leds and LPS color changes

[Jstn]

I see, that makes sense, thanks for the info.

 

[haysanatar]

i just feel like if it was a fluorescence problem it would be more immediate not a slow shift like what most people see. What vho would you think would be good? I might consider trying that.

 

[TropTrea]

Im sorry haysanata but you are very wrong about this when it comes to corals. Clorals have chemicals the floresce light. They may absorb light that is at 470nm (blue green) and emit light at 620 nm (red redorange) Without the light at 470 nm they will not floresce regardless how much red light you put on them.

Yes there are also things that reflect red light and look red when you put a red light on them. But these are seldom corals. Actualy many corals are very sensitive to red light and if you put too much red light on them it will bleach out some of florescent chemicals and could eventualy kill the coral. In nature cortals get very little red light and deep water corals do not even see any measurable amounts.

 

[TropTrea]

i just feel like if it was a fluorescence problem it would be more immediate not a slow shift like what most people see. What vho would you think would be good? I might consider trying that.

If a florescent chemical is not getting the proper wave length light to excite it that chemical will slowly diminish and be replaced by a chemical that is getting enough light to excite it. Sine they are two different chemicals they each would emit light at different wave lengths. sine one chemical is diminishing and another flourishing the color will gradually change to that which is emitted by the chemical that is getting enough light.

No this does not happen immediately but over days weeks and possible even months. It takes time for the coral to produce the new chemicals and the old chemicals do not instantly vanish.

 

[cfmx]

Great thread! Tagging along.
I also am having the bleaching of lps and sps under Ecoxotic panorama led.
My system is a 25g Ecoxotic cube w 4- (12w) 12K White/445nm Blue and 3 - (12w) 445nm Blue over my tank.
Reds have turned orange and sps just haven't colored up as they have under 150w MH in our 34g Salona.

 

[haysanatar]

ok see that makes sense I can see a shift in pigmentation

 

[TropTrea]

Great thread! Tagging along.
I also am having the bleaching of lps and sps under Ecoxotic panorama led.
My system is a 25g Ecoxotic cube w 4- (12w) 12K White/445nm Blue and 3 - (12w) 445nm Blue over my tank.
Reds have turned orange and sps just haven't colored up as they have under 150w MH in our 34g Salona.

My thoughts is you have too much red light which does cause bleaching of some corals if in excess. The red light actualy comes from the so called white LED's. I'd see if you can swap a few of the white LED's for Blues 460 nm.

 

[Cptn Spaulding]

The red spectrum penetrates only a meter or so into the water in the wild. The vast majority of corals will NOT grow as fast if you are throwing a lot of red into it, especially LEDs (which are spotlights and penetrate deep), and you will also have the possibility of having more cyano in your tank..

It seems acans are a huge color shifter when it comes to LEDs. My colony of red acans turned slightly orange under a DIY 7kwhite/royal blue fixture. Every other coral looks fantastic and has not changed colors. I also have a tank with nanotuners 20k PAR38 lamps only. Open brains are more colorful than with my T5 bulbs (I have a rainbow, a green/purple, and electric green). Blue/green plate coral has never looked better, my gold/orange acans look a bit washed out but I, at the moment, have not had just actinics on that tank in quite some time, so its hard to say how they really fluoresce. SPS are coloring up (hawkins echinata, tricolor, caroliniana, various acros, pocci's, birdsnests... A pink lemonade acro is growing so fast all of its tips are white), zoas and palys look fantastic, the torch coral in my picture is better than ever. Basically, I keep a lot of different types of corals under the so called "blue-white" setup, all under 20k lighting, and the ONLY coral I have seen to change its color slightly (and only a small amount of time/due to a possible narrow spectrum band and not bleaching) is acan lords, and usually the red/orange/yellow ones, not the green, purple, blue. Red trachys/scolys/lobos seem to retain their color under this lighting. Anyone experiencing trachy/lobo color changes it is most likely not due to the spectrum of light hitting your coral, it is the strength of the light hitting it. They bleach easily. If they turn lighter guaranteed it is getting too much light or at least a bit more than it was earlier.

This is totally an interesting read, and it does seem many people out there don't have much knowledge on LED's themselves. There is a lot of information out there, some false, some true. If someone can find anything about acanthastrea lordhowensis and color shifts due to spectrum of lighting, or the common spectrum it is commonly receiving in the wild, I'm sure it would be a good read.

