My Lighting Bake-Off
- Thread starter ca1ore
- Start date
I have had the supposition over the last year or two that established MH frags/colonies are more hardy and less prone to die if something goes wrong since they are being "fed" a more balanced diet. I got this supposition after I got a shipment of a few LED frags that took months just to get their color back and a few more months to encrust a MM - these were from very experienced hobbyists who know what they are doing. I asked a few people whom I trust and three out of the four have a no-ship rule on LED frags, which I adopted. I did break this rule to get a pair of frags that were on my must-have list, which did live and took a while to color up and grow also. The few MH frags that I have gotten from folks who also know what they are doing have encrusted my new/fresh plugs in a week and don't appear stressed by the move whatsoever. To be fair, what I am ordering are what most would consider to be harder to keep acropora, so this might play a role too.
I see all kinds of posts with alk swings of 1.0 causing STN, RTN on frags, temp of 2 degrees... anything that is not perfect. However, just last week, a seam in my sump started to leak and I lost about 50G of water on a 300G system... fixed the sump, but had to run and filled the tank with cold straight RO water... temp was 76 and SG at 1.021-1.022. Got home the next day and temp was back up (slowly), but I had to add a lot of salt to get it back up to 1.026 which I did in about four hours time. Everything was fine... not even any slime as I poured straight salt down my overflow a cup at at time.
Please don't do this, but it would be interesting for somebody to grow stable frags under both kinds of light and then stress them a bit and see what happens. I don't want a resource-limited normal hobbyist to do this, but it would be cool for a funded researcher to do... but they would probably use something like Digi and Poci to do it so the results would stink anyway. However, and sorry for the long post to just ask this... if your tank does have some unnatural stress, it might be cool to observe any bleaching or STN that affected one side and not the other.
I see all kinds of posts with alk swings of 1.0 causing STN, RTN on frags, temp of 2 degrees... anything that is not perfect. However, just last week, a seam in my sump started to leak and I lost about 50G of water on a 300G system... fixed the sump, but had to run and filled the tank with cold straight RO water... temp was 76 and SG at 1.021-1.022. Got home the next day and temp was back up (slowly), but I had to add a lot of salt to get it back up to 1.026 which I did in about four hours time. Everything was fine... not even any slime as I poured straight salt down my overflow a cup at at time.
Please don't do this, but it would be interesting for somebody to grow stable frags under both kinds of light and then stress them a bit and see what happens. I don't want a resource-limited normal hobbyist to do this, but it would be cool for a funded researcher to do... but they would probably use something like Digi and Poci to do it so the results would stink anyway. However, and sorry for the long post to just ask this... if your tank does have some unnatural stress, it might be cool to observe any bleaching or STN that affected one side and not the other.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
I had user error twice on my 360g which caused the ATO to dump tens of gallons of RO/DI into the system, causing salinity to drop below 1.020 and temperature in the low 70's within a few hours. Neither incident resulted in a single long term coral issue. Sure, everything looked unhappy for a few days but recovery was pretty quick. This tank had LEDs for lighting. I had a similar incident on the tank I kept before that, which was a 125g with MH. Same result, no coral deaths or issues. I guess the only conclusion I can draw here is I need to stop screwing with my ATO systems.
jda, I get your theory about LED corals being more fragile but I'm not sure if the relationship is really there. This hobby is so complicated, it's a challenge to jump from causation to correlation. Here's something to think about - I'm willing to bet that if you tracked lighting type a hobbyists uses to years in the hobby, would we see a trend that people who have been doing this a long time tend to use "older" technologies, like MH? If that's the case, then are the differences in the coral hardiness under MH vs LED really due to the differences in lighting, or is it some other habit or practice that more experienced hobbyists are likely to do? Just throwing that out as an example, not trying to promote it as a real theory.
At any rate, this thread is going to be really interesting to follow. I love "experiments" like this, especially when the results are taken in context, which seems to be the case here.
jda, I get your theory about LED corals being more fragile but I'm not sure if the relationship is really there. This hobby is so complicated, it's a challenge to jump from causation to correlation. Here's something to think about - I'm willing to bet that if you tracked lighting type a hobbyists uses to years in the hobby, would we see a trend that people who have been doing this a long time tend to use "older" technologies, like MH? If that's the case, then are the differences in the coral hardiness under MH vs LED really due to the differences in lighting, or is it some other habit or practice that more experienced hobbyists are likely to do? Just throwing that out as an example, not trying to promote it as a real theory.
At any rate, this thread is going to be really interesting to follow. I love "experiments" like this, especially when the results are taken in context, which seems to be the case here.
MichaelW
New member
Thanks for the shout out buddy.
Man i miss that coral. It was grown from a half inch nub to the colony under ONLY led untill the last 4 or so month when i added some t5.
Sucks to have something like that die..
But good news is i do have acro back in the tank now.
Most definitely user error in my case as well
Got the tank back up to about 1.024 and will let evaporation do the rest. Fingers crossed. Got to go away for three days on business so will see when I get home.
reefmutt
Active member
Hey Mike, it was one fine coral and I was amazed how good it looked under leds.
Good to hear you're 'live' again!
