leds and LPS color changes

[TropTrea]

If I may..I have been asking questions on why my zoas are losing colors for the past 2 weeks and just came across this..what could i do to make my setup similar to cfmx. My colors have all turned almost exact what youre pictures show. I have a tek 6 bulb elite, with 2 reefbrite leds..none dimmable versions. ati bulbs, as follows

blue+
blue+
aqua blue special
purple+
aqua blue special
actinic

reefbrite 3 w all blue, 48 inch module
reefbrite 3 w 50/50 36 inch
Could i lose the 50/50? or swap in a different kinda t5..i will do anything i just love my zoas and they are all gettin pale..everything is healthy looking open, but my colors are fading fast to looking nothing similar..reds to orange..pinks to brownish pink.etc..? any advice would be much appreciated!!

For your T-5's I would change to
Front
Blue Plus
Purple Plus
Blue Plus
GE 6,500 K
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

This would decrease your red which is often associated with bleaching some coral out.

Also since we do not know what type of White LED's the the 50/50 strip is using you might want to try simply not using it for a few weeks to see if that makes a change. If they are using warm white LED's in it that is also producing a lot of Red Light.

also remeber with Zoos some varieties are very touchy with light. You can one type that is getting too much and another type that is not getting enough under the same conditions.

Initialy I had an issue with Frog spawn where the LED's I was using changed the color from a teal grean to a lime green. But when I switched from all Royal Blues to a combination of blues and royal Blues the color swiched back slowly to a more pure green better than in either of original light combinations. There are over 100 different florescent compounds found in corals each has its own exciting wave lenght and emmiting wave lenght. Most corals have several of these chemiocals and as the lighting balance changes so do the proportions of these chemiocals in the coral. They can technically be just as healthy but there colour will be different.

 

[davidgnome]

With nothing but led blue and 4 ati blue+'s will this be enough of the red spectrum or too much blue? for say sps and red corals that i have?...aslo in a 22.5 inch high tank how high should i have my lights hanging?currently my leds are 6 inches and my t5's are 7..is this good? and what schedule would you run time wise? appreciate the response will be ordering new bulbs tommorow..do you think maybe a magenta led like the guy above added would be useful..also the reefbrite led white kinda seem yellow looking..again thanks!

 

[oceanarium]

I have been playing around for the past several months trying to correct orange.. ing out issues with Acans, lobo's, micromussa and ricordea corals under our LED lights.

Experimenting with adding 405nm to our existing fittings (which we have a number of combinations) has proven to be a measurable and repeatable way of fixing this issue for us in all tests to date.

 

[adw]

I'm running radions and a christmas favia that I have had for over 7 years under many kinds of lighting is slowly changing from the bright red to an orange color. Kind of bummed.

 

[TropTrea]

I have been playing around for the past several months trying to correct orange.. ing out issues with Acans, lobo's, micromussa and ricordea corals under our LED lights.

Experimenting with adding 405nm to our existing fittings (which we have a number of combinations) has proven to be a measurable and repeatable way of fixing this issue for us in all tests to date.

Running the 405's is a l;ittle risky since it has been proven that 420 is benificuial to coral and 380 is detrimental to corals. Unfortunaly most BLUE LED's cut out before 420 nm so you might be able to help that gap pout provided you do not have to much light spliing in the 380 range.

I tried 2 of them in an array of 24 LED's and everyone commented that my whole tank looked pink. I saw no effect on the corals after 2 weeks so I pulled them and replaced them with 490 nm LED's. These seemed to help some of greens that were slowly tuning a lime green color and slowly moved them to more of a teal blue.

Sometimes I hate the narrow bandwidths of LED's but when you have enough of them it is so simple to just plug a few in where you thought something was lacking. Most simple Royal Blue and White combos to me are lacking in the 490 to 500 nm range and in the 415 to 430 nm range. There are nice LED's to cover that longer wave lenght but it is touch trying to fix the "atinic" range.

 

[TropTrea]

I'm running radions and a christmas favia that I have had for over 7 years under many kinds of lighting is slowly changing from the bright red to an orange color. Kind of bummed.