I read these threads and see so many people talking about lighter colors on their corals with LED lighting. Most of it I feel is due to bleaching, as they are underestimating the PAR LEDs can pump out. Some, as in the OP's case as well as my red acan case, could possibly be due to lack of needed spectrum. In either case, the animal doesn't seem to be hurting. They are thriving and growing, but the original color ceased to be. Is necessary spectrum not as big of a deal as we think it could be long term if there are no obvious signs of stress other than a color shift?

 

[Cptn Spaulding]

Ooh, also.. I have a lighter red acan lord colony under this lighting that has not changed at all. So I suppose not all red acans are created equal?

 

[haysanatar]

i had a gold/ coppery chalice turn into a tarnished copper color its still pretty but its not the goldish copper it was.

 

[cfmx]

So if the thought is my white LED is causing bleaching of color, then I'll need to come up w a solution.
Unfortunately the 4 white LED run on 1 ballast. I wonder if I can plug the LED into a dimmer switch to tone down the brightness? And if this would hurt the LED fixture? Or should I just run the white LED a couple hours a day? My biggest fear is my tiny maxi clam not getting enough light under so much blue lighting.
Currently the tank has 3 blue LED lights running also.
Here is a pic when the tank was first setup. We have removed 2 blue stunners in the center and replace w another panaroma blue LED. Giving the 3 blue lights.

Here my what use to be red acan.

What the color was under 150w MH.

Under LED

Under MH

 

[TropTrea]

The red spectrum penetrates only a meter or so into the water in the wild. The vast majority of corals will NOT grow as fast if you are throwing a lot of red into it, especially LEDs (which are spotlights and penetrate deep), and you will also have the possibility of having more cyano in your tank..

This is only a half truth. While it is true that red is filtered out of the water it is not a sudden instant no red situation. What happens is that for every so many cm of water depth roughly 50% of the red is filtered out and only small percentage of the blue is filtered out. So if you look at it you can take this distance and say at x distance you have 90% of available Blue light available you only have 50% of the available red light, Double that distance and you have 81% of the blue and 25% of the red, triple the distance and you have 73% of the blue and 12% of the red. quadruple the distance and the the blue reduces to 66% and the red reduces to 6.25%. Even if you go 8 times that distance the blue reduces at a slower rate than the red and you still have roughly a 1% ratio of blue to red. The red is still there but regardless the depth but becomes eventually an immeasurable small amount.

Then there is also an issue on the purity of the water that can reduce all light faster under cloudy conditions since each particle reflects light of all wave lengths. But no red is false red is just diminished much faster than any longer wave length is.

Your comment is very true about "reds" and cyno bacteria. Cyno bacteria loves light at 685 nm and can flourish on light at this wave length even when the purity of the water is ideal. But also 685 nm light in excess has been proven to bleach out many of the corals if it is delivered in excess. But "red" as 645 nm has been proven to also be very beneficial to some corals and is a key fluorescing wave length for them.

So for coral growth and florescence some red needs to be there but really only in a very small amount. Theoretically if your have 50 blue LED's and 1 white LED you would probably be giving the corals enough red for there needs.

But the deep blue effect that people see from just a minimal amount of white LED's is not that pleasing when viewing an home aquarium. Without the reds and other colors reflective colors from many fish etc is lost. Most underwater photography we wee is done with bright strobe lights to bring out the reflective colors. a clown fish will have its red body look like a dark brown while the white stripes will look like a bright pale blue. So we added white LED's to the individuals personal likings. Some may like a 1 to 1 ratio other want a 1 to 6 or more ratio.

It seems acans are a huge color shifter when it comes to LEDs. My colony of red acans turned slightly orange under a DIY 7kwhite/royal blue fixture. Every other coral looks fantastic and has not changed colors. I also have a tank with nanotuners 20k PAR38 lamps only. Open brains are more colorful than with my T5 bulbs (I have a rainbow, a green/purple, and electric green). Blue/green plate coral has never looked better, my gold/orange acans look a bit washed out but I, at the moment, have not had just actinics on that tank in quite some time, so its hard to say how they really fluoresce. SPS are coloring up (hawkins echinata, tricolor, caroliniana, various acros, pocci's, birdsnests... A pink lemonade acro is growing so fast all of its tips are white), zoas and palys look fantastic, the torch coral in my picture is better than ever. Basically, I keep a lot of different types of corals under the so called "blue-white" setup, all under 20k lighting, and the ONLY coral I have seen to change its color slightly (and only a small amount of time/due to a possible narrow spectrum band and not bleaching) is acan lords, and usually the red/orange/yellow ones, not the green, purple, blue. Red trachys/scolys/lobos seem to retain their color under this lighting. Anyone experiencing trachy/lobo color changes it is most likely not due to the spectrum of light hitting your coral, it is the strength of the light hitting it. They bleach easily. If they turn lighter guaranteed it is getting too much light or at least a bit more than it was earlier.

