Attempt to color up SPS under LED

Real world theory

Real world theory

I can answer that and I will let you not I am not biased and while I agree with JDA that there are issues I don't agree that it is "garbage" and that you have to be one the founding old-timer mystery men that are so knowledgeable that they refuse to post to be considered to have "depth" and be successful and I don't agree with his classification of calling passionate reefers newer to the hobby the biocide generation as many of them have very big tanks with significant investment. Furthermore the date on RC does not classify you as a newbie since many including myself go way back. I will say I haven't completely given up on LEDS. Below illustrated from left to right is a Garf Bonsi, Hot Pink Milli, and Palmers Blue Milli. As you can see the colors are simply are not right. These corals are placed in my frag tank with my whites at about 70% and in about 150 par according to my apogee. However other corals such a joe the coral, red dragon, green slimmer, green milli, pearl berry look great. The reason for the current high white utilization is to get the coverage needed for a 150 gallon frag tub. Now If I add two more fixtures and lower the whites to say 20 percent the below corals will eventually color up as they do in my display. The solution in my display was to go with 12 fixtures in a 96 X 30 X 26D run the blues at 100% and whites 20-30 which effectively gives you about 80 watt per fixture and a serious coverage issue thus so many fixtures.

Again I am not dismissing white led and jumping on a bandwagon but have been dealing with these types of issues since running leds for the last 2 years and have enough invested where I just want it to be better even if it involves removing most of my white led as phase 1 or even going back to T5 or MH or a combo of as phase 2.

Edit: I would also like to mention that even though the below colors do not have the coloration that we expect the corals appear to be healthy and growing well.

ledcolor.jpg
 
Last edited:
The blue line is the Cree white XTE that's in a lot of the current newer fixtures.

I drew that red horizontal line to show where any coral that absorbs those wavelengths needs at max from our past experience with bulbs. Where I drew the line resembles the spectral output of a 400W Radium which puts out insane par.

When this white diode is set at high levels it's going to fry any corals that absorb wavelenths in the range of that hump.

That's why only certain corals are affected like in Tom's example pic. Some acros that are affected will get very pastel, light tan or pasty, or bleach.

absorblXTE_zps6e781295.gif
[/URL][/IMG]
 
tdb320reef,

That is exactly how mine look like. I two lowered whites to 30% and blues are set to 90%. Like your sps mine still grow rather well and are healthy. Just lack luster colors. I had whites at 50% and caps and stag started bleach.

Regards,
Zuriel
 
I am just saying that I don't really get much benefit from the noobie that just setup up their tank, love their lights as the "best ever" and "best color ever" when they don't have any history or basis for comparison... and their recent post are about their monti caps, asking what coralline algae is and had a few pictures of their tank with frags on plugs that look like they were just cut, acquired and mounted. Most of you will agree. Of course it does not matter when you signed up, but history in the hobby does matter to me, but this is mostly apparent from the post content and depth of analysis. Message boards are full of people like this, which makes sense since they need the most help. For me, I personally think that the best content and depth of analysis comes from people who have been in the hobby a longer time that have had at least one (two would be better) different forms of lighting, since we are talking about lighting. There are no secret decoder rings or anything.

If you believe that the white LED are cool, then believe it. I am just trying to help with my experiences. I have been at this for a long time and trade high end SPS with people all over the country and nearly all of them believe it too. If this analysis does not work for you, then cool - just disregard it.

I will give full disclosure... I use HQI after a very expensive and somewhat long term experiment with LED in same-system frag and supplement tanks. I never changed my display. I also found that more fixtures with very low white % was OK, but still not great... but to be fair, these fixtures were mostly older blue/white (razor, sol, radion) and not as "advanced" as the fixtures of nine-twelve months later. I still run 3x250W HQI over my tank with no coverage issues, 850 watts of power or about 80 cents a day and I change bulbs every 2 years. I did not see how having 10-15 fixtures (never got there, so I don't know how many it would actually take) at 100 watts was any savings over 3 MH that I already owned. FWIW - I never had heat issues with my LEDs, but I never have any with my HQI or 400W MH either. I try to keep up with LEDs because I am totally convinced that they will meet my every need one day, so I need to know when.
 
jda said:
I am just saying that I don't really get much benefit from the noobie that just setup up their tank, love their lights as the "best ever" and "best color ever" when they don't have any history or basis for comparison... and their recent post are about their monti caps, asking what coralline algae is and had a few pictures of their tank with frags on plugs that look like they were just cut, acquired and mounted. Most of you will agree. Of course it does not matter when you signed up, but history in the hobby does matter to me, but this is mostly apparent from the post content and depth of analysis. Message boards are full of people like this, which makes sense since they need the most help. For me, I personally think that the best content and depth of analysis comes from people who have been in the hobby a longer time that have had at least one (two would be better) different forms of lighting, since we are talking about lighting. There are no secret decoder rings or anything.

