LED lighting question

[mvallee]

I know, another LED lighting question and of course all my posts always seem to be so long but would appreciate any guidance.
Something is not right with my tank and I just have no idea other than maybe lights. I have seen coral degradation, montipora have algae growing on them now, SPS birdsnest is the only thing that WAS growing but has stopped and the branches are starting to look white and a grouping of SPS I got as a grab bag from Divers Den with another purchase are all pretty much dead after 3 months in my tank. I would appreciate any thoughts feedback to numbers or lighting and schedule you could offer. Tank has been up for 1 year so not mature but not new either.

My numbers are pretty good other than a short self induced Alk swing when I stopped dosing when I switched salts to Red Sea Coral pro about 5 weeks ago but things were going down hill before then hence the switching of salts and Alk is back where it should be.
KH 11.5
CA 440
PH 8
nitrates 5-10
Phos .10
mg 1300
I dose ESV-B ionic nightly and numbers are holding steady,
I added a BRS dual reactor for GFO and carbon 4 weeks ago to drop my phos from .25 and although high should not have caused corals to die off

When I sold a tank I had recently to a long time reefer and showed him what I was looking at his first thought was not enough light, here is what I am running.

over my 180gallon 6' long tank I have a reefbreeders 32" photon 215 watts 99 bulbs brand new and two ocean revive IT2040's 120 watt over each end.

here is my lighting schedule for the lights, I can not get the formatting to stick on the numbers below and see no way to insert a table but you get the idea
time blue white
7 4 0
8 10 0
9 10 0
10 17 10
11 20 20
12 25 25
1 70 65
2 80 65
3 70 65
4 70 60
5 70 60
6 50 40
7 10 10
8 10 1
9 6 0
10 5 0

I did ramp them up to this level and did not blast them day 1 at this level, they are hanging 9" above the water and the SPS that are dying/dead are 10" below the surface, I started them on the bottom and worked them up to this height, The only thing doing well is what looks like a green slimer that is beginning to encrust the base and is the only SPS that looks like anything other than brown branches that I got from the 5 pack grab bag from DD at this point.

Things that are doing really well Zoas, Paly's, hammer, ricordea, toadstools, leathers, Symphalia Brain open brain, I also have a blasto and duncan that are doing really well but nothing is experiencing any noticeable growth which I expected to see by now. my frogspawn is starting to die back as well which is very confusing as this was a super healthy piece I got from a fellow reefer and although it never grew it looked healthy the whole time till 3 weeks ago (maybe the Alk swing or salt change).
I have plenty of flow with a Jebao WP25 and 60 plus a return from my sump of 1125GPH everything has flow across it.

Fish are healthy as well. This tank started as a FOWLR and during a 3 month fallow period decided to try my hand at Coral and really liked them at the time and decided to try mixed reef.
I was running current Orbit marine LED's and a 4 bulb 48" T5 and I feel like things were doing better but there was no way that was enough light for a tank this long deep and wide and but the birdsnest was growing good as it was pretty much at the surface and the montipora's were growing.

I definitely got an algae bloom with the LEDS and have cut back on my feedings as well as adding cheato and some other macro's to my sump in an effort to bring the phos down and they are starting to grow so they are doing there job and I have gone from having to clean my glass every two days to 5 days now so things are moving in the right direction with the algae issue as well.

 

[mvallee]

here are some pics
before


The one on the right front is now


montipora

 

[wdebenedettojr]

What % intensity are you running

 

[mvallee]

This chart was my blue and white percentages, I know the formatting gets screwed up but the first entry is 7am 4% blues and 0% whites and so on down the day for every hour until they shut off at 10

time blue white
7 4 0
8 10 0
9 10 0
10 17 10
11 20 20
12 25 25
1 70 65
2 80 65
3 70 65
4 70 60
5 70 60
6 50 40
7 10 10
8 10 1
9 6 0
10 5 0

 

[reefstarter]

Are the corals that are having issues all over the tank or just on the ends? See where I'm going here? I'm at a loss . And not that SOME people don't have good luck with led but I have never seen a thread where a tank lit by t5s or halides has had this issue. Just saying. I myself have been considering a reef breeder light.

 

[mvallee]

the SPS are under the reef breeder the ends is where the brains and most of my soft corals and mushrooms are.

as an experiment after my post this morning I put the t5 fixtrue back on leaving the LEDS inplace at the same lighting intensities, my BTA looks better, it seemed healthy before and had just gone through a split but the tentacles were getting very stringy looking and I can see them filling in now.

I think I will video the tank this afternoon under full intensity and then do the same next weekend to see if there are any improvements.

 

[reefstarter]

There ya go I'm sure it will turn out fine good luck!!!

 

[Greg Hiller]

I don't have ANY experience with LED's so take this for what it's worth. I know they are supposed to be super efficient and all, but it seems to me like you are not really running them for very long and at much intensity. 6 hours at 60-70% of full power seems low to me. On the natural reef there is not a long warm up in my experience. Within about 2 hours of sun up I think the light is pretty intense. The average is 12 hours of sunlight, so I think you should be at high intensity for 8 hours or so, perhaps even longer if you think your light is not very strong.

I don't know much about the Red Sea salt mix, but I've been happy with Instant Ocean for about the last 17 years.

