My LED sps experience shared!

[Kahuna]

Gasman, can you help me out?

Gasman, can you help me out?

I have a DIY LED setup over my 90g using Cree XR-E Cool Whites and Royal Blues. There's also 8 XR-E Reds that I used for aesthetic purposes for sunrise, noon, and sunset. I read somewhere that red is a really bad light to expose SPS to after building and installing the fixture.

Initialy, I bleached several corals and turned the LED's down so that the corals would recover, which they did. However, I've some ORA frags that are going from blue or purple to brown at the tips. Too much light? Not enough? PAR is about 315-350 where they are with the LED's at 100%. Probably at around 220 or so now. Photoperiod is from 0530-2130, with the LED's ramping to 20% 0530-0730, ramping to 45% 0730-0930, and then staying at 45% until 1830, which then ramps down over the next 3.5 hrs.

Specifically, from 930 to 1830 my whites are at 45% and my blues are at 55%. My reds were running at 50% for 2 hours at noon, and spiking to 70% and back to zero at sunrise and sunset. Another member has been helping me and suggested that a) my day is too long, and b) use purple or violet vs. red.

My optics are 70 degree; the reds are 80 degree. Here's my PAR readings:

All at 100%

Blue and white at 100%

Questions are, how much should my blue and white outputs be, and how long should my day really be? What am I doing wrong that's turning the corals brown; water qual is unchanged; added EcoTech MP40 ES's X 2 to the tank.

Your tanks look great; where I want to get to. Please advise your opinions or concerns.

Regards,

Kev

 

[gasman059]

Sorry i can't read that much in one post-- but here's my two cents.
How old is your tank?
please provide me some husbandry info.

I dont see much SPS in that tank to be that specific about colors and so forth like your post stated.

IMO take a step back and give your tank sometime w/o solely focus on one thing LEDS.

 

[Kahuna]

Sorry i can't read that much in one post-- but here's my two cents.
How old is your tank?
please provide me some husbandry info.

I dont see much SPS in that tank to be that specific about colors and so forth like your post stated.

IMO take a step back and give your tank sometime w/o solely focus on one thing LEDS.

First things first: Husbandry.

System is just under a year old, was started with cured live rock and live sand.
Tank is std 90 gallon w/ standpipe overflows.
35 gallon fuge/sump.
Mag 12 return pump.
Vortech MP40's for flow.
10 gallon water changes twice monthly
Octopus Extreme 160 skimmer
Reverse lighting cycle on fuge and main lights
ATO tops off alk-treated water for 1 minute at 1AM daily. About 1 gallon loss/day

SpGr - 1.026-1.027
Temp - 79.6-80.2
pH - 8.14-8.26
Phosphate - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrate - 2-5ppm
Calcium - 450-470ppm
Alk - 8.4-8.8 DKh
Mag - 1380-1390ppm

Pics are about 2 mos old. There's two acros, one blue plate coral, plus a sun coral and a fox coral, as well as dendrophyllia in the pic, plus several varieties of euphyllia.

4 chromis, one anthias, one tomini tang, one hawaiian wrasse, one melinarus wrasse, usual clean-up crew

Since pics, all leathers/softies gone except for chili coral and a small bunch of zoas. There are frags of bellina acro, pink, green, and red birdsnest, bird of paradise acro, bali green slimer acro, solitaryensis and red planet acro, wellsophyllia, lobophyllia, and a rhizotrychus. Some montiporas as well; they were there before.

Tips of acros were OK for about two-3 weeks, and then slowly turned brown, like not enough light?

All other wildlife in tank is just fine.

 

[Kahuna]

In your post, are you saying to just focus on LED's right now?

 

[gasman059]

In your post, are you saying to just focus on LED's right now?

The oposite- the tank is relatively new and u need to take a step back and let your system mature.

The params at a glace look good.

I dunno what specifically are u refering to but u can't compare your frags in terms of color to other frags you see in pics b/c corals are quite different from tank to tank.
The tips could have easily been alk spikes/maybe-- take some pics.
So my take on your post is PATIENCE is the key to reefkeeping.

As far as the red's I have no input there.

 

[Kahuna]

In this hobby, patience is sometimes difficult. Thanks for the advice!

 

[gasman059]

In this hobby, patience is sometimes difficult. Thanks for the advice!