If you believe that the white LED are cool, then believe it. I am just trying to help with my experiences. I have been at this for a long time and trade high end SPS with people all over the country and nearly all of them believe it too. If this analysis does not work for you, then cool - just disregard it.

I will give full disclosure... I use HQI after a very expensive and somewhat long term experiment with LED in same-system frag and supplement tanks. I never changed my display. I also found that more fixtures with very low white % was OK, but still not great... but to be fair, these fixtures were mostly older blue/white (razor, sol, radion) and not as "advanced" as the fixtures of nine-twelve months later. I still run 3x250W HQI over my tank with no coverage issues, 850 watts of power or about 80 cents a day and I change bulbs every 2 years. I did not see how having 10-15 fixtures (never got there, so I don't know how many it would actually take) at 100 watts was any savings over 3 MH that I already owned. FWIW - I never had heat issues with my LEDs, but I never have any with my HQI or 400W MH either. I try to keep up with LEDs because I am totally convinced that they will meet my every need one day, so I need to know when.
Click to expand...


Yep - I think you have a great message and story and I am agreeing with your "analysis". I truly value your opinion and plan on listening to you more. After all, your posts annoyed me so bad on how you classify people that I actually followed you and got your message and is what has got me looking in a different direction.

We all have our own styles and as you eluded to there are many people entering the hobbies that are coming here to learn and share but I assure you that the way you describe people vs the vast spectrum of skill sets is much broader than the cilo's that you place them in. Without such tonality your voice would be much stronger IMO and I appriciate you for you sharing your experiences, what you learned,saw and "depth".
 
Last edited:
This is a great thread, tagging to follow.

Quick note "bio-cube" generation, not "biocide" lol. Quite a difference there :).
 
MrIcky said:
This is a great thread, tagging to follow.

Quick note "bio-cube" generation, not "biocide" lol. Quite a difference there :).
Click to expand...

I know but I am not a full member and was unable to fix that and the edit timer ran out. Thanks! I need to pay my fees soon to support the board in addition getting said features!
 
bigzman said:
tdb320reef,

That is exactly how mine look like. I two lowered whites to 30% and blues are set to 90%. Like your sps mine still grow rather well and are healthy. Just lack luster colors. I had whites at 50% and caps and stag started bleach.

Regards,
Zuriel
Click to expand...

Yes - My hypothesis is that the minimizing the whites to max out at 30% (for our pleasure) but leveraging the wasted "wattage" on spectrum that your corals will appreciate. That is Value add! I also did have some success(enhanced coloration) in reducing my photo period form Blue/White 12/8 to 10/7 also food for though.
 
Tron_954 said:
Should I just sell my Radion and get an ATI T5? LOL

Ive also been tempted to retro T5 to my Radion...
Click to expand...

Here is what I said on another thread:

Having been a led user for 2 years for the most part I have been happy with the performance, cost savings, and reduction in total cost of ownership.

As I became more technical and granular in my objective and scope I found that I reached the edge of what I thank leds can do for me specifically with SPS color.

So I don't think that there is any one answer but what I would suggest is do requirement gathering and identify your short term and long term objectives.

I you are running a softie, lps, and sps you will be happy with LEDS. If you become a obsessed SPS nut like I did you will reach a certain limitation which will have you looking for alternatives after taking the LED plunge. It all comes down to your objectives and long term goals.

When it comes to purchasing a LED fixture - the most expensive is not the best. I personally look at the value fixtures because of significant changes to the fixtures eventually lends to you purchasing yesterdays technology so why spend all that money for TOTLine. I learned my lesson when I dropped 1600 on 4 fixtures that barley lit my 300 gallon tank.
 
I concur. My tank is SPS, a frogspawn, and covered in Zoas and Pallys. But my Acros are my babies. & Ive always been fighting with LEDs to get the color I expect but I can never get it.

That is why I am contemplating, if not swapping to a 4x24w, atleast retro 2 T5 Modules; one on each side of my Radion, to give some of that T5 lighting down to the reef... (2 Blue+)

sun%20b%20combo.jpg
 
tdb320reef said:
Yep - I think you have a great message and story and I am agreeing with your "analysis". I truly value your opinion and plan on listening to you more. After all, your posts annoyed me so bad on how you classify people that I actually followed you and got your message and is what has got me looking in a different direction.

