High Light Loving Corals Reccommendations

[nightOwl]

I just recently switched over to LEDs (Halide and T5 holdout) and I am in the beginning stages of creating my possible coral list. I have already accidentally killed off a few corals so I think I am going to change my approach a little now that my settings are much lower. My tank is 26" deep so I will need to crank the lights a little to reach the bottom as corals fill in. I know there is not a one size fits all approach, but are there any light loving SPS (Tort, Bottle Brush, Plana, Stag, Milli, etc) that seem to thrive under high powered LEDs? So many things have changed over the last few years with corals and all the fancy names and rebranding...lol. I figured I would ask before making an investment in coals. For a point of reference I am a Radium guy so I don't mind a little blue to showcase/compliment a coral but want to avoid the let me turn on all my blues to show you the coral.


Thanks in advance

 

[jda]

No. The LEDs are not going to be good at the Emerson Effect that happens with other light sources. If you want high light loving corals, you will need to put your MH and T5 back on since they have the red and far-red to allow the corals to thrive with high levels of light.

Most LED tanks have to go lower light and PAR in the blue range. The guys who do have success with high light usually have many panels up very high over the tank and run them at near 100% on all channels... this is like a mini Emerson Effect since they also turn the green, yellow and red up high in proportion to the 450-550nm range. However, by the time that the light spreads from being up so high, it is still lower light than what you are used to.

You can have some good success with low light levels with the LEDs, it is just going to be different that what you are used to. The growth is going to be different. The color is going to be different. The ability to live through swings and inconsistencies is going to be different. You might hate it. You might love it. It will be different, though.

 

[illumnae]

I haven't had a single acro not do well under G4 Radions. I used to use the AB+ setting at 90% intensity 16 inches above water level. I used 5 XR30 Pros back to front over a 72" x 28" x 20" tank. I've recently fitted the diffusers on the Radions and lowered them to 12 inches above the water level at 70% intensity to maintain roughly equivalent PAR. I will be raising the intensity slowly over time to get higher PAR levels.

 

[Stickboy97]

Funny, I read post after post like the above about LEDs & they are just wrong. There is a local reefer here that I met that has probably 2500g in fish tanks, all covered by cheap LEDs. Nothing fancy just lots of light. He grows everything and fast. His corals grow so well they break the surface constantly causing him to trim.

If you doubt LEDs, you haven't seen the right tanks!

Now back to the OPs question.... What corals are good for high par?

 

[Piper27]

Robusta, abros, humilus or anything thick and nubby are high light acropora. I have never seen a led tank full of or even have one of these corals unless they were doing what jda mentioned and had the whole top of the tank packed side by side with LEDs fixtures. I have seen some of them do well like this. But I find the LEDs can really bake the corals from the topside and make the corals almost white, when they are actually growing and healthy. Also the corals that normally do well in the high light led tanks are the branching ones and stags that are closest to the reefcrest.
I would love to see a tank with LEDs side by side covering the tank that uses one of thoes fixtures with the frosted glass that blends the light better. I think radion has them now but whenever I read a post from radion (or other led) users describing what they are doing it always reads like gibberish to me.

Night owl, I would love to see a tank like this. These are my favorite corals. Live aquaria labels them as digitate acropora from what I remember? I would love to hear from any led users that are successfully keeping any of these acros too!

 

[illumnae]

Sorry just to clarify - I used a double negative. All my sps do wonderfully under radions. I have tabling, stags, colonies and they all do well. This was before installing the diffusers.

 

[SDboatguy]

FWIW Adam @ Battlecorals has a great selection of SPS grown under LED as well as MH and T5. His LED tank is quote "blasted", so an option to get corals grown in that environment is something other vendors don't offer.He may not always have an LED grown piece , but having a chance/choice to get coral grown under specific lighting is a plus. I think getting coral grown under similar lighting to match your tank equals more success and less headache.

 

[Piper27]

Very true, Adam is running a very good buisness that's for sure!

 

[jda]

I can grow CITR Red Dragon out of my tank under 750 PAR of MH. You will kill it doing that with any LED that I have seen. It is different, so be careful and go slow with high light from LEDs. You might very well like it better, but a paradigm shift is likely needed for good results.

You know what high light actually is since you used it in the past. Most people just talk about what they have seen with their eyes or at a friend's house... and our eyes are not a good judge of high light.

 

[nightOwl]

Thanks for the input everyone. Looks like there will be some growing pains and or just getting use to new lights. Eventually I will get use to it.

 

[Tripod1404]

I can grow CITR Red Dragon out of my tank under 750 PAR of MH. You will kill it doing that with any LED that I have seen. It is different, so be careful and go slow with high light from LEDs. You might very well like it better, but a paradigm shift is likely needed for good results.

You know what high light actually is since you used it in the past. Most people just talk about what they have seen with their eyes or at a friend's house... and our eyes are not a good judge of high light.

