led lighting schedule

[saltwaterpicaso]

how long is your light schedule for those of you using led lighting. i run mine for 8 hours full spectrum and 2 hours just the blues people are telling me its way to long was just wondering what everyone esle is doing for a photo period

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

sorry my blues run from 12 noon till 1030pm then 10k from 1pm to 9pm

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

interesting question!

interesting question!

I'll admit right up front that I don't know a LOT about LED reef aquarium lighting HOWEVER I do know a bit about other types of reef aquarium lighting.

This leads me to wonder why LED photoperiod would differ from T5, VHO, MH or CF's?

 

[cardiffgiant]

I've found that I need to cut the full spectrum on the LEDs over my frag tank to a shorter photoperiod than my T5 or else I get bleaching.

I've had the best success running 12 hours of blues and 4 hours of full with the LEDs, and 11 hours blue and 5.5 hours full with T5.

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

yeah the guy at abc reef told me today my cyano and other problems is becouse led light is so efficiant that i have way to long of a photo period and to only have the day lights on for about 5 hours tops then just use the blues for the rest of the day. pretty much said way to much light

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

All things aside Gary is totally correct. Assuming the same intensity and spectrum, it doesn't matter what kind of device is actually making the light. It will be hard for us to provide specific advice or agree/disagree with what ABC told you without knowing more about your exact situation, but generally you would choose or adjust the lighting schedule for LEDs following the same criteria as any other technology.

That said if you have a problem you are trying to solve (i.e. cyano) we can help you solve that, if you can give us more information. Adjusting a lighting schedule may or may not be the best way to get rid of a given problem...

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

my tank just looks dingy all the time i do water changes weekly with reef crystals and ro di water. i beleive from using non ro water for a year and having a bad skimmer that my rocks are leaching phosphates. so im going to get a reactor and hope for the best im just sick of my tank looking so bad. for the first year it looked good. now im constantly cleaning the glass and the rock looks horrible lol

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

i see allot of tanks that look prestine and i want to figure out what it takes to have a nice clean looking tank

 

[cardiffgiant]

i see allot of tanks that look prestine and i want to figure out what it takes to have a nice clean looking tank

My strategies are:
-Using RO/DI
-Good skimmer
-Changing filter socks every 3 days
-Weekly water changes (anywhere from 5-10%)
-ROX carbon
-Enough of the right kind of flow to prevent debris from settling in my display
-Occasional dusting of the sandbed with a turkey baster
-Diverse and well maintained refugium (I do most of my water changes from the refugium)
-Regular glass cleaning is part of the kids allowance

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

lol i do all that and have very good equipment. only thing i dont run is carbon ive read allot that some do and some dont so im going with dont for now. will try the reactor i dont see it not helping

 

[SkiFletch]

What LEDs are you using? There is sooooo much variability out there in terms of what lamps people are using. I designed my system to give me just a little more light than my former dual 175watt halide setup and ran a similar photoperiod. Works great for me. More often than not, I've found that "dirty" tanks are the result of poor chemistry, not poor lighting. The only times I've found lighting to be an issue for a DIRTY tank is when there is not enough intensity of light, or it is too red and not enough blue. When "traditional" lamps (halide/t5) color shift, or when there just isn't enough light, you get the algae issues.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

I think this red slime issue can all relate back to the basics:
*run a properly rated skimmer at SG 1.026

lighting is blamed for too many things and Cyanobacteria can grow under any spectrum/photoperiod IME.
If the dissolved organic compounds aren't there, cyano cannot proliferate.

You want to run the best possible lighting schedule for your corals and work from there.

 

[Eastamherstbias]

here is my schedule

 

[BuffaloReef]

You can try dimming them. Did you recently change out the lenses? The output increases when you do. I like to keep my photoperiod a little over 12 hours, regardless of the source. Our livestock are from the tropics where 12 hour days are normal, unlike up here where winter and summer are vastly different. You could toy with your spectrum too. Try reducing the red greens.

Personally I would never run a tank without carbon. That might help elimate the cyno. A phosphate reactor might help too. Keep siphoning it off until you can figure out what exactly is the problem or problems are and fix them.

Most of us have dealt with cyno. You'll be able to get rid of it.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

here's the way I would think of it:

here's the way I would think of it:

we are all CONSTANTLY dealing with cyano

Nobody is exempt. GFO and GAC are a better approach than photoperiod manipulation. GFO and GAC will help reduce DOC's and PO4.

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

yeah i know the constant battle. im going with the reactor and hoping for the best

 

[cardiffgiant]

I know that a lot of people run GAC passively. I've always run it actively in a chamber. ROX is generally regarded to be the best.

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Carbon is really only a part of the picture and probably won't be a silver bullet. Try to work on getting your PO4 down as well (carbon won't really touch that). If you are going to get a single reactor, I'd be inclined to use it for GFO, and run the carbon "passively."

Speaking of, there are "passive" methods that can be super effective, depending on the layout of your sump. Search on here for a thread started by cully a few months ago, he used a slotted piece of PVC to make a sort of passive reactor. Cheap and easy!

 

[saltwaterpicaso]

the reactor is up and running hopefully i see a difference in the next few weeks on the plus side abc reef had some nice tri color frogspawn in and i picked up a nice head of it