We all have our own styles and as you eluded to there are many people entering the hobbies that are coming here to learn and share but I assure you that the way you describe people vs the vast spectrum of skill sets is much broader than the cilo's that you place them in. Without such tonality your voice would be much stronger IMO and I appriciate you for you sharing your experiences, what you learned,saw and "depth".
Click to expand...

I should change my username to doochebag, but that probably would not fly. I know that I am one and you all should feel sorry for my wife and daughters. I don't want to just disappear like so many of the other talented, long-term hobbyists, but at the same time I know that I am terrible with my message. I talk, email and chat with my friends who don't post anymore because of the influx of what I call the "biocube generation" who discount their actual experience with what they learned on the net from each other. Their lack of experienced recent contribution upsets me, but so does the other side. I know that this classification is unfair, but you have to somewhat see what I am talking about, right? We have people in the SPS forum on here giving advice about lights, equipment, husbandry, etc when they have posts on the main page about their monti caps not coloring up in a 2 month old tank. I know that they are just trying to help, and I know that it makes me a dooocher for mentioning this, but some of the contributions are not at the same level that the thread author or other posters... and it sometimes REALLY matters.

I have struggled with the outflux of the experienced opinions and the influx of opinions without experience. I love the hobby and always want to help, but this trend disturbs me. In my town, probably 18 or 19 of the best reefers only browse boards anymore to PM about buying or trading coral since they got sick of getting clowned or arguing. I try to offer what I discuss with these people, but without them chiming in, I am sure that this looks even worse upon me as a know-it-all with a secret society of friends.

I read around here a lot, so if I am always up for a better way to state the message that I can "steal" from other people. I saw one from reefman ron the other day that I though was awesome and I "borrowed" some of it from our local boards - same message that I have been saying, but better said.

My point to most people, albeit probably not very well delivered as you point out, is to choose carefully who you take advice from and to go out and look with your own eyes at tanks from experienced reefers... find people at the level that you want to be. Of course, knowing where you want to be takes a self awareness that lots of adults don't have, so this can be hard with a lot of people.
 
jda said:
I should change my username to doochebag, but that probably would not fly. I know that I am one and you all should feel sorry for my wife and daughters. I don't want to just disappear like so many of the other talented, long-term hobbyists, but at the same time I know that I am terrible with my message. I talk, email and chat with my friends who don't post anymore because of the influx of what I call the "biocube generation" who discount their actual experience with what they learned on the net from each other. Their lack of experienced recent contribution upsets me, but so does the other side. I know that this classification is unfair, but you have to somewhat see what I am talking about, right? We have people in the SPS forum on here giving advice about lights, equipment, husbandry, etc when they have posts on the main page about their monti caps not coloring up in a 2 month old tank. I know that they are just trying to help, and I know that it makes me a dooocher for mentioning this, but some of the contributions are not at the same level that the thread author or other posters... and it sometimes REALLY matters.

I have struggled with the outflux of the experienced opinions and the influx of opinions without experience. I love the hobby and always want to help, but this trend disturbs me. In my town, probably 18 or 19 of the best reefers only browse boards anymore to PM about buying or trading coral since they got sick of getting clowned or arguing. I try to offer what I discuss with these people, but without them chiming in, I am sure that this looks even worse upon me as a know-it-all with a secret society of friends.

I read around here a lot, so if I am always up for a better way to state the message that I can "steal" from other people. I saw one from reefman ron the other day that I though was awesome and I "borrowed" some of it from our local boards - same message that I have been saying, but better said.

My point to most people, albeit probably not very well delivered as you point out, is to choose carefully who you take advice from and to go out and look with your own eyes at tanks from experienced reefers... find people at the level that you want to be. Of course, knowing where you want to be takes a self awareness that lots of adults don't have, so this can be hard with a lot of people.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you on a few things and one of the main reasons I left or limit my involvement in local boards is to get great advice from guys like you. I hope I didn't offend you and sorry to get of topic. You have a great message and I know you are out to help and thank you for that.

With that said, what is your belief on removing all LED whites,reds,green and utilizing another source like 10000K MH or T5 blue specials(12000K) for that low flat tail and leave the 420's and 450's LED for the Blue spike? I ask because many like me that reached that ceiling with leds need to retool and as you know retooling with what you have is much cheaper. I know you called blues an expensive alternative but my thought is leveraging blue LEDS would reduce TCO over T5 or MH with higher K? Do you really think running blue led is more expensive and why? Do you think the results of the combo will be more profound than yesterdays MH, VHO and T5 only combo?
 
