SPS too much or too little light

[SaltyWalter]

If you want them to not be brown the don't turn your lights down, turn them up.

I'm experienced, trust me. 75% blue and 40% white will make those coral look amazing. But do whatever your gonna do.

 

[Tokyoyankee]

Ok I'm dropping the lights to w50 b60 rb60 and we'll see where it goes from there.If the corals have been receiving too much light, I should see an improvement in coloration and health.

 

[lynchmob3000]

If they receive too much lighting they usually pale. Ai sol aren't very strong. Everyone I know with sps run them full power. A friend of mine has 12 over a 300 gallon and they run all channels 100 and he's got amazing colored colonies.

 

[Avenger]

PM me your lux and ill tell you your par.

Just download the app on your phone.

 

[brad65ford]

PM me your lux and ill tell you your par.

Just download the app on your phone.

funny I was looking for an app for lux to compare between my par meter LOL. What do you use?

 

[Hockeynut120]

That's awefully low to the water, the main problem I see with leds is spread they are like lazor beams in the tank and if you have them to low to the water the light doesn't spread before it hits the coral. I run a hybrid 2 vega color and 4 t5s on my 90. I have lights at 10" above water. I run 75% white,100% all blue, and 25% red and green. T5s are all blue plus which pump out par.
I don't think your lights are to high just to low to the water, also as a previous poster said you probably need more nutrients.
When my tank had lower nutrients I did have my lights at 50% w and 70%b and coral grew but never had great color, when I uped the nutrients the color came.

 

[jasonandsarah]

That's awefully low to the water, the main problem I see with leds is spread they are like lazor beams in the tank and if you have them to low to the water the light doesn't spread before it hits the coral. I run a hybrid 2 vega color and 4 t5s on my 90. I have lights at 10" above water. I run 75% white,100% all blue, and 25% red and green. T5s are all blue plus which pump out par.
I don't think your lights are to high just to low to the water, also as a previous poster said you probably need more nutrients.
When my tank had lower nutrients I did have my lights at 50% w and 70%b and coral grew but never had great color, when I uped the nutrients the color came.

I agree with the above ^^^ from looking at your pics it looks like the tops of your bigger sps are doing a lot better the the underside and that's because at 2-3 inches off the water your getting almost no spread. I'd put the settings back to where they were and raise the light at least to 6"....
I normally keep leds off the surface 7"-8" depending on the spread. Then again if your switching to T5's idk why your even making any changes at all? Just going to further stress the corals.
Why are you switching to T5's If you don't mind me asking?

 

[JPMagyar]

Ive always wondered about the best way of getting SPS lighting correct too. When making changes how long do you wait for to see if the change has helped or hindered? Hours? Days? Weeks? Getting lighting correct is the most frustrating part of reef keeping IMO as most other parameters are more easily measured and tweaked.

I wait a month or more after a light change to determine whether or not I can detect any difference.

But to your comment about lighting being "frustrating" . . .


This, to me is really a shame. TOTM after TOTM uses the same lighting and produces awesome results, but people like to experiment and therefore make it incredibly difficult on themselves. Yes, when it comes to LED fixtures finding the right height, intensity, spectrum, and duration becomes more an art than a science, but if one were to opt for a simple ATI T5 fixture or a Hamilton Tech CebuSun metal halide fixture the parameters are quite simple: place lights 8 inches above the water, run blue supplements for 1 to 2 hours in the morning and evening and run max intensity for 8 to 9 hours and "baddah-bing, presto magico" colorful corals. (That is, of course, assuming you maintain steady parameters as outlined by Randy Holmes-Farley)

salinity 35
alkalinity 7 dKH
calcium 420 ppm
magnesium 1300 ppm
pH 8.1
phosphate 0.01 - 0.02 ppm
nitrate <0.2 ppm
temperature 77 - 83 F



For what it's worth to the OP, from what I have seen in person and here on RC the most successful tanks with AI fixtures seem to place them MUCH higher above the tank and at MUCH higher intensity. That would also concur with the comments made by a couple of individuals in this thread as well.