Most of the red pigments that floresce are excited by light in the 470 to 490 nm range. If your only blue led's are royal that would explain it. The Blues do cover the short edge of that range and if you add a couple cyan LED's (Philips Rebel) the rest of that range is covered nicely.

Now there also are a couple reds that are excited by light in the "atinic" range but outside the 405 nm LED's that get close to the dangerious 380 nm range there is noting comercialy available that I know of. If you go with 405's add them sparingly as they do turn the overall look very pink.

 

[drtrash]

Have the same exp with rainbow acans, some chalice. I am running AI sol blue (30% W, 55% B & 65% RB). Will be running lower levels for awhile but reds are more orange, pinks are not sure if I have any pink anymore. Not sure if I should be using more white or less

 

[glang]

I was thinking that for some reason, LED's were turning reds to orange and other colors to a basic brown. Turns out that in the same colonies that I witnessed such color changes, the individual polyps that were "shaded" from the light retained the original nice colors. I've concluded that the majority of my color changes in LPS is most likely due to too much light, not necessarily an LED specific issue. LEDs are just pumping out a lot of light, even when they don't appear to be all that bright. If it were me, I would try (1) turning the lights way down over time and/or (2) moving some of the acans, etc. to more shaded areas.

My take is that the intense light from LED's is just putting the growth of the zooanthellae (sp?) into overdrive, causing the browning of reds into an orangish color, etc.

 

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

Over in another thread,

Chuck, the apogee reads as much as 50% low when measuring LED PAR because it not calibrated to properly measure response in the blue region. It is meant to measure natural sunlight.

Also keep in mind that PAR is not the only lighting variable. Spectrum is important too. spectrum = quality, PAR = quantity.

Here's Apogee's response graph:

Since most "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a white phosphor (called "blue-driven white"), LEDs have a huge spike around the 450nm graph tick. As gbru316 said, that means the Apogee quantum meter under-counts the LED's PUR.

So can the problem be people using a quantum/PAR meter, seeing a false/lower reading than expected due to the nature of the sensor, bumping up the LED output and then over-exposing their corals?

 

[drtrash]

I think when I used a light meter (appogee) I was hitting 150 on the bottom at 50% intensity of light. Unit is 12 inches above 18 inch deep tank. Surface is in the 600-700 range. Will lower intensity and reevaluate colors over next few week. Your eye's are very deceiving when it comes to light intensity.

 

[oceanarium]

Most of the red pigments that floresce are excited by light in the 470 to 490 nm range. If your only blue led's are royal that would explain it. The Blues do cover the short edge of that range and if you add a couple cyan LED's (Philips Rebel) the rest of that range is covered nicely.

Now there also are a couple reds that are excited by light in the "atinic" range but outside the 405 nm LED's that get close to the dangerious 380 nm range there is noting comercialy available that I know of. If you go with 405's add them sparingly as they do turn the overall look very pink.

Not sure were you get the pink look from with 405nm ? I find they don't make any discernible change to the look of the tank itself being a part of the spectrum that is not particularly visible.

Adding spectrum in this range will fix the issue of certain corals orange... ing out with time under white / blue 450nm LED (including green, red, cyan and pink) combinations. Corals we have observed this effect with include some zoanthus and ricordea, red pigments in acan's lobo's and micromussa whereas other coral types we don't see this phenomenon and they maintain normal colouration under LED white and blue combo's as used in many off the shelf fixtures.

Here is some results of tests we have used these emitters in. In each case the corals are clones from the same mother colony and both have been under white / blue LED for some time.

Pink ricordea the one on the right was exposed to orphek 405nm emitters for 7 days.

Red lobo the one on left exposed to 410nm 14 days

Acan the one on the left exposed to UV stunner 403nm strip lights 21 days.

 

[drtrash]

So did the UV 403 stunner add red long term, not sure what the other lights are? Seen a few people add a 403 & a magenta stunner not sure on results

 

[oceanarium]

So did the UV 403 stunner add red long term, not sure what the other lights are? Seen a few people add a 403 & a magenta stunner not sure on results

The red is stimulated buy the near UV spectrum over a number of days to weeks, so long as the spectrum is present the colours remain.

