Led help

[Peppie]

Nice build colin,
I am sure you know to acclimate your tank slowly, dont want to fry your livestock!!

 

[colin779]

Nice build colin,
I am sure you know to acclimate your tank slowly, dont want to fry your livestock!!

Thanks! I started off with them pretty low, an have been very vigilant for any sort of bleaching or something just not looking right. So far so good. Good reminder though, probably not something everyone would think about.

 

[Katchupoy]

Watch out for the reds and blues. The blues will turned lighter color when too much light is introduced. The reds will slightly change in color to orange, but since you have green (just my observation) you might be able to counter that phenomena. I dont have green yet on mine but will add later.

Very nice tank btw.

Also, these vibrant colors you see is because of the result of your previous lighting you used and not because of the current LED lighting. Special emphasis on the "result". Now the questions is, keeping them like that and maintaining it.

This will not be possible, because new sets of light and spectrum introduces new reactions of corals to the light. So they will react to these new environment whether we like it or not. The question is, are we going to like it?

All the best.

C

 

[senji]

im actually going to be pulling the red off my led build it does nothing for the corals health. and am starting to wonder if in high dose can do harm. i have 2 leds of red over my 20g and i can see the red so they r going by by. not to sure on the green yet they might get replaced as well.

 

[colin779]

Watch out for the reds and blues. The blues will turned lighter color when too much light is introduced. The reds will slightly change in color to orange, but since you have green (just my observation) you might be able to counter that phenomena. I dont have green yet on mine but will add later.

Very nice tank btw.

Also, these vibrant colors you see is because of the result of your previous lighting you used and not because of the current LED lighting. Special emphasis on the "result". Now the questions is, keeping them like that and maintaining it.

This will not be possible, because new sets of light and spectrum introduces new reactions of corals to the light. So they will react to these new environment whether we like it or not. The question is, are we going to like it?

All the best.

C

I'll have to keep an eye out for any color changing.

Thanks for the compliment, tank went through its rough days but has been looking pretty good lately.

Hopefully the leds are able to maintain the colors I now see. They were always very colorful before but they seem to have more pop now. I'm very curious to see how everything looks over time. I'm going to take some more pictures so I can do comparisons.

 

[colin779]

im actually going to be pulling the red off my led build it does nothing for the corals health. and am starting to wonder if in high dose can do harm. i have 2 leds of red over my 20g and i can see the red so they r going by by. not to sure on the green yet they might get replaced as well.

Maybe just start by eliminating one red and one green. My understanding of adding those colors was simply to help bring out some of those colors in coral and fill out the color spectrum since leds have a very narrow spectrum compared to other light sources. I only have 2 reds over my 90 so over a 20 that would definitely be to much.

Another thing you could try is how I set mine up. I have the whites at 850mA and the red, green, and violet are set at 690mA. They are on the same dimmer knob as the whites so the whites are always brighter. I had them at the same mA rating when I first set them up and noticed the red was pretty overpowering. Once I made that change it balanced it out really well. Just an idea, worked out well for me =)

 

[Katchupoy]

@senji and colin.



Here is a very good read.
Feature Article: Light in the Reef Aquaria &

Pay attention to the red LED. Right now, Im really having issues with regards to my corals that have red pigments. Specially my RBTA's. And based on the reading (link above) i need a very small amount of green.

Please read it, and tell me what you think about it.

Thanks.

 

[senji]

all leds have to be paired for balance cant just run 1 led. as my board is wired in paralell on 2 drivers. so its 2 or none.

 

[tat2z_21]

When I ran different colored LEDs I noticed a dramatic discoloration, and with the reds I noticed more nuisance algea appeared, on the glass and in the sand. Just my two cents, I stopped using the colors in my builds but that is just me. Instead I now use different whites. I use cool whites, and both warm whites.

 

[Katchupoy]

Tat

That is the same observations I have when I still have my red leds. Now I really like to see the effects of different blues based on that reading. And some low watt greens.

 

[colin779]

I'm going to re-read that article again tonight so i make sure everything soaks in well =) From what i gathered the first time through is that with the red spectrum there's really only a small portion of if that corals use and its mostly something plants require. But, it also says that a lot of really shallow water corals do use it. The red that is in my lights peaks at 631nm and says the dominate portion of it is at 621.5nm. Most coral use primarily the blue spectrum though because that's whats available to them at any depth beyond a couple meters.

They've been over my tank for close to a month now and i haven't noticed any kind of algae growth or weird coloration of anything in the tank (yet, hopefully i don't). Maybe this is because the red and green leds on my system are at a low power level? When i had them at the same level as the whites i was not happy with the coloring i was getting, looked pinkish and a little washed out. Once they were turned down i can't tell they are there. They were sold through rapid as just something to round off the spectrum and bring out some additional colors. I will be keeping an eye out though as time passes to see if i notice anything that could be attributed to the 2 red leds.

 

[tat2z_21]

I think that if it works out for your system and you like it, that is all that matters. I had 6 OSRAM hyper reds on my 180 powered at 1A . Just a thought though, if the amperage is lower, and the amount of red light filtered by the water column, how much of the 630 is getting to the coral? To be beneficial?