever give them artificially. They can really get hurt under too much of the wrong.

 

[Posseidon]

So, a custom setting similar to JIM (thnx for sharing ur config) should be better for corals. Whites run at around 50% and Blues run at around 70%. This would also suffice JDA's opinion of having less of harmful LED Whites. I'll work on that and update here when done.

Meanwhile, a few things to know. It's been a day now that I've added the supplementary LED bars. I'll try to observe their impact on the corals. And when I reconfigure my main lights (as above), I'll take them offline to isolate the effect.

 

[Pacific Sun RD]

I think that there is a lot of interesting informations about keeping SPS corals under the LEDs:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2315500
A specialy - how white led works, why they are not needed - and why so many aquarists with "old type' LED fixtures with white leds - use them on 30-40%.
Less white=better results.
It so easy - but still many manufacturers produce "perfect and nice looking lights" - but for oue "eyes" - not for corals.

 

[triggreef]

I have bridgelux and have 90 of them on my 72g. I have 6 each of green, red, and UV(as they call it on aquastyleonline dot com) 23 royal blue and 22 true blue the rest 10k white.

Every thing has done ok, montis of all colors do great. acros prove to be a little harder. Some are ok others pale on me. Mostly the blue ones I have a hard time with. I have several yellow acros that hold their color but don't grow much. And a couple smooth skin acros that are great, one blueish green, one yellow with purple tips. Red planet also does well.

I've recently started adding amino acids which I think will help the acros, but its only been a week so far so I cant say either way yet.

I also noticed the color loss after phosphate spiked on me from a consistent .04 to about .25 due to me forgetting to turn the flow on my gfo back up. They were good for several months before that.

Hope that helps its all I got for ya.

 

[jda]

Alright, I drove by a Holiday Inn Express last night, so here is my take... the montis are shallower depth corals (mostly) and can handle the garbage spectrum from most white LEDs better since it is not filtered out by the seawater at the depths they were likely collected at. The acros are deeper, of various depths, and are very likely being hurt by the garbage spectrum. The acros that are doing well are able to reflect the light in the spectrum that they don't need - they can use this as sunscreen. Although this allows those acros to live, the colors are not what they are under different lights because they are reflecting more garbage light back which our eyes see as color. The acros that are suffering are not able to reflect the light and they are being damaged.

 

[Posseidon]

That makes perfect sense with what we observe in our tank. Interesting. And it kinda resembles JIM's configuration from his experience.
I should reconfigure my LED lighting. I'm definitely throwing a lot of white. I'll post here the day I make the change, just to keep track and monitor progress.

 

[jda]

I don't really know, personally. I am really into SPS and I won't use LED on them, so I have no personal experience. However, if you drop the white, then you will/should be putting out less garbage spectrum... so this is good. The spectrum that is left for the coral to reflect and use will impact the color based on peaks and intensity. You will get the best color if the coral can reflect a true full-spectrum source, which is currently not available for LED.

You will get a spectrum shift running the LED at low power - no idea what it is for your diodes, but there are some example graphs for some diodes on that thread linked above.

Here is the thing that you might be thinking next... should I get a full spectrum source to supplement my LED? Only you can answer this. The next question that you might have is... if the LED are not optimal, then why run them at all instead of more of a full spectrum source? Again, only you can answer this for your situation. Both are good questions that have been answered in both extremes of "I love the other things about LED, so I am doing nothing" to the other end of "I am selling them while they are still worth some of what I paid for them."

 

[power boat jim]

White is not a really a garbage spectrum it is a combination of all other colors in the spectrum. There are just different "shades" of white. These will vary in the amount of red, green, blue and everything else depending on what K value the "white" is. So white light can actually provide light in the needed spectrum, it just doesnt spike some of the blues coral needs especially at depth.

 

[jda]

The white LEDs put out too much yellow, green and some red. This is not a white spectrum thing, but a white LED thing. The excess is damaging to some coral and lots of SPS. It is laid out pretty good in the "Open letter" thread linked above which is a must-read IMO for anybody with LEDs and even most people who have a reef.