This is totally an interesting read, and it does seem many people out there don't have much knowledge on LED's themselves. There is a lot of information out there, some false, some true. If someone can find anything about acanthastrea lordhowensis and color shifts due to spectrum of lighting, or the common spectrum it is commonly receiving in the wild, I'm sure it would be a good read.

I read these threads and see so many people talking about lighter colors on their corals with LED lighting. Most of it I feel is due to bleaching, as they are underestimating the PAR LEDs can pump out. Some, as in the OP's case as well as my red acan case, could possibly be due to lack of needed spectrum. In either case, the animal doesn't seem to be hurting. They are thriving and growing, but the original color ceased to be. Is necessary spectrum not as big of a deal as we think it could be long term if there are no obvious signs of stress other than a color shift?

I think this has a lot to do with how light is filtered in nature and how we are reproducing it in the aquarium. If we graffed out the amount of light that is occuring in the natural ocean it would look more a graph of the root of a fraction. With more light in the shorter blue wave lengths and less in the longer red wave lengths. But artificially produced light like we use has spikes in it at specific wave lengths and other specific wave lengths might have nearly none.

From what I'm seeing, reviewing spectrum's of various LED's, I'm strongly suspecting that we are insufficient in light around 480 to about 520 nm. White LED's produce there least amount of light in this range, and the Blues do not quite reach high enough into this range. Greens LED's if we added them actuarially do not reach down into that range. This aqua green range is where some of the orange and red florescence is excited. If someone is using all royal Blue LED's this low range can even be extended lower to about 475 nm.

Then their are the atinic florescence around 420 nm. This is where years ago we supplemented our corals with atinic lighting to excite the florescent chemicals that liked light between 380 nm and 460 nm. The royal blues peak at 454 and when you get down to 420 are not really producing a Lot of light. So again from this range we could be seeing a color shifting as corals try to adapt to the lack of light in that range.

CREE does make a LED that they sell as a CRI -- LED that I think would be ideal for the reef lighting, when combined with blues. But unfortunately it is a special purpose LED and they get a premium price for it. They also make a 420 nm which again is a special purpose LED at a premium price. If they ever add these to the XPE or XPG line I think they would help us considerably.

 

[palyam]

If a florescent chemical is not getting the proper wave length light to excite it that chemical will slowly diminish and be replaced by a chemical that is getting enough light to excite it. Sine they are two different chemicals they each would emit light at different wave lengths. sine one chemical is diminishing and another flourishing the color will gradually change to that which is emitted by the chemical that is getting enough light.

No this does not happen immediately but over days weeks and possible even months. It takes time for the coral to produce the new chemicals and the old chemicals do not instantly vanish.

Can the coral regain the old chemical if we give it the proper lighting?

or once the chemical is lost, the original color of the coral will never return?

 

[TropTrea]

i had a gold/ coppery chalice turn into a tarnished copper color its still pretty but its not the goldish copper it was.

This could easily be a lack of light at the ideal wave lenght that the chalice floresed at. I see this at the LFS that has corals under Roya Blue LED's. The reds slowly loose there pigments turning black. The tarnished look look is the addition of small black areas. the problem is finiding what wavelenght they need and suplementing it. My thoughts is it is between 480 and 520 nm but I could be wrong, not knowing what specific florescent pigment is involved with that coral.

What are you running for lights now?

 

[TropTrea]

So if the thought is my white LED is causing bleaching of color, then I'll need to come up w a solution.
Unfortunately the 4 white LED run on 1 ballast. I wonder if I can plug the LED into a dimmer switch to tone down the brightness? And if this would hurt the LED fixture? Or should I just run the white LED a couple hours a day? My biggest fear is my tiny maxi clam not getting enough light under so much blue lighting.
Currently the tank has 3 blue LED lights running also.
Here is a pic when the tank was first setup. We have removed 2 blue stunners in the center and replace w another panaroma blue LED. Giving the 3 blue lights.

