New LED's not going well? Any ideas?

[greenstarfish03]

Hello,

I've been reefing for at least 7-8 years and I still have some of my original fish and some orginal corals. In the last year or so I added some SPS to my mixed reef and they did pretty well under my 7 24 inch T5s. Recently Chort talked me into upgrading my lights to LED's. I originaly took out 5 T5's and added 24 LEDS (DIY from rapid LED). They didn't light the tank well enough and some of my SPS wern't doing well so I jacked up my LEDs to 42 which maxes out my heat sync, and inorder to fit them in I had to get rid of the last T5s. My tank is 30x30x30 and all of my SPS are at the top. The 42 LED's have been over the tank for about a week, and the SPS are maybe getting worse. Can someone help me w/ this a little. My sps seem to be turning white. I've never had a problem like this before and my T5's were like 18 months old when I switched them. I don't think its too much light but I don't know for sure really.

White usualy means not enough light correct? Any explanation on the actual chemical process would be appreciated if someone wants to explain it to me I usualy don't change anything in my reef and things have went well for a long time. This is a little out of the ordinary for me and Im not sure what the right move is? Turn the lights down, up, ??? if I guess wrong things that I've grown for years die? How do I know?

Thanks

[ebushrow]

Hello,

I've been reefing for at least 7-8 years and I still have some of my original fish and some orginal corals. In the last year or so I added some SPS to my mixed reef and they did pretty well under my 7 24 inch T5s. Recently Chort talked me into upgrading my lights to LED's. I originaly took out 5 T5's and added 24 LEDS (DIY from rapid LED). They didn't light the tank well enough and some of my SPS wern't doing well so I jacked up my LEDs to 42 which maxes out my heat sync, and inorder to fit them in I had to get rid of the last T5s. My tank is 30x30x30 and all of my SPS are at the top. The 42 LED's have been over the tank for about a week, and the SPS are maybe getting worse. Can someone help me w/ this a little. My sps seem to be turning white. I've never had a problem like this before and my T5's were like 18 months old when I switched them. I don't think its too much light but I don't know for sure really.

White usualy means not enough light correct? Any explanation on the actual chemical process would be appreciated if someone wants to explain it to me I usualy don't change anything in my reef and things have went well for a long time. This is a little out of the ordinary for me and Im not sure what the right move is? Turn the lights down, up, ??? if I guess wrong things that I've grown for years die? How do I know?

Thanks

I am by far no expert, but I have been using LED's since I came back to reefing. It might be as easy of an answer as that they were shocked when you change lighting....or it could be that the lights are too high in output or too low in output.
My gut would say leave the lights on one setting and move the SPS up towards the light if possible.

Can you separately control the whites and blues? If so maybe dial the whites down and see if there is any improvement.

Hope this helps.

[Poseidon]

LED's really pack a WALLUP and they do NOT look bright to our eye. It is very misleading, you can cook corals under what looks like very little light. I have been doing as much research as I can with LEDs and really the only reliable way to gauge output is a PAR meter, and even it reads LED 20-30% less then what is actually there.

[greenstarfish03]

LED's really pack a WALLUP and they do NOT look bright to our eye. It is very misleading, you can cook corals under what looks like very little light. I have been doing as much research as I can with LEDs and really the only reliable way to gauge output is a PAR meter, and even it reads LED 20-30% less then what is actually there.

I feel like they are not getting enough light but I could be wrong. The SPS's are the only ones strugling and they generaly require the most light, but I do agree w/ you poseidon that a PAR meter would be the way to go b/c then I would know for sure. Problem is I don't have a PAR meter and Ive spent too much on the LED's already.

