Light Modificaiton - Tank is now a disaster.

[Jeff_NJ]

Hey All - I am in need of some advice.

I recently added 12 x 3W Cree Royal Blue LED's to my existing Ecoxotic Panorama fixture. The stock Panorama did not have nearly enough blue for me, so rather than buying additional Panorama modules, I decided to retro my own.

The retros came out great and are hooking up to a Digital Aquatics ALC for sunrise / sunset effect. The light cycle runs 90 minute ramp up - full blue then 1/2 hour later the primary light turns on for 8 hours and finally a 90 minute ramp down once the 8 hour primary turns off.

Anyway - since adding these new LED's, my tank has been a complete mess. I had a MAJOR diatom bloom and an outbreak of hair algae. Not to mention that a few of my zoa colonies seem to be very ... p***ed off. The tank is LPS dominated and the LPS seem fine with full polyp extension and happy. All other livestock seems happy as well. 4 fish and a CUC.

The tank gets weekly 5 gallon changes, always gets RO water. P04 tests 0 and always has. Nitrates test as close to 0 as I can tell. Both tests Salifert. I run GFO and Carbon in a reactor. I skim, though I don't produce a lot of skimmate. Tank is bare bottom and whatever isn't collected in the water column is quickly siphoned out.

I've since moved some of the aggravated zoa colonies to the bottom of the tank but one (entire colony of about 20 polyps) is yet to open at all.

I am leaning toward the light being my issue rather than the water quality. I have been tracking my water parameters since the beginning and everything is very consistent.

What do you think? Should I just wait it out and see what happens or should I reduce the intensity of the blue and ramp it back up over time? I just don't want to induce more shock to the tank.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Jeff

 

[Jeff_NJ]

Shamless bump. Nobody has anything? Getting a discussion started is so often futile.

 

[stormrider27]

Sounds like your corals need to acclimate to the higher light levels. Try putting three layers of window screen material on the top of the tank then remove one layer a week.

 

[noahm]

You could be right. Not just more light, but new spectrum. Things are taking advantage of it and adjusting. Give it a few weeks. That is a decent change for a 34 g.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Lighting alone could not cause diatoms and GHA.
You have a nutrient problem that the lights brought to your attention.
I would suggest bigger water changes, carbon, GFO and heavy skimming.

 

[Jeff_NJ]

I would totally agree with the idea that there are excessive nutrients, however I have not been able to prove that via testing. I know P04 tests can often be inaccurate but everything I do in my maintenance regimen would suggest it's correct.

I already run carbon and GFO. As a matter of fact, I just refreshed them on Saturday. I use BRS GFO and run 1/2 cup in a reactor. My skimmer runs all day every day and produces little to no skimmate. Nano skimmers aren't the best out there, but they will pull out some gunk when there is something to pull out.

I feed every other day and never over feed. This is completely taboo to me. All I know is I added the light modules and all hell broke loose.

I will try lowering the intensity of the lights to see what happens. I will also do some extra water changes.

So I am potentially dealing with two issues. Excessive nutrients and light change.

Did 12RB Cree's add that much PAR to the tank?
Spectrum

 

[heckhole]

in my experience, any lighting increase I've done has always exposed p04 problems (even just replacing 6month old bulbs would cause a massive bloom & angry coral). I took up vodka dosing to solve my nitrate & phos issues as water changes weren't doing anything. 24 hours later and my phos would be .07 or .06 again and nitrates around 50. Always diatoms in the sand, scraping the glass every day.

Now I have no detectable nitrates and last time my phos was tested it was under .02 after 6 weeks of vodka dosing, no water changes. It's been about 3 weeks since I last had it tested, I know it's low now as my zoas are spreading like crazy and my coral has more life than they've had in months.

I'd cut back on feeding, test your water again and post your parameters. Sometimes what people feel is acceptable because it worked before, may not be acceptable at all. High lighting on such a small system with even minute nitrates is gonna grow some ugly stuff! Atleast in my experience!