Very frustrated with my LED lighting

[Renzema]

That isn't my worse issue with the light. the duo is producing a spot light effect on all my corals.any part that gets direct light is decent in color. Every other part is brown. The only thing that has changed is my light.

Parameters always stay constant with a calcium reactor, and ATO. Water is alway RO/DI

Parameters:

SG: 1.026
ammonia/nitrites: 0
nitrates: sub 5 pmm
phos: .02
dkh: 10
calcium: 430
Mag: 1500

Lighting schedule:

12 hours on/off

1 hour ramp up to mid-day, no morning
mid-day: 100% blue/violet/royal blue, 45% on white

Evening runs for about 3 hours with 45min ramp.
Evening: 50% blue/violet/royal blue, 5% on white

I am so frustrated at this point I am considering getting rid of it, and going to MH. Is there any way to add lighting to the fixture, or any ideas? I am open to any ideas, since I do like the fixture.

Thanks for the help

 

[h3dgehog]

This is what happened to me and I got a 250W radium bulb. I can also tell you that the light just looks brighter than the LEDs for some reason...

If you don't wanna get rid of it, I'd suggest that you supplement with T5s or just get additional LED fixtures and point them at angels so you minimize shading.

 

[Flagg37]

What kind of light is it?

 

[regtur]

I was wondering the same thing and my led lights came in 120deg spread, and I know you can get the same lights in a 90deg deflection,

 

[Renzema]

I was wondering the same thing and my led lights came in 120deg spread, and I know you can get the same lights in a 90deg deflection,

Nanobox's don't have optics. So the spread should be fine. I had hoped the dual pucks would avoid spot lighting that would have happened with kessils.

 

[dkeller_nc]

If this is your first experience with LEDs, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise with this particular aspect. There are a few LED units that don't "spotlight", but they aren't all that common. The Orphek Atlantik fixtures are the ones that come to mind - I call them "candy bar fixtures". There's a few others that make similar ones, and Philips is coming out with something similar in a few months called "Coral Care" (hopefully they think up something more clever for the light).

However, these types of fixtures have a big achilles' heel. Their color blending is generally poor, so you'll get the "disco effect" on the bottom of your tank. All you need to do is put the BeeGees and it'll be 1976 all over again.

The modular, puck-type fixtures do a much better job of color blending, at the cost of hot-spotting.

But there is a way around this - raise the fixture. Many have found that running the fixture much higher off of the water drastically improves the spread and minimizes the "disco effect" even further. The cost is that you have to run the fixture hotter to makeup for the light loss.

One good thing is that you have a Nanobox fixture. They're pretty good at modifying your light to your liking, though at extra cost. And they already make a T5HO hybrid, so it may be relatively simple for them to add a few T5HO bulbs to your fixture for not too much extra $$.

But yes, some of us that have gone down the LED road have decided their disadvantages outweigh their good points, and have gone back to mercury vapor in the form of T5HOs or MH.

 

[Reef Frog]

Good post Dkeller - I learned some stuff there.

What is your opinion on the light blending capabilities and disco effect of the strip format, compared to the puck & candy bar format? Say the fixtures like BMLED used to make.

Thanks.

 

[dkeller_nc]

To me, the strip-lights have the equivalent effect of the "candy bar" lights. The advantage is much less shadowing, but at the cost of less color blending, so more disco effect. That's the case, btw, with strip or the "plank" layouts that use multiple LED colors. Supplemental lights like the Reef Brite XHO strips that have all one color don't do this, of course, since there are no different colors to blend.

I'd note that the "disco effect" is strongly correlated with how close the LEDs are to one another in the array and whether or not the fixture uses lenses or reflectors to direct the light from the diodes to the tank. The effect with the AI color Vega fixtures I started with was severe because of the (I think) 60 degree lenses. The Radions I currently have over my tanks have considerably less color separation, and the XR15w that I installed the wide-angle lens into is even less, though it's still readily apparent if you're used to MH or T5HO.

The Kessils, to my eye, still have a little bit of the color separation effect, but it's really minor.

 

[MidwestReefa]

What kind of tank are you running?

 

[Renzema]

Update:

after increasing my LED's to 100% for blues and 33% white. Dave from Nanobox said it would give about 20k+. My par reading during peak was only 120 par in the highest locations.

My growth has sped up substantially. Digi's and red dragon have grown 1" each in 3 weeks( I just measure). Color is still an issue lots of shadowing, and some corals have bleached out on their back sides. Millie's are brown. My monti cap is very bright as well as the red dragon.

Solution:

I have just added a second Nanobox. Now have a duo and tide. Both are plus M models. This has really helped. Duo is at the front facing back and the tide is in the back point straight down. Both are about 4" off the water. Both set to 80% blue and 25% white at peack(runs at that for 5.5 hours). My recent par test showed I am getting between 180-200 par at the top corals and 100-120 par at the bottom. I have lowered down the duo and plan to slowly increase.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Still having trouble calibrating the apogee sq-420 par meter. Usually just set a +5 on it.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Renzema]

What kind of tank are you running?

This is on a 34g cube, 20x20x20.