Last edited:
My favorite lights are 400W Radium 20K on HQI ballasts (magnetic 400W are good too), 250W HQI with 14K Phoenix (currently on all tanks) and the 400W 10K with VHO Super Actinics (best look IMO, most power needed (lots)). I compromise a tiny bit on extra flouresce from the super actinics and run the 250W HQI to save lots of heat and electricity.

150W HQI Phoenix 14K are really nice for small tanks or shallower tanks with pretty low power and lots of results.

With either the Radium 20K or Phoenix 14K, you will need a LOT of blue to even tell that you put some blue LED on the tank - the bulbs need no supplementation and can stand alone. I had 2 of the 3w reefbrite strips on the tank and you could barely tell that they were on - perhaps there are better solutions than the reefbrite strips for this?

If you do use 10K bulbs, then you will probably want the blue for sure. ...but I don't know bout 10-12 fixtures of blue. :) I don't really care for the look of most Actinic T5s and even the blue LEDs don't look as good (personally to me) as the VHO Super Actinics or MH bulbs like Radium 20K and Phoenix 14K that already are blue without supplementation, so I stay away from 10K anymore.

...so, this is the basis for my comment, if you want to go MH, my opinion would be to just get some nice bulbs like Radium 20K or Phoenix 14K, save the money, heat and electricity of supplementing with blue anything. If you want to go 10K, then definitely don't try out some VHO Super Actinics because you will soon be living in fear that it will be impossible to get them someday since they look so good.

If you want dusk/dawn, then that is TOTALLY different. Just using MH will not help with this.

Also, if you already have some fixtures, then that helps the cost too. My comments might have been more to somebody who had not purchased yet, in which case, even a few of the cheaper LED at $150 is pretty pricy just for blue, and definitely pricy if they get a AI, or something.

If you are going to decide, or have already decided, that MH are the best for where you want to go, start with the MH and look to supplement them, not the other way around. IMO, looking to add MH to the LEDs that you have would be working backwards for your goals. I come at it from this angle, since these are my goals. Others will disagree.
 
It's not surprising that 2 diode type RB/White arrays with the whites dimmed down aren't yielding good coloring. That is just a huge 450nm spike with a trickle of everything else. Diversity of spectrum is lacking in commercially built arrays and I suspect is part of the reason some reefers are dissatisfied with their coloration. The more diversity in the 400-500nm portion of the spectrum the better IMO. With adequate diversity and control you can mimic the halide bulb or fluorescent tube of your choice. The strength of LED arrays is the ability to specify spectrum and intensity by selecting appropriate diodes and drivers.

I have just finished building my own LED array and will be testing it soon. I have included equal quantities of 405nm, 415nm, 430nm, 445nm, 455nm, 470nm LEDs along with a splash of 505nm and twice as many NW as any one blue color. I'll be driving them at a maximum of 450ma with two drivers, one for the 405-430nm and another for the balance.

There is nothing magical and malign about white LEDs. They use phosphor to stokes shift blue light to other colors just like a fluorescent lamp does(lacking the 380ish nm spike). I believe that some reefers cause themselves problems by operating their LEDs at high drive currents that create hotspots directly beneath each emitter. This is a tempting proposition since It's so much cheaper than doubling the chip count at half the drive current. I don't see any problem with using MH or fluorescent to provide the white portion of spectrum, aside from radiated heat anyway.

There as so many variables involved in coral pigmentation, light is but one. It's easy to discount water chemistry, feeding and other environmental variables and just focus on lighting technologies but I think this is an error.

Here are a couple articles from ARK that are interesting reading and relevant to this discussion: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/2/aafeature

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature

If you haven't read them yet I strongly recommend doing so.
 
jda said:
My favorite lights are 400W Radium 20K on HQI ballasts (magnetic 400W are good too), 250W HQI with 14K Phoenix (currently on all tanks) and the 400W 10K with VHO Super Actinics (best look IMO, most power needed (lots)). I compromise a tiny bit on extra flouresce from the super actinics and run the 250W HQI to save lots of heat and electricity.

150W HQI Phoenix 14K are really nice for small tanks or shallower tanks with pretty low power and lots of results.

With either the Radium 20K or Phoenix 14K, you will need a LOT of blue to even tell that you put some blue LED on the tank - the bulbs need no supplementation and can stand alone. I had 2 of the 3w reefbrite strips on the tank and you could barely tell that they were on - perhaps there are better solutions than the reefbrite strips for this?