So your basicly running 3 Blue Strips of LED's and 4 White Strips of LEDs from what I'm gathering. If so yes your ratio of Blue to withe is way to white dominant.

For most the ratio is closer to 2 blues to 1 White, but they range from a 1 to 1 ration to a 4 to 1 ratios . I would reccomend if possible going down to only 2 White strips and adding two blue strips in there place. But do it gradualy not all at once so the corals gradualy adjust to the light change. 5 Blues and 2 white strips would give you a much better balanced ratio gor your corals. Actualy your PAR would increase with this as well.

 

[Cptn Spaulding]

Cfmx, I must say it is probably due to the lighting on there now. That is a lot of light, you're probably bleaching them out a bit, LEDs are no joke. They are used to it by now though, and the only difference is a slightly different color. They all look lighter to me (aka bleaching, which can be caused from too much or too little light, or lack of nutrients). I do like what happened to your acans though. Those looks awesome.

This is only a half truth. While it is true that red is filtered out of the water it is not a sudden instant no red situation.

Yeah, I suppose I meant to say the vast majority of red does not penetrate deep. Thank you for clarifying.

White lights create more PAR than blue lights, so the closer to a 1:1 ratio you have of blue to whites (if you don't have more blues than whites) the more PAR reaching the bottom of your tank. I have also seen, and I'm not sure what they are called so forgive me, an LED bulb that almost looks teal. Now, I'm wondering, how would a few of those with some royal blues and some white bulbs of aquarists choosing fare for the corals? Maybe add a 420 nm actinic bulb or two? If the aforementioned spectra are indeed the most used by corals (which makes sense, and I have heard that before), then this should cover it, not some red and green bulbs which give a fake look to the tank and cause algae?

I also read somewhere that (especially DIY) LED's even if they are rated for the same spectrum, some will be off by as much as a full 1000k, either high or low. Looking at some LED bulbs on DIY kits, I did notice (really only in the whites) that some were more yellow, and some were closer to 10k...and these are 3w Cree LEDs, not some cheap knockoff. I can only assume this only helps the narrow spectral band argument. Anyone have any feelings on just adding a few different spectra of LED to negate this whole argument?

 

[smsreefer]

I think the key to success with LED's is obtaining the proper bin's in regard to getting the correct spectrum of light.

Buying Cool White, for example, in the 5000k - 1000k "grab bag" of loose LED's IMO, is not the way go.
Be specific in getting quality LED's in known spectrum's will provide the correct color rendition and growth

A photon is a photon delivered in the correct spectrum, the corals do not know the difference as to weather it is from a Halide, t5 or Led.

 

[Cptn Spaulding]

If you think Cree LEDs are considered a cheap brand, then you're right. It happens with almost every LED provider. I don't think anyone in their right mind would throw 5k bulbs on a saltwater tank, maybe 7k. It is rare for a bulb to be that far off (i.e. 1000k) usually its minimal, maybe a hundred or two, but if you stare into the sun long enough you can see the difference.

Regardless, I wouldn't hate on Cree LEDs, as they grow vast amounts of coral under my supervision with no problems on the lighting itself. You are right, however, on not getting cheap brand bulbs. They crap out on your sooner, aren't as bright, and there definitely is not as much uniformity between bulbs as per say a more reputable brand. I never said to get "grab bag" LEDs and it will solve your spectral problem, but I did say the slight asymmetry in the LED bulbs themselves could possibly help the whole argument a bit.

Back to the topic at hand, anyone hear of these more teal LED's I mentioned earlier? I believe a company made them in a fixture with blues and cool whites. It gave the corals that extra pop that a typical blue/white lighting system is missing.

 

[smsreefer]

double post

 

[smsreefer]

Captn Spaulding,
I'm not sure what made you think anything in my post was directed at you. It was not.
Just making some points.

I think the key to success with LED's is obtaining the proper bin's in regard to getting the correct spectrum of light.

Buying Cool White, for example, in the 5000k - 10000k "grab bag" of loose LED's IMO, is not the way go.
Be specific in getting quality LED's in known spectrum's will provide the correct color rendition and growth

A photon is a photon delivered in the correct spectrum, the corals do not know the difference as to weather it is from a Halide, t5 or Led.