Attempt to color up SPS under LED

[Posseidon]

This thread is not to compare LEDs with any other light source. So, I don't want this thread to turn into such a discussion. SPS have shown good color and growth under MH. No denying that.

There are many RC members that have proven such color and growth under LEDs too. However, LEDs are new to the hobby and are more challenging than MH.

I've done a lot of reading and on RC forum and Google and have a fair understanding. But will need help of all those successful reefers out there.

I start this thread with one sole attempt... To color up SPS under LED lights. I'll keep the thread updated with progress and pics.

So, here it goes...

I have four SPS, one pink birdsnest and 3 acroporas. These were under 20000K + Blue (440nm - 490nm) + UV (380nm - 430nm) LEDs when I got them. They had a decent hint f their oriiginal colors. I would say they were about 50% of their full color.

I brought them home to my tank, and they gradually got brown over the next three weeks. I had decent water parameters. My Nitrates was at 10ppm and Phosphate was less than 0.25ppm (but not zero).

So, over the next three weeks I brought down both Nitrates and Phosphates to undetectable levels. That resulted in my Acroporas becoming pale. However, Birdsnest lost only a little bit of brown tint though.

Now, my mission is to make these SPS colorful. :deadhorse1:

By the way, all my other corals, LPS, Mushrooms, Zooanthids etc are doing well and have good colors. Even the growth of my coralline algae is good enough.

My tank: 50G Display and 10G sump (Water Volume not Tank/Sump Size)
Nutrient Export: Skimmer, MacroAlgae in sump (Chaeto and Red Grape Algae), BioPellets.

Water Parameters:
NO3: Undetectable
PO4: Undetectable
Ca: 460
KH: 6

Lights: Custom built 64 LEDs fixture (32 Blues and 32 Whites), 3W Bridgelux LEDs with 60 degree lenses.
Blues: 18 blue 460nm /8 moon blue453nm/ 6 purple427nm
Whites: 10000k / 14000k / 18000k
The fixture runs with timers to simulate 24 hrs of light cycle. From sunrise to sunset with moonlights run at night.

Here's the section of my tank with SPS:

The only thought I have now is that, just blue and white LEDs may have limited spectrum to support SPS.

Suggestions please.

 

[Reefer54]

I would refer to spectrum charts. While different sps need different spectrum of light, You should see what spectrum your customs are emitting. I personally added, red, green, orange and yellow besides the 20k,14k and 10k whites, and royal and cool blues to as close to fully simulate full spectrum of light.

Check Biggles. He's an aussie member that shows remarkable color regeneration in his wild caught browned out lfs sale finds. He knows his SHtuff.

I would also question what are you dosing....iodine, mag, stront....or do you depend on water changes for proper levels.

GL

 

[Posseidon]

Which spectrum chart to be precise? Please share the link if available.

It'll be quite hard to get spectrum info since this is a custom built LED fixture. I can probably try to get some PAR readings and post them here if that helps. How are your SPS doing? Did you have red,green,orange and yellow all along or did you add them later? If latter, what difference did you notice upon adding them?

Thanks for the hint on Biggles. I'm reading that thread now.

I don't dose anything and rely on reef salt mix used in weekly water changes. I used to have RedSea Coral Pro Salt. Currently, I'm using Seachem's ReefSalt. I feel the elements in the reef salts are in safe proportion and with weekly water change of 20%, they shouldn't be much depleted either. What's your say on this?

 

[jorda9095]

i've been reading a lot now that just blue and white LEDs are not enough to bring out colors of every coral. i would think about adding more different shades of blue, some green, yellow, and red like mentioned above. ive read that this is the way to go now. having said that i just have white and royal blue. ive been thinking about doing some kind of upgrade to a full spectrum but am waiting for some more cash. ive noticed my tricolor acro turned completely green. other than that most of my corals are the right color.

 

[jim95926]

leds

leds

Have you tried slowly lowering your lights? This helped me with my sps when they started browning under cree leds. They all colored up in about a month.

 

[Posseidon]

Ok. I'm on it. I'll add supplementary LED bars with the following LEDs:

Blue: 470nm
Green: 520nm
Red: 660nm
Cool White: 6500K
TV: 400 - 410nm (Some ppl call this UV)
Cold White: 20000K

I'll set it up in about a week's time.