If you do use 10K bulbs, then you will probably want the blue for sure. ...but I don't know bout 10-12 fixtures of blue. :) I don't really care for the look of most Actinic T5s and even the blue LEDs don't look as good (personally to me) as the VHO Super Actinics or MH bulbs like Radium 20K and Phoenix 14K that already are blue without supplementation, so I stay away from 10K anymore.

...so, this is the basis for my comment, if you want to go MH, my opinion would be to just get some nice bulbs like Radium 20K or Phoenix 14K, save the money, heat and electricity of supplementing with blue anything. If you want to go 10K, then definitely don't try out some VHO Super Actinics because you will soon be living in fear that it will be impossible to get them someday since they look so good.

If you want dusk/dawn, then that is TOTALLY different. Just using MH will not help with this.

Also, if you already have some fixtures, then that helps the cost too. My comments might have been more to somebody who had not purchased yet, in which case, even a few of the cheaper LED at $150 is pretty pricy just for blue, and definitely pricy if they get a AI, or something.

If you are going to decide, or have already decided, that MH are the best for where you want to go, start with the MH and look to supplement them, not the other way around. IMO, looking to add MH to the LEDs that you have would be working backwards for your goals. I come at it from this angle, since these are my goals. Others will disagree.
Click to expand...

Maybe a little ruff around the edges.( I mean this as a joke). You have always answered my questions in local forum. I think talking to you in a pm is way different then the way you post in a thread. You do have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to halides. Can't wait to see the set up.
 
Hi All. Sorry I was gone away for a while. I had a major fault in my power supply and after several attempts could not fix it. I ended up buying a new one. Finding one with the right specs for my fixture took some time.

I'll keep posting my actions until I get the SPS to color up. It might take a very long time but I'll be posting.

Now that my power supply is up and running, here's what I did:

Obviously, I was throwing way too much white. Most of the reefers have the ratio of 2:1(blue:white). However, I've got 1:1. Hence, to match the dimming recommendations of fellow reefers above I've set my Blues at 80% and Whites at 35%. The combination gives my tank a 20000K look in peak hours. I've turned off my supplementary lights for now.

Let's see how it goes from here.
 
tdb320reef said:
I can answer that and I will let you not I am not biased and while I agree with JDA that there are issues I don't agree that it is "garbage" and that you have to be one the founding old-timer mystery men that are so knowledgeable that they refuse to post to be considered to have "depth" and be successful and I don't agree with his classification of calling passionate reefers newer to the hobby the biocide generation as many of them have very big tanks with significant investment. Furthermore the date on RC does not classify you as a newbie since many including myself go way back. I will say I haven't completely given up on LEDS. Below illustrated from left to right is a Garf Bonsi, Hot Pink Milli, and Palmers Blue Milli. As you can see the colors are simply are not right. These corals are placed in my frag tank with my whites at about 70% and in about 150 par according to my apogee. However other corals such a joe the coral, red dragon, green slimmer, green milli, pearl berry look great. The reason for the current high white utilization is to get the coverage needed for a 150 gallon frag tub. Now If I add two more fixtures and lower the whites to say 20 percent the below corals will eventually color up as they do in my display. The solution in my display was to go with 12 fixtures in a 96 X 30 X 26D run the blues at 100% and whites 20-30 which effectively gives you about 80 watt per fixture and a serious coverage issue thus so many fixtures.

Again I am not dismissing white led and jumping on a bandwagon but have been dealing with these types of issues since running leds for the last 2 years and have enough invested where I just want it to be better even if it involves removing most of my white led as phase 1 or even going back to T5 or MH or a combo of as phase 2.

Edit: I would also like to mention that even though the below colors do not have the coloration that we expect the corals appear to be healthy and growing well.

ledcolor.jpg
Click to expand...

are you saying that the corals have become pale because the white leds, so if my corals have become pale because of my whites being too powerful, i can turn down my whites and they will regain color? if so how long would it take?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

newsalt
Aqua Illumination SOL Blue problem
Replies
2
Views
132
oreo57
oreo57
sickman
Juwel Lido 200 - really reef tank ready all in one? Really Really?
2
Replies
39
Views
732
Reefing102
Reefing102
K
Radion time help. (Long post)
Replies
2
Views
100
kj swans
K
A
First SPS coral. Is this bleaching?
Replies
6
Views
531
apavlik2
A
K
SPS Pest?!
Replies
10
Views
1K
griss
griss
Back
Top