 

[gbartlett11]

I have 2 ai sols, leds are more powerful then u think. Just because there is no heat does not mean theres less power. I would bring your blue and white down to maybe peak at 50 and 40 and see 2hat happens. I had the same problem with my sps they may look like there fine as u move them closer to light but it can happen fast when they decide it's too bright. Could be wrong just a thought

 

[dilligaf29]

i just went throught this with my buddy on his 120. his lights where to close to water and the intensty was way to high and not enough flow in his tank. he bought a photon 48 its been a week sense i ajusted his lights and stuff seem to be liking it. now how high up do u have ur lights ?

 

[Fish Drive Me Crazy]

I would try turning them down as well I have a max razor led over my tank about a foot above I run 100 blue but only 50 white but I slowly acclimated my tank to this point over a few months. And yes I will agree LEDs are more powerful thank you think because when I first got my lights I mistakenly put it on preset mode instead of custom so it was 100 blue and 100 with and corals were not happy at all and that was just one or two days like that

 

[jdeb101]

It may still be too early to be sure, but a few weeks ago I put my T5 fixture back over my 40 breeder and it appears my they have better polyp extension and coloration. I was running the reefbreeders photon24 but now have it hanging over my 95. Once the 95 is cycled it will be interesting to expirement with how corals do between the two tanks.

 

[jdeb101]

There's so many factors to look at as well other than intensity such as surface agitation, nutrients, optics on the LEDs, and so on.

 

[mvallee]

I have heard LED's are more powerful and most do not run them above 60% for either channel especially if you leave the lenses on but I don't know the T5 on for one day BTA looks better and my torch is extended more than I have seen in a while and the frogspawn was extended and full of color, though a couple of my ZOA's closed up with the extra light so the t5 is off till tomorrow.
I just don't know so confusing. I will put the T5's back on tomorrow and see what we got. $1000 in lights I really want them to work even if it means I supplement with T5's

 

[delta]

maybe it has nothing to do with your lights

but you would have to lay out your tank a lot better to try and figure it out.

It is easier to try and find "the thing" that is your issue but many times that is not the case

Your Alk is pretty high right off the top

 

[mvallee]

I have seen lots of beautiful tanks growing amazing corals on the Chinese Black Box proof group on FB so I know they work well, I guess I was just looking for validation of my setup, this is a tough hobby and I do try to research and hate falling short, I have heard the arguments for T5's and halide but really hoping to stay the course for electric use and heat during the summer.

Not sure what is going on though I do not think maintaining 11.5 Alk is bad, I shoot for 11 but 11.5 seems to be where I always land and a test of a freshly mixed batch of red sea Coral pro came back at 13.1 with my salifert test kit so I think I am within spec why do you think 11.5 is high enough to cause this type of issue?

I really love the look of the mature tanks with big colonies of SPS, acro's and monitpora so I want to figure this out and have seen plenty of tanks with LED only doing it so do not think it is the root cause but rather something I am missing or doing wrong, just getting frustrated I guess, I am a fish guy looking to get into corals so this is tough.

 

[reefstarter]

I run my 90 at around 10 dkh alk and my basement system is at almost 11 , it also depends on how long your system has been running high alk . SOME corals will adjust just fine to higher alk . other hate it no matter what the lighting . as for which hate or like well I don't know . for example my acans in my 90 didn't do well at all . I moved them straight in to my basement and after just 1 day they looked better . You have to look at each piece of the puzzle one piece at a time and get that right best you can then move on to the next piece . personally I have seen more threads about Leds and corals going bad to stay away from leds but thats just me . I have seen many tanks under leds that look amazing as well . but I do agree with delta about the alk . maybe bring it down over the course of a week or 2 to around 10 ish and see if that helps and check on the lighting intesity during that time . I don't have any actual experience with leds myself but maybe they are a bit to bright . depends on how high off the tank they are and such . Hope this helps

 

[delta]

I have seen lots of beautiful tanks growing amazing corals on the Chinese Black Box proof group on FB so I know they work well, I guess I was just looking for validation of my setup, this is a tough hobby and I do try to research and hate falling short, I have heard the arguments for T5's and halide but really hoping to stay the course for electric use and heat during the summer.

Not sure what is going on though I do not think maintaining 11.5 Alk is bad, I shoot for 11 but 11.5 seems to be where I always land and a test of a freshly mixed batch of red sea Coral pro came back at 13.1 with my salifert test kit so I think I am within spec why do you think 11.5 is high enough to cause this type of issue?

I really love the look of the mature tanks with big colonies of SPS, acro's and monitpora so I want to figure this out and have seen plenty of tanks with LED only doing it so do not think it is the root cause but rather something I am missing or doing wrong, just getting frustrated I guess, I am a fish guy looking to get into corals so this is tough.

Well part of figuring it out is working through your issues and that comes from looking at the whole picture. Your almost at 12Dkh so if you testing is off at all you could be way high With SPS stability is going to make the difference. But you also want buffer while you tune in your tank 9Dkh, Ca 425 and Mg1400 is a nice middle ground, with wiggle room on both sides

If you want to figure it out look at the whole picture in depth with other eyes, as looking at what you might think it is when you do not know is counter productive.

 

[dz6t]

Just my opionion that those Chinese LED can grow coral including SPS just fine. If you can visit Richardong's setup, he uses them to grow beautiful high end corals.
From your photo, I doubt lighting is an issue. What do you have for flow?

 

[delta]

The other issue is high nutrients and that could be from leaching as this was a FO tank previously. As stated earlier he had an algae bloom after adding more (LED)lights. Meaning the nutrients were already their to feed it. Now while he may be getting lower reading that maybe an inaccurate reading.