Whats more beneficial for LPS growth?
- Thread starter kiko81
- Start date
I have the same lights over a 90g, 4 foot tank. most of my lps are on the bottom third of my tank and in the sand. the light sits roughly 2 feet above the tank, its about 24 inches to 27 inches deep, right now the blues max out during the day around 60-65% and whites at 30%. One thing i did note was they seemed to grow a lot better when I kept my alk stable around 8.5, might just be my tank though, i also target feed and my mag has always hovered at 1360. Calc is about the same as yours.
SaltyWalter
FUP&A Member
LPS are found at deep water levels where its dominantly blue light, so I wouldn't toss more white LEDs at them, that too intense. Stick with a similar blue-white ratio to what Art13 mentioned.
Just a side note, in my personal experience most LPS has done better under t5 than LEDs, but we won't get started on that in this thread lol :lol2:
Just to give you an idea, with my fixture 24-30 inches above the tank, and the first sps about 8-10 inches from the water line, which would be my red planet, judging by the color he is showing i'm pretty sure i shouldn't go any higher with my output of 60% blue 30% white. tank is 27 inches deep, the acans on the bottom are in direct light and they aren't fading, they have a nice deep color to them, and are growing at a good pace. I guess how fast they grow is all relative to what you are looking for. My one acan sprouted 6 new heads from when i got him 4 months ago, but skeletal growth is slow. I'd say i feed the tank medium, i spot feed the lps once or twice a week, and i keep my params at 440 calc, 8.4 roughly dkh, and 1360 mag.
What kind of lps are they? lps is a rather vague description and light intensity and growth vary widely over the genre. I think your growth is more likely inhibited by parameters.
Your alk is a little higher than is necessary for most lps and your mag is off in relation to calc. I assume this means you are dosing calcium and adding buffer as well. If your mag to calc ratio is off this could give you some issues with pH hence why you might be adding buffer. In my experience (someone might be able to offer better guidance here) alk fluctuations are especially hard on lps. It is typically better not to "chase" alk with buffer and instead shoot for a consistent 8-9 dkh range (with most lps). 400-450 should be good for calcium but that means your mag should be in the 1250-1400 range (400/1250-450/1400) roughly speaking. Remember not to dose unless you are testing. Best bet is to start off with a high quality salt that has a decent balance of params and then figure out a dosing schedule based on what is being used.
For example my coral load is relatively small so I am able to do a 20% water change every 10-14 days with a small two part dose in between and never have my chemical parameters fluctuate more than 3%
P.S. starting with a good salt is much cheaper than dosing
Your alk is a little higher than is necessary for most lps and your mag is off in relation to calc. I assume this means you are dosing calcium and adding buffer as well. If your mag to calc ratio is off this could give you some issues with pH hence why you might be adding buffer. In my experience (someone might be able to offer better guidance here) alk fluctuations are especially hard on lps. It is typically better not to "chase" alk with buffer and instead shoot for a consistent 8-9 dkh range (with most lps). 400-450 should be good for calcium but that means your mag should be in the 1250-1400 range (400/1250-450/1400) roughly speaking. Remember not to dose unless you are testing. Best bet is to start off with a high quality salt that has a decent balance of params and then figure out a dosing schedule based on what is being used.
For example my coral load is relatively small so I am able to do a 20% water change every 10-14 days with a small two part dose in between and never have my chemical parameters fluctuate more than 3%
P.S. starting with a good salt is much cheaper than dosing
Reefvet
New member
Not true.
What LPS ?
Here's one loving the direct morning sun it gets for 2 hours every morning. The tank is lit with Kessil A350s and he's 20" under it for another 8 hours.
triggreef
New member
Not true.
What LPS ?
Here's one loving the direct morning sun it gets for 2 hours every morning. The tank is lit with Kessil A350s and he's 20" under it for another 8 hours.
You'd be surprised how low the par from direct sunlight through a window actually is. I'm sure there is some benefit from it as my tank is also hit hard (afternoon sun) on one side. But it's certainly not blasted. I don't recall exactly what the par was when I measured it but the sun added very very little. Like 10. Probably gets filtered out quite a bit from the window, screen, and then the glass from the tank as well.
Thats a fantastic picture BTW. I would enter that in as many photo contests as possible around here!
triggreef
New member
I just had to re- read the post, but I might have still missed it. I can't find the OP saying anythiing about what his lights are at. He only asked if it should be more blues or whites.
I also run RB, and the best results I've gotten has been by keeping the blue channel at about double the white channel. Also the highest mine go is 90% on the blue channel and 60% on the white channel. Thats only for 5 hours a day, ramping up and down on either end. These things put out very intense light and you can nuke corals easily especially if you are running them with optics. I got rid of my optics and never looked back.
Reefvet
New member
600 PAR on my Apogee meter.
The rest of the days it's 250 from the Kessil.
That's just an iPhone snap, but thanks.
stscream4187
Member
How long is your tank? I have a 125G that's 6ft long, which a 48" light obviously wouldn't work for..
cloak
New member
This was my answer to that. (quote below) Then I followed up in another post by saying that if you were running more blue than white and your corals were not growing too well, you would want to increase the whites instead of the the blues. This is all under the assumption that lighting is in fact the cause of the slow growth & nothing else.
I know LED's are different than MH, T5, VHO & PC, but overall I've always seen the best growth long term with the whites. (65K-14K) Sorry if this was a little confusing.
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