Lighting not good enough?

[kupadupapupa]

I was just wondering if it is possible for aquarium lighting to just keep corals alive without the corals actually growing or dieing, just sort of remaining the same from year to year?

Also can anyone tell me what the effects on soft corals may be if an led lighting system is too strong? Will they bleach out or just never open fully or would they eventually acclimate?

 

[moondoggy4]

You can buy cheap bulbs with little par and not get much growth on the corals and an excessive bright led on soft corals can cause some to move or worse so acclimating is necessary.

 

[kupadupapupa]

Well I have 4 30 watt multichips and 48 Cree royal blues and 12 uv over my 125g. My corals haven't grown at all over the past year and most of my lps died. The lps corals started out ok but then I quit feeding them and they slowly receded over the year until they died. The soft coral just remained the same size and has not spread anywhere. I've pretty much narrowed the problem down to my lighting but I'm not sure what specifically is wrong with my lights.

I get 150-160 par on the sand so it's not a lack of light, and the corals have been under the light for a year so they should be acclimated to it. Could it be that I don't have enough blue spectrum in the tank since most of the light comes from the Chinese multi chips?

 

[kupadupapupa]

Anyone have any insight into this problem?

 

[HurricaneSystem]

So you stated that you quit feeding them and they died. I think you answered your own question.

What kind of water are you using, filtration, etc. You can't just narrow it down immediately to lighting.

 

[kupadupapupa]

So you stated that you quit feeding them and they died. I think you answered your own question.

What kind of water are you using, filtration, etc. You can't just narrow it down immediately to lighting.

It is weird though isn't it that in order to keep lps alive I needed to feed them every two days or so? I've kept lps before without any feeding and they've done great. For filtration I just have a vertex omega skimmer, phosphate reactor and live rock. I use ro/di water. Right now the water tests at alk-8, calc-450, mag-1500, pH 8, salinity is 1.026.

The reason why I'm suspecting my lighting the most is because the coral did fine when fed and as soon as I quit feeding the lighting couldn't sustain the coral at all. If something was wrong with the water the coral wouldn't have lasted as long as it did. There are some things I didnt test for such as arsenic in the water and other chemicals that may have leached out from the silicone if I happened to use the non aquarium safe kind. The sump was built 4 years ago so I can't remember if I used bathroom silicone or the stuff for windows. But I imagine if it would be toxic enough to kill corals then it would definitely have killed my fish already.

I should also mention that my top off water sits stagnant in a Rubbermaid trash can for a month at a time before it's used up. I'm not sure if that can play a part in the problem but my fish aren't bothered by the stagnant water.