Under a reefbreeders photon V2, I have a stylophora that receives ~850 PAR, a milipora that receives ~730PAR and a digitata that receives ~600. These numbers are measured using a PAR meter and my lights are tuned close to SPS AB+ settings (4-1 ratio of UV/Deep blue/Cool Blue to Red/Green/White light). So SPS corals can diffidently be grown under high light conditions using LEDs.

However, when doing so, corals need to be acclimated to LED based higher light conditions very slowly. I was doing 5% per week increments in intensity while I acclimated my corals. Anything faster and they almost always start to turn white. I think acclimation is one of the biggest issues with LED lights. When you get a new coral, it is very hard not to bleach it without reducing light intensity and putting it on the sand and that doing this 5% increment thing all over again as you move up the coral. This makes it not very practical when it comes down to adding new corals because they get stressed when moved around as well.

When I had my MH, I never had to light acclimate SPS corals. They would directly go to their final locations on the rock and didn't need to be placed low and gradually moved up.

I assume this is because of very intense light produced by a very narrow wavelength range by the LEDs, plus low diffusion (so very direct light). It got somewhat better with improved LED lenses that provide better blending. The first generation LEDs need to be 15+ inches above the water not to bleach everything.

I like the fact that reefbreeders list the MH equivalent LEDs. For example, their light rated as 220W at full power has a MH equivalent of 500W. And that power is just coming from 72 point light sources rather than the large surface your would get with a 500W MH bulb and the reflector.

 

[jda]

The power equivalency is not true - all of the vendors misrepresent this. 500w of MH has way more power than 220w of LED. Just a 250w Radium on M80 has 1500+ PAR 8 inches under the water and a single one of these can produce more radiated watts than a 48" ReefBreeders fixture... at the bottom of a 28" tank, there is 400+ over every square inch on a LumenMax. You still need a watt for a watt minus about 2% for IR wasted in a 20k Radium bulb... and the power supplies give that 2% right back most of the time. Now, not everybody needs this much light, but for the people who do, you see them running 3x Radion XR30s for ever MH that they took off of their tank.

The Photon V2 is pretty much equivalent to a 150w HQI Halide using my Apogee 510. That is a really good compliment since 150w HQI is a great reef light that is low wattage with great color and growth. However, I think that if most people knew that just 300w could light a 4x2 surface area then they would never consider LEDs... this is a far cry from the 2x400w with 4x54w T5s that people like to use in their strawman for one or another.

The reason for LED acclimation issues can be lenses, or it can be from too high of peaks in the white diodes. The lack of Red and IR cannot contribute to The Emerson Effect for coral to be able to handle high amounts of light. All of this adds up to the burn from LEDs that are not there under Halides. This is not a "too much" thing, it is a "bad quality" thing. Dana Riddle has some great discussions on the other board about this.

 

[Stickboy97]

Just went to Marine Depot and looked at MH Radium lights. They aren't cheap. $350 for a 12x12 pendent. So for a 4' tank, you need what 3? That is not a cost savings? Maybe over Radions, but my RapidLED lights were about the same price, grow SPS & look way better. Not to mention the heat that isn't produced & the cost of use that isn't wasted.

Plus, I've seen tanks using $100 Bloomspec LEDs from ebay that grow coral out of the water... that's a huge cost savings.

I'll keep my LEDs.

Now back to the OP... lets talk corals not lights.

 

[Tripod1404]

The power equivalency is not true - all of the vendors misrepresent this. 500w of MH has way more power than 220w of LED. Just a 250w Radium on M80 has 1500+ PAR 8 inches under the water and a single one of these can produce more radiated watts than a 48" ReefBreeders fixture... at the bottom of a 28" tank, there is 400+ over every square inch on a LumenMax. You still need a watt for a watt minus about 2% for IR wasted in a 20k Radium bulb... and the power supplies give that 2% right back most of the time. Now, not everybody needs this much light, but for the people who do, you see them running 3x Radion XR30s for ever MH that they took off of their tank.

The Photon V2 is pretty much equivalent to a 150w HQI Halide using my Apogee 510. That is a really good compliment since 150w HQI is a great reef light that is low wattage with great color and growth. However, I think that if most people knew that just 300w could light a 4x2 surface area then they would never consider LEDs... this is a far cry from the 2x400w with 4x54w T5s that people like to use in their strawman for one or another.

The reason for LED acclimation issues can be lenses, or it can be from too high of peaks in the white diodes. The lack of Red and IR cannot contribute to The Emerson Effect for coral to be able to handle high amounts of light. All of this adds up to the burn from LEDs that are not there under Halides. This is not a "too much" thing, it is a "bad quality" thing. Dana Riddle has some great discussions on the other board about this.

10:30 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=632&v=OyWgNtMuY3Y

 

[jda]

I have seen this tank in person. It is nice. It is 80-85% of what it could be with better lights. Most people do not have the breath and depth of knowledge to know or tell the difference, but for the people who can, it is good tank, not a great tank. It has nothing on Copps, Ed, JBNY, Ty, etc. Jason Fox's are better, IMO.