New LED's not going well? Any ideas?

I will raise the lights today and shorten my photoperiod on my whites. Most of them will be fine if I fix the problem soon. Most of them are just turning whites on the tips, the monti has some white chunks but there is a tone of orange left, the rainbow monti may be toast:crying:

My goal was to change things slow but I think I paniked. At first I added 24 leds kept 2 of 7 T5s, then when things didn't look so good i ordered 18 more leds to bring me up to 42 which maxs out my three drivers, and removed the last two t5s. I started the leds at like 20% but since things wernt looking good I moved the intensity up. I probably should have stayed the course on that.

What do you think a could rate of change would be? start at 20% up 5% a week on the whites? 60% on blues? ect?

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Originally Posted by 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

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i'd recommend you beg borrow and steal until you find a PAR meter - then dial in the LEDs via PAR...

A typical T5 was probably getting you 300 PAR at the top of the water, and 100 at your sandbed... if it were me, I'd dial in the LEDs to mimic that as much as possible....

If you can still plug in your old T5s, do that, measure the par and different depths, and then adjust the LEDs from there - it is what the dimmable modules are for :)

I've never used a dimmable module on my LEDs (and only run them in my frag tank, so I'm taking fresh frags from my main display tank and plunking them in under the LEDs, I've since learned to always put them off to the side, never directly under the bulbs until the corals get used to the light)- but when I do bleach frags like that, assuming they still have polyps, they usually color up better than ever after a month or so once they get over the shock

This is good info. What are the dimensions of your 150? Mine is a 120, but its a 30x30x30 cube so it doesn't have as much surface area to light. My Leds are basicaly the same as yours and I copied the SOL super blue configuration when I added my LEDs so yours should be a good comparison except you have basicaly double the lights I have. Intesity may be close to the same b/c yours are probably spreadout more then mine are. My blues and royals are on the same chanel so I can't seperate them but maybe if I raise the lights to 14 inches which I like better anyway b/c I get a better spread, and then reduce the power to say 60/30 and go from there?

It would be nice if someone had a PAR meter I could borrow. That would solve this whole things once and for all.

Thanks Binford for the tips.

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Originally Posted by 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 !

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I agree estanoche that I need to find someone willing to let me borrow a PAR meter for a while. That will be so much easier. My T5s were old and needed to be replaced so they were probably putting off less light then normal in a big way. They were a good 18 months old when I switched them:)

I can't really plug the T5s in w/ the LEDS or I would they are totaly different setup. One in a hood and the other hanging from the ceiling and I dismantled the hood to gte them out:)

I'm going to back the intesity off dramaticaly and raise the lights right now and then see what happens. In the meantime if anyone has a PAR meter I can use let me know:) I'm very trustworthy and live in Grand Blanc, not to far from Flint.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by estanoche

i'd recommend you beg borrow and steal until you find a PAR meter - then dial in the LEDs via PAR...

A typical T5 was probably getting you 300 PAR at the top of the water, and 100 at your sandbed... if it were me, I'd dial in the LEDs to mimic that as much as possible....

If you can still plug in your old T5s, do that, measure the par and different depths, and then adjust the LEDs from there - it is what the dimmable modules are for :)

I've never used a dimmable module on my LEDs (and only run them in my frag tank, so I'm taking fresh frags from my main display tank and plunking them in under the LEDs, I've since learned to always put them off to the side, never directly under the bulbs until the corals get used to the light)- but when I do bleach frags like that, assuming they still have polyps, they usually color up better than ever after a month or so once they get over the shock

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Well I raised the lights to 14 inches above the water and set the whites to 30% and the blues to 60% and after a few days my monti is still turing white, and the tips of my green slimer is becomming more and more white.

Changing my lights were the worst thing that I have ever done. I can say that if everything dies b/c of these lights I will probably get out of reefing after about 7-8 years.

I tested all my water parms just to be sure they wern't the issue, andhere is what I got.

PH-8.3
Salinity 34
NO3-0
NO2-0
NH3-0
CA-435
MG-1400
KH-9.0
TDS (in my top off water)- 002
PO4-0

So I think my water is good.

An update on what I've learned.

Things have seemed to finally stabilize and some things are actually starting to grow back. The fall out was pretty bad, but I've came to a conclusion on what was causing the problems. I actually found someone w/ a PAR meter so that helped me figure out what was wrong.

Basically I was getting too much light, and not enough light if that makes sense:) The light from the LEDs is very narrow compared to my T5s w/ my 60 degree lens. I had corals near the outside edges that was struggling b/c they weren't getting enough light and then I had corals melting in the center. I had some others mainly the LPS's that didn't care either way. The softies that were high up in my tank had a real hard time and they have started moving themselves out to the edges. My SPS that were on the outside even high in the tank didn't do well b/c of low light.

That was hard for me to diagnose b/c at times it seemed like I had things getting too much light and other times not enough so I got confused. So for me I would say lens choice and height above the water which affects spread were the most important part of getting this right. I've added some 80 degree lens and raised the lights to about 14 inches above the water and things seem to be doing better. Now I'm actually able to raise the intensity of light a fair amount and everything is happy. I did adjust the lights up slowly and I'm now at 85% blue and 70% white and all is good. Its not perfect yet, but I will report back in a while to let you know how things are going.

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Originally Posted by greenstarfish03

An update on what I've learned.

Things have seemed to finally stabilize and some things are actually starting to grow back. The fall out was pretty bad, but I've came to a conclusion on what was causing the problems. I actually found someone w/ a PAR meter so that helped me figure out what was wrong.

Basically I was getting too much light, and not enough light if that makes sense:) The light from the LEDs is very narrow compared to my T5s w/ my 60 degree lens. I had corals near the outside edges that was struggling b/c they weren't getting enough light and then I had corals melting in the center. I had some others mainly the LPS's that didn't care either way. The softies that were high up in my tank had a real hard time and they have started moving themselves out to the edges. My SPS that were on the outside even high in the tank didn't do well b/c of low light.

That was hard for me to diagnose b/c at times it seemed like I had things getting too much light and other times not enough so I got confused. So for me I would say lens choice and height above the water which affects spread were the most important part of getting this right. I've added some 80 degree lens and raised the lights to about 14 inches above the water and things seem to be doing better. Now I'm actually able to raise the intensity of light a fair amount and everything is happy. I did adjust the lights up slowly and I'm now at 85% blue and 70% white and all is good. Its not perfect yet, but I will report back in a while to let you know how things are going.

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Great news ! Glad to hear it's comeing around for you. :thumbsup:

I think the blues pack as much "photo punch" as the whites when it comes to LEDs...possibly more since all of the energy output is concentrated into a narrow spectrum versus whites which includes a mix of the color spectrum.

I have run my tank for over a month with only blues running and my corals have never looked better. I consider whites as mostly for aesthetics when it comes to LEDs.

While a PAR meter makes a good tool to use like you did for finding hot spots, I'm not sure it is relevant to compare the numbers with other light types (halides, t5's, etc.). Again, I think the narrow spectrum output of LEDs doesn't accurately register with a quantum meter.

I'm not using any lenses on my LED array...but my tank is only ~16-inches deep and I am mostly keeping soft corals and a couple LPS. Lenses become necessary if you have a deep tank or mount the lights high. (Or keep high light corals.)

Regardless of my above ramblings, I am glad to hear your corals are on the mend. :)