I am running at the moment 56 3 watt cree LEDS over my 106 cube. Im not very happy with them yet but been told to give it some time. After I have already lost about 10 pieces. How do I Know when a SPS needs more light? And when it is to much other than bleaching them out ?:sad1:
Help with my sps and lights
- Thread starter RaeRae
- Start date
I have not seen very many successful sps tanks using LEDs, I would suggest switching your lighting especially if you are loosing that many pieces. It's pretty hard to get too much light for sps the problem with LEDs is the light is so focused from each individual lens. I had similar problems as you and switched to t5's and my problems went away.
Felixc395
Registered Member
To be frank this is false advice. If LED's didn't work for you, I understand. However have you looked at all the tanks with great success under LED? I love my LED's! I gave them about a month and a half and now my corals are doing great! I have a young tank however, so only time wil tell. I'm not trying to be rude here, just saying that LED's DO WORK!!!
To the OP, how have the pieces died? What do they look like when they die? Has this been common before your LED switch? What lights did you have before LED's? Can you dim your LED's? Definitely need some more info to help, but I hope all goes well. I'd guess that you're running them 100% which will absolutely shock the corals with a good chance of dying. But until more information is presented, I can't tell.
What, thats not true I have leds and when i switch from T5 and i didnt loose nothing at all . The problem everyone keep having is buying led that are not dimmable thats a no no. Sps need to ajust to the light . Led are very powerfull , you need to start with a very low % first like 10% then every two Weeks ajust to 10% till you feel that good for you . Its been 6m now i been on led and i tryed 70% and 100% and notice color fade so have to dimm it down back to 50% were it will stay .
brassmonkyballs
BMB
+1 and agree with Felix and batt. I'm a long time LED user with DIY LEDs. Whoever said you can't over light SPS is incorrect.
Is that a DIY fixture you're using? What are the specs?
Is that a DIY fixture you're using? What are the specs?
Yes it is a DIY. I have complete control of the color and power. I got the units from rapid led. I run a tottal of 56, three watt cree. 24 cool white and 32 royal blue. With 40 degree optics 15 inches of the TOP of the water. In a 24 inch deep tank. It seems all my birds nest are doing fine as well as zoas, brains,elagence coral. Very lil change in them. I ran 2x250 MH pheonix bulbs before and NEVER lost a coral. I had a great looking tank and was just going to try and get ahead of this led curve while I still could get rid of my MH for a resonable price. In which now it didnt pay off. And no I dont have them at 100%. I started at about 50% and increased 10% every 2 weeks. I dont want this thread to be a gotcha thread. I just asked. How do you know when SPS need more light or less light?
Felixc395
Registered Member
They need less light when they bleach, fade in color, etc. More light, now that's a little harder. If they're not growing and you eliminate all otter factors, then they may need more light. However this shouldn't be a problem.
You still haven't answered how they look. Are they faded in color? Bleaching? With 40* optics you can get some serious punch. Are your SPS up high? Where are your other softies, zoas, LPS located? I really feel like you have too much light. It is way too common among LED users.
You still haven't answered how they look. Are they faded in color? Bleaching? With 40* optics you can get some serious punch. Are your SPS up high? Where are your other softies, zoas, LPS located? I really feel like you have too much light. It is way too common among LED users.
brassmonkyballs
BMB
+1 Felix on the less light and bleaching. 40 degree optics are way too tight IMO. I'm running 90 degree lenses, 9 inches off the water dimmed back to 450ma or 50%..its a 4x2x2 120G. How long of a lighting period are you running? I run my RBs 11 hours and my whites which include some greens and reds for 6 hours. I've never killed anything but have bleached stuff during all my experimenting. I have found too much white will also do it.
Felixc395
Registered Member
Yep, I've seen your tank and it looks great, very sleek and elegant!
Just for reference for the OP, I have AI's. It's safe to say that they are very strong! I only run my lights for 7 hours and peak intensity at around 58% for about a half hour. They're also about 3" off the water line. My Idaho grape Monti has taken off and my efflo has shown some nice PE. With the dimmable LED kit such as yours, you can mess around with things. If your corals are fading and bleaching, dials things down for a week or two and then see how things go. Patience will help a lot and most LED users (myself included) are tempted to just crank them up to 100%!!! But, lower light can in some cases create better color, and I much rather have less light and slower growth than too much and dead corals...
I have switched from MH's to diy led's and my sps are continuing to grow fine. Start low and slow!! Optics causes a concentrated light so it may be too much light even if you do not ramp the intensity high. Light is important but your parameters are more important. Keeping a balanced tank is key. Goodluck!
Ok so all my zoas and softs are at the bottom. They show no signs of stretching for light. My SPS are mid to upper tank. Some bleached out and others turned brown and just really look like crap. I cant move them because some are encrusted on the rock. I will call rapid LED and see how much it is going to cost me to get some 60 deg optics. I just thought that 39 inches from LED to top of my sand I was going to need the 40s. I have them turned down to 45% and will keep them their for a month now and go from their.
you started out at 50% thats to high , you should of started at 10% and worked you way up to 50% . This is were alot of people start at and kill most of there corals . Remember leds are par monsters thay put out way more par then you MH that you had . I would lower your led to 20% for now. And 40d optices it to tight your focusing out of light in one spot if you can change them to 65d optics.
I'm not trying to start an argument just stating what worked for me, I have seen some tanks where sps did very well under LEDs however this seemed to be much more expensive newer units on the market. I'm old school as I have been in the hobby for 14 years now so I grew up using metal halides and later using t5's with great success. I did have a few pieces that did somewhat well using LEDs but birdnest seemed to turn white and loose color, while different pieces turned brown and looked unhappy. Switching your lighting will be able to tell you if the lighting is what's causIng your problems in the first place. As soon as I switched back to t5's and halides (radiums) on my bigger tank all the Sps which were having issues under LEDs quickly turned around and developed full color again. So... To the op starting this thread, as long as your water parameters are stable and you have adequate flow, I highly suggest trying some different lighting to see if that helps!
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