LED power and SPS corals

[epicurus84]

We all know Led's can maintain any sps coral there is.

However what most don't know and blame on poor lighting is dat only certain really really high light acro's can widstand the full power of the current LED's.

I've made this mistake too. I have the pacific sun tritron lights. I had them running at 95% but a lot of corals started dull up collor wise, a really light brown color.

now that i'm turning them slowly down (at 80% now) i just see the color comming back to them.

I also have one arco that was on top, that started growing after i turned down the light.(could be a coincidence).

In short, when you got led's. Don't put them at 100% unless you put them quite high. Also make sure to put the correct sps at the top.

If any LED manufacture is watching this threat. Please make more efficient LED's . Less power better spectrum. But don't go over 150 (tritron in 175) watt for a lamp that is designed to light 60x60 cm (2x2 feet)

(and ps i would love to see some philips rebel lights they should be better then the cree's)

 

[Reefer54]

I think you need to take into consideration more than just placement in tank. how deep is your tank? what spectrum are you running on the tritons, standard, or did you spec em out? what duration of time are the lights on, and at what intensity? Acclimation to lights with new specimens and especially when switching from say halides or vho's to leds... the list is long.

with all due respect, since i know you from adam, maybe some tank specs and even some goals for your stock could be listed for help with the issue. Although it is great to hear you had some positive turning points upon decreasing the intensity.

good luck

 

[epicurus84]

I think you need to take into consideration more than just placement in tank. how deep is your tank? what spectrum are you running on the tritons, standard, or did you spec em out? what duration of time are the lights on, and at what intensity? Acclimation to lights with new specimens and especially when switching from say halides or vho's to leds... the list is long.

with all due respect, since i know you from adam, maybe some tank specs and even some goals for your stock could be listed for help with the issue. Although it is great to hear you had some positive turning points upon decreasing the intensity.

good luck

Offcourse all other issues like flow etc etc are still in place for any sps tank. But i see too many people blaming the LED light for dulling out the corals. While i've seen this too i just wanted to share that currently the leds are soo powerfull that blasting corals with light is not always the correct way to go when you want better colors.

Also i don't really have an issue, it's just a reminder for people to be carefull with running new powerfull Cree like leds at 100%.

More information about my tank:
190 gallon corner tank, mainly with sps arcro's. And old LPS corals from my old tank.

Running biopellets
BBK 180 skimmer
Dosing liquit refill.

and having some good results with my acro's. Where i just see that the lower placed acro's generally do beter colour wise. When trying to lower the light (one of the possible issues) those higher in the tank also showed more color.

 

[phish guy]

i had two 32 inch/205 watt reeftech leds over my 150 gallon (6 foot) tank with the blues at 100 and the whites at 70. gave the tank a greener looking 14k look. i wanted to adjust the settings but with them only being able to be controlled through the computer, the company (and its software) out of business in december 2012, and my computer crashing (with the old software on it) i could not do a thing with the lights. i noticed that my corals were growing very fast, but the color was crap. i got so tired of it, i went with 3 reefbreeder photons for a fraction of the cost of the reeftechs and started them off at 50 percent blue and 30 white channel. they had 90 degree optics but there were bright and dark spots in the tank so i went without any lenses. i have noticed a huge increase in color after one week but too early to notice growth. so i did the same mistake by having the LEDS too high as i underestimated them.