 

[Posseidon]

Have you tried slowly lowering your lights? This helped me with my sps when they started browning under cree leds. They all colored up in about a month.

I'm glad that they colored up for you. My big Acropora frag had green tips. Once I took it out and placed in a lower intensity light for about 5 hrs while I was restructuring my rock work. Since then, I lost all the colors from its tips and it became completely brown. Now, I have another small frag with purple tips and neon green polyps.

I don't wish to lose its color and hence want to be sure before lowering the intensity.

The common belief out there now is that if the intensity is low, the SPS brown up due to increase in zoox population. And under high intensity, they become pale due to reduction/expulsion of zoox from the coral. So, theoretically, lowering the intensity on a brown frag should only make it more brown. But lowering it on a pale frag might help.

I've got both, Birdsnest is brown and Acropora is pale. Were your corals pale or brown before coloring up? Maybe I should move the Acropora lower in the tank. What say?

Did you do any other changes along with lowering the intensity? Please share. Sometimes, its a combination of changes that result in coloring up the SPS.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Coloring back up can take months, if you're lucky, some SPS can regain in weeks...

I've only run into browning when I shocked the coral or didn't acclimate slowly over an hour. Temperature is also a big factor, keep it within 76-84, stability isn't necessarily good but if it goes outside that range, you'll see browning or bleaching.

You also need as much indirect random flow as possible.

 

[Santoki]

From your original post and description, it sounds like your inquiry could very well be from anyone introducing frags to a newer system, be it LED, MH, or T5s, as you seem to still be struggling for consistency and stability. As FlyPen mentioned, SPS can take months to regain optimal health after any shocking changes (this has been my experience as well). For example, you mentioned that you acquired your frags from a LED setup and they browned out after they were introduced into your system. This could very well be related to the fact that your nutrient levels were dissimilar to the system from which they came. Then, you drastically reduced dissolved nutrients in a relatively fast 3 weeks, which caused them to become pale. This paling is only a reaction to the change and should not be assumed to be the baseline state. In order to truly witness the effects of this water chemistry change, you need to keep all other aspects, including lighting, the same, while at the same time, keep water chemistry levels consistent, without any breaks or lapses. Only then can you really start to gain a baseline for this combination. In short, if you want to figure out what to do, you must start by changing one variable at a time, and give it a few months to set before making another change.
Just something I found that works for me...

-Robert

 

[Posseidon]

I maintain constant room temperature round the clock. It's always between 80 and 81.5. I have a regular wavemaker that alternatively switches on and off.

Well... I'm not struggling for consistency. I was constantly maintaining my tank with NO3 at 10ppm and PO4 at less than 0.25ppm. But when I saw my SPS browning, I started maintaing NO3 and PO4 at 'undetectable' levels, consistently.

And yes, I brought it down in three weeks. Was that too fast? What period would have been good? The tank I brought it from had 'undetectable' levels of NO3 and PO4, and is the reason why I brought it down too when I saw SPSs browning.

Now that I recall, I did increase the intensity of the LEDs by 15% during those three weeks. And then the big Acro frag got pale. Don't know what's bothering it. I had read that in ocean too, the nutrients in water are very low. And zoox get their nutrients from coral's extracts instead of depending on the water. Isn't the same applicale here? Shall I place them in shade for a couple of days? They don't show any polyps extensin either.

By the way, Birdsnest seems to be getting better. It's got some new growth. This is the first time it has shown growth since I got it. It shows good polyps extension too. If there's anyway I can help it further in achieving its true color, please let me know.

The two small frags of Acroporas are holding up fine with the same color as purchased, but they have a lot of potential to color up better. They were added after reaching ULNS.

 

[FlyPenFly]

Birdnests and some millis can recover quickly. Some acros like Strawberry shortcakes and some of the more attractive ones recover very slowly.

As for the ocean, it's food rich and nutrient poor. It would be a hard task maintaing the level of food that the ocean provides coral in live plankton and other whole particle live food.

 

[Posseidon]

Does supplementary feeding affect the colors? Many RC members have beautiful colors without supplementary feeding. They claim that fish feeding provides the nutrients in water column and corals can get that. Yet, there are others who do.
I believe the glass algae that we clean with our magnet-cleaners are also live food for the corals. Plus the the bacteria from Biopellets. We can't provide the diversity of food like the ocean but all these factors do provide sufficient alternate food.