[greenstarfish03]

Thanks for the input. I agree they are probably too high or too low I just don't know which. If its too low I would be disappounted that I don't get enough power out of 42 LEDs. 1/3 white, 1/3 blue, 1/3 royal blue basicaly. I can cpntrol the whites seperate from the blues, and royal blues. When I started I had 24 total leds and I worked the settings up from likw 20% on each to where they sit now at 99% blue and 80% white. My goal was too go nice and slow but when things started to strugle I strated to go faster thinking there wasn't enough light and now Im confused Some of the colonies are well encrusted and cant really be moved so that isn't an option w/ all of them but a few I can move around a little. I really can't go higher though b/c the sps are all at the top of my reef.

I am by far no expert, but I have been using LED's since I came back to reefing. It might be as easy of an answer as that they were shocked when you change lighting....or it could be that the lights are too high in output or too low in output.
My gut would say leave the lights on one setting and move the SPS up towards the light if possible.

Can you separately control the whites and blues? If so maybe dial the whites down and see if there is any improvement.

Hope this helps.

[greenstarfish03]

The problem I have w/ making changes like moving the lights closer to the water, further from the water, turning the power of the whites,or blues up or down is I don't know how long to try something before realizing its making it better or worse before trying something else, or what are the signs of it getting better or worse etc. As of now to me the sps seem to just get worse regardless, but maybe when I ahd the lights 6 inches above the water was perfect but since I didn't notice a change in a few days I moved them to something worse. Its hard to say what is right. Currently I have a the heat sync about 10 inches above the water (gives me coverage over the whole tank). I have 1/3, whites. 1/3 blues. 1/3 royals, 60 degree lens for the most part (maybe a couple 80s mixed in accidentaly). Any plan of attack on this may be nice? how long would I have to wait to see progress?

[binford4000]

Bleaching is usually a sign of water issues or too much light. I have been running LED lights on all three of our systems. Like mike stated you really should have used a par meter to set them up correctly. If the lights we're not producing enough par your sps would brown out not bleach. Water tempature is another thing that can also effect sps(temp swings during summer months are hard on sps) I would test your water and if all is well raise your lights up and lower the corals then see if they recover. If they do raise them up a little every week and see how they respond. Good luck

[estanoche]

if they are white, after a week, its bleaching - your SPS released their zoanthallae due to excess stress from the lighting change (too much too fast)

lower what you can, or raise the LEDs - even shorten your lighting schedule if you can't move the lights - only time will tell... if they still have polyps, the will likely come back around in time once they adjust to your new lighting

[binford4000]

Just some fyi. I run 4 ai super blues on our soon to be gone 150. I have them set as follows
Whites. 40%
Blues. 60%
Royal blues. 70%
This gives us 315 lumans on the outer edge at the bottom at peak light cycle. All fixture hang @ 14 inches. You could remove the reflectors if you can't raise em anyhigher which would decrease the intecity . Hope this helps !

[greenstarfish03]

Thanks Binford for the info. Good to know that bleaching probably means too much light I have been turning the lights up and lowering them over the last week or so. Probably the dead opposite of what I need to do. They are hung from the celing so I can lower and raise them with ease. I went over the temp thing last week and I actualy lowerd my temp from 78.5 to about 76.5 over a few weeks to help w/ that, but I don't think that is my major issue. My temp and tank paramters are really stable. I have a 120G upstairs and almost another 100G in the sump in the basement. It stays cool in the basement and keeps my temp really stable. Everything is monitored by my reef keeper, salinity, temp, ph, etc. I tested everything last week and all was good so I don't think that is the problem. Its almost definiteily light related. During my testing I did stumble across one thing I was neglecting My autotop off resevior needs to be cleaned every once in a while TDS was like 25o in the container and like 002 comming out of the RO/DI. So I did resolve that but that isn't causing this issue.

Bleaching is usually a sign of water issues or too much light. I have been running LED lights on all three of our systems. Like mike stated you really should have used a par meter to set them up correctly. If the lights we're not producing enough par your sps would brown out not bleach. Water tempature is another thing that can also effect sps(temp swings during summer months are hard on sps) I would test your water and if all is well raise your lights up and lower the corals then see if they recover. If they do raise them up a little every week and see how they respond. Good luck