That's the key ingridient- nothing good happens fast.:beer:

 

[SaraB]

Wow, you've had some amazing results with the SPS! Can't wait to see the new set-up develop!

 

[Dejavu]

Looken good Manny! It's good to hear the potential success with LED's.

 

[gasman059]

Brian its hapenng buddy-- in 5 months the tank will be where it needs to be.

 

[poolkeeper1]

Brian its hapenng buddy-- in 5 months the tank will be where it needs to be.

Manny from what i see it looks like it's there now, Great to have the touch as I call it in growing SPS that are such beautiful corals. If i can have half your success i will be happy.
Thanks for your Input today
Bill

 

[gasman059]

Anytime Bill -- we will stay in touch

 

[BBLINKS]

Hi Manny.

I was curious why you picked aqua illumination? Was there some thing in particular that you liked? There is a lot of other LED technology thats on the market right now like reef tech, vertex, pacific sun, orphuk. etc. I assume you have done your home work and researched before you purchased. just wondering? BTW nice tank, I really liked it with the sand, but guess we will have to wait and see how it turns out with-out. .:spin2:

Regards
Rich

 

[gasman059]

Simple decision- american made and customer service.

 

[gasman059]

A continued report on LED's IMO they do not support adequate recovery for a new tank and growth of SPS with proper colors.

I recently took this LED's down and installed an ATI powermodule( 3-4 weeks) and the changes in color and growth have been significant and marked improvement over the LED's( w/o any other changes in husbandry and or maintenance)

IMO and experience LED's certainly have a place in d hobby but mainly for LPS and so forth. a FULL SPS system can be had but the colors and overall longevity of corals is simply lacking.

MY two cents.

MH --are still king
T5- good unit should provide close enuff growth and color w/o the expense of MH chillers and so forth.
LED-- great technology but in my experience and opinion will not sufice for a sps tank only.

Hope this helps all of you sps freaks!

 

[poolkeeper1]

Dissapointing

Dissapointing

A continued report on LED's IMO they do not support adequate recovery for a new tank and growth of SPS with proper colors.

I recently took this LED's down and installed an ATI powermodule( 3-4 weeks) and the changes in color and growth have been significant and marked improvement over the LED's( w/o any other changes in husbandry and or maintenance)

IMO and experience LED's certainly have a place in d hobby but mainly for LPS and so forth. a FULL SPS system can be had but the colors and overall longevity of corals is simply lacking.

MY two cents.

MH --are still king
I have my DIY Led set up going on 4 months and have never had better color and growth than this with any other lighting set up!
Your tank was doing IMO very nice with those fixtures and would like to know What Happened to change your view point?
I do not see any negative effects of the change to Led's yet and hope to not see that happen! So far so good and as they Say If It Ain't broke don't fix it!
I will wait to hear a more detailed explaination if you so choose to share your dislikes with your Led's?
Bill:headwally:















T5- good unit should provide close enuff growth and color w/o the expense of MH chillers and so forth.
LED-- great technology but in my experience and opinion will not sufice for a sps tank only.

Hope this helps all of you sps freaks!

 

[gasman059]

Well Bill what I did noticed over time and with side by side comparisons between frags wit LED alone vs MH and T5 is mainly color and growth.

Most importantly depth seems to be the greatest problem at 10 inches they seem to fair ( acros that is ) fairly well with both spectrums but at deeper tanks there's tons of disparity in growth and color.


Again over all those 'fancy' light loving acros seem to lag-- all other ocnditions being equal, IMO IME.
Again placement is key but there's lots more room for error for us newbies in this sps world. wink wink.

Then again the advatages of LED's can't be overlooked !!!!

 

[denash24]

Thank you for sharing your experience, I was ready to take the plunge but was worried about my SPS and your write up helped a ton. I'm sticking to MH/ T5 combo for a while longer till more improvements are done to LED's, thanks again Gasman.

 

[chrisv]

I did noticed over time and with side by side comparisons between frags wit LED alone vs MH and T5 is mainly color and growth.

Haha...i think I'm done considering an LED array.

 

[roberto_lopes]

I have to disagree with gasman059.

My 340 gal, SPS dominated reef has LEDS for about two years and so far I can consider it a tremendous success.

some macros

some colonies have more than 2 years

Some are about 3 to 4 months