It is totally possible. I have another theory that the more depth and breath of experience a hobbyist has with SPS, the more that they gravitate towards, or just stay with MH as a primary light source in the US (T5 for Euros)... that the habit or practice of having the best lights is important to them. If your point is that experience matters, I agree completely. It is no cooincidence that some of my last frags are Gold Mille from Copps and a few from Big E who both know what they are doing (and also don't use LEDs). In any case, pay attention and see if you notice any subtle differences in frags either shipped or local - I will bet that you can see some.
ca1ore, I found four frags of a nice Gonzo's Blueberry Diesel or Reef Raft Vihn somewhat look alike knockoff. You will like these - it might be better than both of these, but the colony is only like baseball sized so it has a ways to go. They are very similar except they get some red and blue in the base instead of being all white. Anyway, I can get them encrusted and send them with the pearlberry if you would like.
BTW - I have never used an ATO. I am terrified of them.
Yeah, sure does seem like the ATO is a common source of grief. I had thought my setup foolproof. Sheer laziness on my part for not updating the apex logic. Does appear a major problem averted. Will know for sure when I get back. Happy to try any frags you're willing to send. Should I manage to avoid killing them, l will give frags away as I usually do.
der_wille_zur_macht
Team RC
All of my ATO disasters were self inflicted, to be clear - I honestly don't remember why, but in all three cases I propped the float switches on because I wanted to run some extra topoff for a minute, and then I walked away and forgot - only to be woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of water splashing out of the tanks.
jda - I think another factor that it comes down to is the specific motivations someone has for being in the hobby, and their specific goals. A lot of newer people don't have well defined goals or motivations, they're just excited and overwhelmed and naturally attracted to whatever seems new or hot. More experienced people will definitely have a better taste not only for what they're trying to accomplish, but ALSO how they want to get there.
Personally, I don't care if a specific coral changes color or grows a tiny bit faster or slower and I usually don't bother to keep track of what nicknames a given frag has once it's in my tank. I get that other people feel differently. I like the convenience of not having to do lamp changes as routine maintenance or as the only way to tweak appearance. I also love the fact that my 18" cube nano can have a beer-can sized lighting fixture hanging over it, instead of a gigantic MH reflector or canopy. LEDs make perfect sense for me. They can grow colorful corals, there's no lamp replacement, the efficiency is incredible, and they're adjustable. I'm happy. I don't really care if I can grow THIS specific coral and keep it looking THIS specific way until it reaches a certain size or whatever. If a coral turns ugly in my tank, I just don't keep it any more. If a coral grows in a way that the lower branches are shaded, I move it, or swap it out for a coral with a growth form that's more open or doesn't self-shade. And so on. There are enough corals that will do fine under LEDs that I'm happy to use them.
All that said, I am a huge fan of MH and I've had several tanks with them in the past. I do understand why and how they work, and I appreciate what they can do. I would not rule it out that I may have another tank with MH in the future. Although it'll be interesting to see where LED units are in 5 or 10 more years. MH is MH - there haven't really been changes or development there in years or maybe decades. LEDs are still rapidly evolving, and the flexibility is there that may allow someone to solve some of the common problems (spectrum, point source nature causing shading, etc) at some point in the future.
Different strokes for different folks, and I'm happy that the hobby has niches for all of us. Simon, sorry for the minor hijack.
jda - I think another factor that it comes down to is the specific motivations someone has for being in the hobby, and their specific goals. A lot of newer people don't have well defined goals or motivations, they're just excited and overwhelmed and naturally attracted to whatever seems new or hot. More experienced people will definitely have a better taste not only for what they're trying to accomplish, but ALSO how they want to get there.
Personally, I don't care if a specific coral changes color or grows a tiny bit faster or slower and I usually don't bother to keep track of what nicknames a given frag has once it's in my tank. I get that other people feel differently. I like the convenience of not having to do lamp changes as routine maintenance or as the only way to tweak appearance. I also love the fact that my 18" cube nano can have a beer-can sized lighting fixture hanging over it, instead of a gigantic MH reflector or canopy. LEDs make perfect sense for me. They can grow colorful corals, there's no lamp replacement, the efficiency is incredible, and they're adjustable. I'm happy. I don't really care if I can grow THIS specific coral and keep it looking THIS specific way until it reaches a certain size or whatever. If a coral turns ugly in my tank, I just don't keep it any more. If a coral grows in a way that the lower branches are shaded, I move it, or swap it out for a coral with a growth form that's more open or doesn't self-shade. And so on. There are enough corals that will do fine under LEDs that I'm happy to use them.
All that said, I am a huge fan of MH and I've had several tanks with them in the past. I do understand why and how they work, and I appreciate what they can do. I would not rule it out that I may have another tank with MH in the future. Although it'll be interesting to see where LED units are in 5 or 10 more years. MH is MH - there haven't really been changes or development there in years or maybe decades. LEDs are still rapidly evolving, and the flexibility is there that may allow someone to solve some of the common problems (spectrum, point source nature causing shading, etc) at some point in the future.
Different strokes for different folks, and I'm happy that the hobby has niches for all of us. Simon, sorry for the minor hijack.
Naah, it's all good.
Happy to report that upon returning from four days in Paris, corals seem none the worse for wear from my ATO misadventure. SG back to 1.025 and will get to 1.026 in due course. Only animal that seemed mildly put out was my magnifica anemone. Flaw in the ATO has been addressed and now nothing can possibly go wrong .... ever .....
One 'unintended' consequence of running MH (even just one 150 watt fixture) is that I can already see my system running a degree or two warmer than at this same time last year. Been thinking about getting a chiller just-in-case for a while regardless, though this may accelerate it.
I bought two purple monster frags back in March. Both quite small (1/2"). They sat there, neither dying nor growing, for three months. In the last month, however, both have started to encrust and send out new arms. Funny how that happens. They render differently under MH and LED, but equivalent growth so far.
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