Success with LED and SPS

Douglas · #1 12-13-2012, 12:33 PM

Not as vibrant, less growth, less polyp extentions, some browning. I did have a bit of a water quality issue. (traces of phosphates) which i have hopefull figured out. But what i've seen so far the sps did like the MH/T5's better. Time will tell. Patience is the key, i guess.

fragbox.ca · #2 12-13-2012, 12:41 PM

dam
really not happy!
that happened with me when I was using AI Sol
everything browned out and I lost alot of sps
sounds like they are not getting enough light. You have the lights turned down?

Douglas · #3 12-13-2012, 01:04 PM

This light has the ability to increase up and dim down, over the course of the day. I have it maxing out, at about 90% right now. And I have also illiminated the red and green colors from the light. I have found that those colors cause excessive algea blooms, and don't really look very nice, to me. It's heart wrenching to see full colonies, that have taken me more than year or more to grow, turn brown, just because i wanted to keep up with the trends, or save a few bucks on power and bulb replacement.

Aquattro · #4 12-13-2012, 01:15 PM

I posted a few pics of my SPS in this thread

http://96.31.76.198/vbulletin/showth...005#post773005

While I lost a little "pop" in my colors, on a very few pieces, overall I'd say LEDs can successfully grow SPS. My growth has not slowed, polyps are the same, colors are mostly the same. This is with 6 x AI Sol blues. Either your light doesn't have enough power/intensity, or the water quality issues you mentioned are affecting the corals.

GOOD LEDs are perfectly good for growing SPS

kien · #5 12-13-2012, 01:22 PM

Maybe you are blaming the wrong thing? You mentioned a phosphate issue. Raised phosphates can inhibit growth, cause browning and kill SPS. In some species it can happen fast especially if they are used to cleaner water. By the time you realized you had elevated phosphates it may have been there for a while? Fixing that problem won't turn your SPS around over night. It could take weeks if not months for SPS to recover.

daplatapus · #6 12-13-2012, 01:55 PM

My $0.02 is I just don't think we fully understand light spectrum demands for many coral species. Or if they are understood (they certainly aren't by me yet, lol), are minimized by thinking corals will grow fine under NW/RB combinations. Many older or cheaper fixtures are only putting out specific wave lengths and are missing some of the wave lengths you get out off natural sunlight or MH/T5 combo's. The production process of LED's is that each LED is made to produce a fairly narrow window of spectrum unlike MH's that give off the full spectrum from UV all the way to 20,000K. Thus the MH's are giving corals everything they need, whereas with a LED that is poorly mixed in colour, would only give the coral part of what it needs and may lose colour, growth etc. It would appear, from my research anyway, that the best results are coming from fixtures with a really good blend of colours. For example:

420nm Actinic blue/violet
430nm bluer actinic blue/violet
445 Blue
455 Royal Blue
6500K Blueish white
10000K Even blue white
20000K super blue white

Some even advocate that wave lengths down to 395nm are beneficial but to an unknown degree. Thus the leaps and bounds we're seeing in LED fixtures as technology and research are yielding either undesirable results, such as poor growth and coloration, or good growth. There are some out there.

No idea if I'm right or wrong, just my opinion I'm starting to develop after looking into DIY'ing my LED fixtures....

kien · #7 12-13-2012, 03:27 PM

Here is a Canreef TOTM that is currently running inexpensive eBay LED lights.

It's Dez's tank. I believe he's been running LEDs for a bit over a year now? I'm sure he would chime in but he's busy playing on the beach in California.

The Guy · #8 12-14-2012, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aquattro

I posted a few pics of my SPS in this thread

http://96.31.76.198/vbulletin/showth...005#post773005

While I lost a little "pop" in my colors, on a very few pieces, overall I'd say LEDs can successfully grow SPS. My growth has not slowed, polyps are the same, colors are mostly the same. This is with 6 x AI Sol blues. Either your light doesn't have enough power/intensity, or the water quality issues you mentioned are affecting the corals.

GOOD LEDs are perfectly good for growing SPS

+1 to the AI sols, I have 2 modules on my 90 gallon and all my corals have never looked better, running them at 60% on all 3 colors white, blue & royal blue.