Can someone help me? I have a tank that has good parameters, but LED lights. The tank is only 18" and the SPS frags are like 10" below the lights. Over time the SPS have lost their colors. Would this possibly be due to overexposure to the lights? Like, should I lessen the time the lights are on? They turn on about 7am, and turn off about 5pm, so 10 hr on full blast. I do regular water changes, clean the skimmer, use kalk for top off, ...
SPS colors?
- Thread starter donrando
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Bleaching can happen slow or fast. So if it looks like they are loosing color and going towards white then it would be logical to think that they are getting to much light if the lights are new to the system. SO yes crank them down to at least 50% and leave it for a few days. When a color starts down this road its a tough climb back so cross your fingers.
Mojo
Mojo
treehugger
Well-known member
I've seen this type of bleaching time and time again with LEDs. My service company has used many of the top brands and without fail, the coral health over time just goes down hill. Sure they look great under the blues but as soon as you look at them under any sort of normal light, you can see that they are really washed out. The only LEDs I've ever had any sort of long term success with has been the reefbrites and even with those, I had to use Aquablue t5s with the LEDs to keep the corals happy and colorful. I think there is alot of promise in LED technology, but for long term coral success, I recommend staying with the tried and true t5s, MH and sparing LED use to accent color.
I think the biggest problem folks have is that dont understand that the light being put out by the LEDS is all in the zone that the zoox use for photosynthesis, so even though they dont look as bright to us when compared to MH or others they are pumping very usable par. SPS as with any coral that uses zoox for its energy source will manipulate the amount of zoox with in its tissue, if their is not enough light they will add or allow more zoox to populate thus making up the short coming. The same applies when going the other direction, but with one major exception, one of the bi-products of the zoox is oxygen, ans when the coral is getting to much oxygen with in its tissue (which can kill the coral) it releases an enzyme that expels the zoox. SO when folks come into using LEDS they must start at a very low power and then slowly ramp up over the course of months, or they run the risk of this happening.
MOjo
MOjo
BigAl07
Well-known member
Mojo is SPOT-ON! What happens is with LED is that the coral seems "Bombarded" with intense lighting (even 50% can be too much for many coral) and they have a "Knee-Jerk" reaction and over-release their zoanthellae. It's too much of a good thing and like Mojo stated it's a tough, long, and slow road to recovery. The sooner it's corrected the better the odds of success are.
I've had LED on one of my tanks now for over 3 years and it was a learning curve to learn just how MUCH to turn them down. I bleached several SPS over the first year simply because it was hard to keep the dimmer cranked down so LOW! It takes a lot of will-power to buy new High Output lighting only to crank it way down for the first month and then slowly ramp it up.
That's why my new LED fixture is being designed to work via my GHL ProfiLux controller so I can accurately control the lighting and use a "Scheme" to slowly ramp the lights up and down.
I've had LED on one of my tanks now for over 3 years and it was a learning curve to learn just how MUCH to turn them down. I bleached several SPS over the first year simply because it was hard to keep the dimmer cranked down so LOW! It takes a lot of will-power to buy new High Output lighting only to crank it way down for the first month and then slowly ramp it up.
That's why my new LED fixture is being designed to work via my GHL ProfiLux controller so I can accurately control the lighting and use a "Scheme" to slowly ramp the lights up and down.