 

[drtrash]

really missing the pinks and the reds. Any benefit to add a magenta stunner? Not sure what the wavelenth is or is it just a red (white bulb). The AI is a great light but there is acolor hole that needs to be filled.

 

[oceanarium]

I use 660 and 630nm emitters in my lights to accent the rendering of the reds and pinks in our tanks. Visually they do add positively to the intensity of viewing things like coralines, pink birdnest corals and orchard dottiebacks. They wont change the colour of your corals though like the near UV will they are simply an aesthetic thing and to taste what some people like others dont.

 

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

I use 660 and 630nm emitters in my lights to accent the rendering of the reds and pinks in our tanks. Visually they do add positively to the intensity of viewing things like coralines, pink birdnest corals and orchard dottiebacks. They wont change the colour of your corals though like the near UV will they are simply an aesthetic thing and to taste what some people like others dont.

Have you seen an increase in nuisance/micro- algae with those wavelengths?

 

[oceanarium]

Have you seen an increase in nuisance/micro- algae with those wavelengths?

The reds are only a small percentage of the total emitters used, I would not recommend going more than about 5% max. My main coral system has about 20 fittings with some portion of red in them and about thirty fittings with no red emitters we don't notice any increase in algae or diatoms between tanks with or without red emitters.

I don't discern a health or vitality benefit from corals using these emitters, its purely personal taste on how my tanks and corals look.

 

[Justin74]

For your T-5's I would change to
Front
Blue Plus
Purple Plus
Blue Plus
GE 6,500 K
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

This would decrease your red which is often associated with bleaching some coral out.
...

It was so nice to have you speak the voice of reason and experience for almost this entire thread TropTrea. Your patience is a virtue, especially in this age of instant gratification! Kudos

However, this last quote I pieced out I have a very strong disagreement that stem from my own personal experiences.

Personally, some of my worst attempts at keeping LPS colorful, and sps true with out visual signs of UV bleaching was when using the GE. An extremely high PAR bulb, that spikes hard in the red range if I recall correctly. Too much, too hard IMHO, and unless the tank is 24" or more deeper, a complete overkill for the coral, and for the eye's aesthetics.

The use of just 2 bulbs; blue+ and 1 GE wont give you the full range of pigments being excited. Specifically greens and purples. Granted the GE has you more than covered for reds, but using is washes the tanks out so much it wont be the vivid red we all strive for. The blu+ will also encourage reds, oranges and blues, but leave greens looking more yellowy and purples seem to wash out as well.

The only thing I would change in your 6 bulb config is drop 1 Aquablue for UVlightings superactinic+ in fact i'd recommend you my lighting front to back:

Geismn act+
UV's superactinic+
Geismn aquablu+
Geisman pure actinic
UV's superactinic+
Geismn act+

Took me a while to finagle this exact combo but has really been the best combo I could find after seemingly trying every bulb in every mix of combos and brands not only through visual aesthetics but long term growth and coloration. Granted some things still need to be partially shaded, but without sounding smug, there really isn't one color under the rainbow that eludes me.

-Justin

 

[victor escobar]

Thank you very much for all the replies to this very inspiring comunication.

Now that I see the complexity of the led's world I also see the possibilities it offers. In particular I think the issue of spectrum is hidding other relevant issues.

For the average aquarist the possibility of changing the kind of leds in their (or mine) tanks is nor realistic because of the costs invoilved in the change. Due to that once I bought the withes and the blues I have I will not change them at least in 3-4 years and I have to adapt to them.

Now what I experimient is with the ratios and the intensities.

I think the leds PAR is so strong that for a LPS tank the best is to reduce the intensity of the white to the minimum and the blues significantly. By doing that I have recovered some favias and cynarine is orange but alive.

 

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

I think the leds PAR is so strong that for a LPS tank the best is to reduce the intensity of the white to the minimum and the blues significantly. By doing that I have recovered some favias and cynarine is orange but alive.

Good news, and thank you for sharing your findings.