Do I have too much light? LED fixture

[ffeschultz]

Hello all, I have a Chinese led light fixture that I've been running for about 6 months now. I bleached my corals at first running it at 60% after running 50% for about 2 weeks. I currently am running it at 30% and colors have come back pretty well. The fixture has 88 3w cree LEDs for a total of 264 watts. I have a 72 gallon bowfront mixed reef. Is this too much light? Should I be running at a higher percentage than %30? Thanks, eric

 

[jbm421]

I would think you should be able to turn it up quite a bit more than that without having issues maybe just didn't have enough patience while trying to acclimate them to that light.

 

[Ron Reefman]

What kind of light did you have before the new leds? And bleaching coral isn't always due to too much light. You really need to find a PAR meter somewhere. Your eyes just don't work well for judging how bright lights are. I have a PAR meter and have done lots of tests for friends with leds. Several of them were convinced their leds were too bright and were running them at low power settings. The PAR meter said they were lucky to have anything but the heartiest corals because they weren't getting nearly enough light. I have 198 3w Bridgelux leds over my 180g DT and I run blue at 90% and white at 60% for 5 hours, with a 4 hour ramp up and a 6 hour ramp down. My PAR at 22" is 200-225. I've read that Crees are probably 20-30% brighter than Bridgelux, but I can't say I've seen that in my tests with the PAR meter.

 

[mcgyvr]

yes to the par ^^^
however I can guarantee that 260+ Watts is too much for 72G..
150W should be plenty.

 

[ffeschultz]

thanks for all the information fellow reefers. The fixture I was running prior to LEDs was an aquatic life 4 bulb T5. My corals have been slowly getting color back. The lighting looks pretty good in the tank, but I just feel like i want to utilize all the power that I have in this fixture. You're right, I need to get a PAR meter to get a guaranteed answer.

 

[ffeschultz]

The LED fixture I bought was made custom in China for me and I requested the most power I could afford. Guess it may be way too much. Bummer! Guess I'll have to buy a taller/bigger tank.

 

[cy93]

Hi ffeschultz, could you please pm me the link/details of the fixture you are using as I'm also looking at getting a Chinese LED fixture. Thanks.

 

[wayne in norway]

It's a lot of light compared to what you have before, and is a fair bit for the tank, but not totally outrageous. I would happily run a couple of Radions at 100% over that size tank and that's about the same wattage and who knows if the par is comparable or the efficiency of the Chinese unit.

You may need some time to acclimate the corals tho', and you should expect significant colour changes.

I would say at 30% you will probably have pretty low light levels. What corals do you have, and, are you sure you bleached the colours, or why they just lightening (which is to be expected)

 

[ffeschultz]

The corals that I have that I saw complete bleaching from were green birdsnest. My green Acan faded quite a bit and may be slowly recovering. My hollywood stunner chalice went from pretty green to very light tan colored. The hollywood stunner is coming back slowly but surely. The lighting certainly looks dim to the eyes. I've also heard that LEDs can be misleading as far as they're appearance. Maybe I'll turn them up a bit and see what happens. CY93, Ill send you a link.

 

[ffeschultz]

this is the fixture for reference
http://www.ledaquagrow.com/productshow.asp?bid=18&tid=18&sid=18&id=35

 

[ffeschultz]

I attached a pic of my tank. its a small file but it may help show how dim it looks.