So, will that influence the zoox population in Acro? If they get plenty of food from water, will they reduce the zoox population and go pale?

 

[asid61]

Przemek from that one sponsor (I forget who) has the best information on what wavelengths of leds bring out which colors in corals. Green, cyan, and amber were very good IIRC, but there were some others on there.

 

[FlyPenFly]

I believe the glass algae that we clean with our magnet-cleaners are also live food for the corals.

There's a difference in this hobby between "believing" and proven repeatable results under laboratory conditions.

Almost everything I've read on reef forums is repeated hearsay like the game telephone. Sure there might be a nugget of truth but I just don't believe anything I read on forums anymore unless there's more to it than just anecdotal evidence.

 

[Posseidon]

Fair enough. But glass algae are phytoplanktons too. They disperse like fine dust upon cleaning. And corals eat phytoplanktons. Isn't this more of a fact? Anyways, that's not relevant for the topic in hand.

The question is, whether supplementary feeding influences coral coloration. Appreciate if experienced reefers can share their observations.

 

[Posseidon]

Alright. All LED gurus out there. My supplemenatry LED bars are ready. Need all the expert advise available to do this right.

My main LED fixture has 64 3W LEDs. (Description in first post). My supplementary bars have 27 1W LEDs in one row, each.

I've made two supplementary bars:

1) Colors: Cold White (20000K) & UV (400nm-410nm) / Ratio: 1:1

2) Colors: Red, Green, Blue, Cool White
Layout:

With this, I think I've covered more or less the entire spectrum. I've positioned 6500K in such a manner that it dilutes every color at some point to create some mixed spectrums.
3W LEDs are way too powerful. I haven't even reached full intensity yet and got an Acro paling on me and can feel that my tank is not yet ready for any higher intensity. I've used 1W LEDs for supplementary because 3W of Red or Green are too intense on any coral they fall. Not to mention how bad intense red and green on sand and rocks look. And 27 LEDs in a row with 120 degree lenses to cover 97cm length makes them quite close enough to mix and blend when they fall on the corals. In just as little as 6inches from the bar, the overall color from this bar is already white.

Now, the question is, HOW DO I INTRODUCE THESE TO MY TANK?

1) Together or one after another?
2) How about hours?
3) Should the supplementary be on when the main light is at its peak or another time like dusk or dawn simulation?

Any other hints or suggestions?

 

[CHSUB]

it looks simple to me....you're starving your acro's.

lets assume you're providing adequate lighting and look elseware. Acro's obtain food from two sources; their symbiotic zooxanthellae and particles of food the polyps capture. In strong lighting corals obtain less nutrients from their zooxanthellae and rely more on food capture. Hence, brighter more colorful corals with brighter lights and lower nutrients. Generally zooxanthellae will find enough nutrients with very low levels of both po4 and no3, and in shallow waters and brightly lit tanks they actually produce less food for the coral and the coral requires more particle food.

From looking at that first photo it seems clear your acro's are finding very little particle food as I only see one fish and very clean rocks.

I think you would see improvement with more fish and feeding while maintaining nutrients low.

 

[Posseidon]

Hmm... Interesting. Well, it does look like starving.

But please help me understand this. When my Acro browned, I thought it probably was starving and hence increased zoox which in turn made it brown. So, I upped the light intensity to reduce browning. And it became pale... and is it still starving?

I've got:
1 Yellow Tang
1 Blue Tang
1 Flame Angel
2 Oscilliary Clown
1 BlueStreak Wrasse
1 Dottyback
1 Black and White Damsel
1 RedFire Shrimp
1 Cleaner Shrimp
3 Turbo Snails

I feed them once a day with Flakes, Mysis or Pellets. Shall start feeding them twice a day or once heavy?

I've also got H2Ocean Pro SPS Food. But my pale Acro stopped showing any PE when it started browning. And upon raising intensity became pale. But still does not show any PE. Is there any way I can tempt them to extend their polyps? I could then feed it SPS food.

 

[Posseidon]

CHSUB, as of today, I've started feeding heavy. I'll monitor the nutrients closely too.

What about lighting? Maybe that one Acro needs less intense light.

 

[Posseidon]

Those who've managed to keep colorful SPS, please share your PAR levels.