LEDs loosing ther intesity?

sirrealism

sirrealism

New member
So I have a pair of old school non dim blue and white d120s. I have been running them for 4 years 10-12 hours a day and I bought them used. My corals are fading and not as happy as they were yet my parameters are the same. I was doing some reading and a web site said they can loose intensity over time. My guess is my LEDs have run some where around 20,ooo hours. I wonder if i have lost light intensity. The tank is a mixed reef and I used to be able to keep anything i wanted in that tank but now even my caps are loosing color. I am buying A T5 light for the tank but just wanted to know if anyone else has heard of this or run into this.
Here is a link that makes me think this might be my issue. http://www.nouvir.com/index.cfm?ref=90200&ref2=10
 
Have you checked the leds themselves, my first gen full spectrum d120 had issues with burnt out lenses which would create intensity issues. The only real way to tell would be measuring part periodically
 
LEDs definitely lose a bit of their intensity over time. It shouldn't be too much. Lower the light a little bit.
 
No Leds out also not full spec and no optics. I also can not lower them much. maybe a couple inches. They sit 6" above the water. 20k hours is about 1/4 of what there life is supposed to be but then again Who has tested the same LED light for more then 4 years. I might get the clubs PAR meter and see what i am getting but I wonder if I am loosing more then PAR and if I am loosing usable color? Remember these are just blue and whites so my spec is not right from the start but Most would not believe what and how well corals grew under them
6 months ago. sorry for the crappy cell pic
 
you can see the white ring around all the caps and montis new growth. this has stopped and color is fadding. i am going to retest all parameters tonight. Maybe i am missing something in my tests
 
Its could be. But I have no hair algae and no red slime. I will retest everything but I have been through water quality problems before and this seems different. I would always suspect water quality first but it seems to be just affecting my caps and montis. And my caps could grow in a mud puddle. This is the same tank that housed a 18" octopus that eat like a pig. I had N03 up to 35-40 and P04 up to 1.0 and yet these caps still looked great and had new growth. Now that i think about this, it all started when I had a large ICH out break about 3 months ago. I tried some of those ICK removers that are supposed to be reef safe. I wonder if thats what caused this. But its been 3 months and its just been getting worse very slowly so slow that I really didnt notice it that much. Might also be that i have 4 other reefs to take care of so i dont pay near enough attention to this one.
 
Unless you've been running this light 24 hours a day for over 5 years now I doubt they've lost any sort of noticeable intensity.
 
No carbon GFO or anything else. Low nutrients maybe. I will test everything tonight and the new T5 is going on tonight 2 so i will post back Parameters tomorrow. I will test everything including iron iodine and what ever else I have. I also have several different tests for everything so i will make sure I dont get any bad readings.
 
Maybe I should put carbon in the tank. Maybe I got something in the tank I should not have. But if i did why dont I have this issue with any of the 4 other tank in that room. I dont run carbon, GFO or anything else on any of my tanks. Just skimmers and water changes.
 
The only reason I suggested carbon was due to the treatments you used.

If you had an octopus in there and now have nothing, it could certainly be low nutrients as well.
 
The octopus was about 9 months ago. There are some fish in there now but i only put them in about 1 month ago I only feed 2 times per week so it is possibility. But you might be right on with the treatment i put in there and never put carbon in to remove it. Damm I bet thats it. Why didnt I think about that!!!!! Thanks for all the help everyone. I will put carbon in tonight Should I set up a reactor for it or just a bag in the sump. I imagine a reactor would be faster at removing it
 
I would go with a reactor. Two little fishes makes a good one and there cheap enough. You can put the bags in to starts and when you get the reactor then put it in there. Hope it all works out right.
 
Roger You are so right. I put a bag in the sock and did a WC. I have many reactors but for right now I feel better putting it in a bag and into the sock. I ran every test i had last night. N03 is up a little 10 ppm P04 is .1 alk is 8.5 cal is 420. All the iron, iodine, Ect was all in range so I put the carbon in and put the T5 on. Thanks for the T5 Matt I love it. Tank looked Brighter with the T5s on it then it did with the LEDs but after thinking about it I think about it more, it is prob the ick meds I put in and never put carbon in to remove it so i doubt that it was the lights. Thanks again for all the help and I will post what happens in the next couple weeks.
 
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