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...the problem for us though is because zoox (the algae) has two pigments yellow and green and that makes brown. SO you end up having your corals brown out if the light is not intence enough or theirs not enough photons hitting those zoox's.

Mojo

So my corals should have browned up if I read this correctly as lighting provided in the form of halides and leds don't compare to the intensity of the sun? If so, I'll grab a few pics and try and figure out the time frame they were in there as I have my pics dated and you can see how they looked coming from the wild to a tank. :)
 
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You have to keep a few more things in mind. Of course everything depends on the coral we are talking about and then about how much energy it gets from Photo. So in the case I made above, its not an exact thing, they wont just ramp up slowly, they will get and have reproduce as much as they can right off and then slow purge if it becomes to much. This is the case when someone gets a coral that is brown to start and slowly begins to color back up. Now this is mainly wth what we call sps, with lps and softies they simply ramp up capture and absorbsion rates to make up for any shortfall or change in that dynamic?? Make sence??

So yes the sun is much stronger then our MH's/Leds or what ever, but you also have to remember that certain colors in the spectral range only penetrate water to a certain depth, then they weaken and thats no matter how clear the water is.

Mojo
 
You have to keep a few more things in mind. Of course everything depends on the coral we are talking about and then about how much energy it gets from Photo. So in the case I made above, its not an exact thing, they wont just ramp up slowly, they will get and have reproduce as much as they can right off and then slow purge if it becomes to much. This is the case when someone gets a coral that is brown to start and slowly begins to color back up. Now this is mainly wth what we call sps, with lps and softies they simply ramp up capture and absorbsion rates to make up for any shortfall or change in that dynamic?? Make sence??

So yes the sun is much stronger then our MH's/Leds or what ever, but you also have to remember that certain colors in the spectral range only penetrate water to a certain depth, then they weaken and thats no matter how clear the water is.

Mojo

Makes sense... My corals were all native to me and wild caught. Ricordia, gorgonias, zoanthids, paly's etc. I'll toss up a few pics in my next post to show you the kinds.:)
 
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If you have a dimmer Lorrie just start with it at a lower level and then raise it every other day to just make sure. Never hurts.


MOjo

I would definately say to dim the lights, and slowly increase. That is a nice light fixture Lorrie. That is really going to make the corals color pop. I still want to get out your way one day and check out your tanks.

It is a nice unit. It is progamable so you can set the percentage of intensity on the white, blue and the moonlights each seperately and in 5 different stages. So I have it set at 60% blue & 50% moonlight for a hour + then 75% white and 90% blue for a couple hours and then 100% white & 100% blue for a few hours then back down to 25% white and 70% blue and 50% moonlight for a hour + and then down 100% moonlights till late.
I might drop the 75% white time down to 50% or 60%. Dont ask my how I came up with those numbers cause there was no reason for them. Just sounded like a good place to start.
When it is running on the low white and higher blue cycle, it looks sooo cool.
 
Krish, those corals are very nice, I wish that I even lived near a beach let a lone a coral reef in the bahamas
 
Krish, those corals are very nice, I wish that I even lived near a beach let a lone a coral reef in the bahamas

Thanks!! All of the corals were frags I got that had broken off of a reef for whatever reason like the gorgonias. I didn't break them off of the reef. If i did that, i could get some nice stuff lol, but I don't believe in destroying reefs so I only frag off of something already broken off. The ricordia and zoanthids came out of tidepools which is different. I had 3 different types of wild zoanthids. :)


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Nice Krish I love those to. In the case of the corals you have they are a very heavy filter and capture corals so the light shouldnt play a big role with the exception of lighting up internal pigments.

Mojo
 
Nice Krish I love those to. In the case of the corals you have they are a very heavy filter and capture corals so the light shouldnt play a big role with the exception of lighting up internal pigments.

Mojo

Cool beans!! Besides the clowns and tang I had, my tank was something you'd see here around the reefs. All corals native to me. Next time around I will do the same but with local fish as well. :)


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Well damn it MIke, it was nice seeing you again. Wish that the results would have turned out a little better. I sent an email to the LED supplier and will let you know what I get back from them. I will also let you know as soon as that 12k gets here and then it will be my turn to make that long drive.
 
just thought i should give a little non scientific data about my LED experience...
so about a year and a half ago i bought 3 of the ecoxotic panorama modules,
2 blue and one white. they use (did use) only 1 watt led's and i only have 12" of tank
for light to penetrate( a 24x16x12 20g), so i figured it was a good match, short of measuring par...
well, I feel that some of my corals have gained coloration(not just extra flourecence from the blue led's),
while others have lost color... most all of the really delicate favias, like babies breath or pot of gold, etc lose color...
acans seem to hold the same color, and sps seemed to lose a little color, as well as monties like rainbow or superman,
zoanthids and palys seemed to color up very well, and euphilids and other larger lps seem unaffected one way ofr another...
i will say this, i did experiment with throwing on a t5 fixture over the tsnk after some of the corals had lost color, and guess what... color started returning...
and these were newer geisemann bulbs fwiw.. so since then i run blue led's with t5's for the best coloration. i find too hard too belive that i was over cooking my corals for them to bail zoox with only 3 12 watt led arrays of 1 watt leds. so i suspect that it has to do with the pur, or with the comarably narrow spectrum of most led's. i personally want to experiment with using rgb color led's to produce white light, and uv leds in conjunction with the royal blues and magenta
so i was pretty psyched to see that ecoxotic has released magenta and royal blue mix modules, as well as rgb controllable modules.all are 19 watts and also have reflectors available to almost double the light output. (yes, i spent about an hour talking to the rep at seamax :) )
i will post as to what the results are...
 
Seth, Devin. Me and Floyd had some kind of mis communication so we dont realy have any results to give ya. I thought we had the 12k bulbs in place but we ended up with just the 20K which were something we were really into as they have a ton of light in the violet range and thus being that low in the spectral range werent giving much in the way of par. So we will have to wait for the proper bulbs in order to give ya some data. Sorry about that.


Mojo
 
Reading thew this thread I noticed mention of Sanjays thoughts on LEDs, well I had the pleasure of meeting Sanjay earlier this year and hear him speek at the Alt reef club. I was ready to change my lighting before talking with him to all T5s, the 1300watts of MH lighting over my tank had to go! He convinced me the best lighting would be LEDs but cost would be high for a tank my size. All in all I spent about $400. over the cost of T5 setup and have already paid that back in power savings! no longer do I need my chiller, house A/c runs less and something most people don't bring up the ever changing spectum level as your bulbs age before needing to be replaced atleast every 12 months. Thats another big savings for me 4 MHs bulbs $80 each, antics another $75. at best. Here's a couple of pic's of my tank before and after, everyone has there own taste I perfer the LEDs
IMG_1105.jpg


IMG_0418-1.jpg
 
not all of my LED bulbs were the same spectrum! one 20k one 12k and im not sure bout the rapids one!
Its all good!
 
Devin the specral makes a difference, a 400 watt mh 10k will put out more par the the same thing in a 20K, so it goes across lighting type. If you do the math we were getting around 310 par at 6 inces down.

Guerry so what are the lights on the tanks you posted??


Mike
 
If you are referring to the LEDs ,144 XP-G Cree 72 royal blues, 36 coolwhite and 36 XP-G R5 for midday lighting
 
no the the first was with two 400watt and two 250watt MHs 20k

I'm getting ready to post par readings from 5 minutes ago
 

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