Good read on corals and light
- Thread starter Frostyfish
- Start date
Can you briefly touch on "wrong kind" of light or point me where I can read more? Can you use CREE Neutral White
Page 4 on XP-G: http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/C...d Modules/XLamp/Data and Binning/XLampXPG.pdf
Page 5 on XT-E:
http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/C...d Modules/XLamp/Data and Binning/XLampXTE.pdf
Page 4 on XP-G: http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/C...d Modules/XLamp/Data and Binning/XLampXPG.pdf
Page 5 on XT-E:
http://www.cree.com/~/media/Files/C...d Modules/XLamp/Data and Binning/XLampXTE.pdf
I am not an LED expert. I still have quite a disdain for them and have no plans to move away from MH. I do keep up with them on aggregate in case they do become viable and then I will switch... nowhere even close IMO. There is really good info on the different diodes on RC with good tests and studies from Reef Breeders and Pacific Sun, who I think make BY FAR the best LED units (at quite a price), but you might not like RC enough to go. Basically, there are no white diodes that are any good - way too much yellow, red and green. Some are less bad than others, but I don't keep up with which ones are which. This is why some companies are using blends of other colors to simulate white to human eyes, but are still so-so for coral.
Mostly what I mean by "wrong kind" is LED based anymore, but was also quite common in early adaptations of Fluorescent and MH tech as well. The bulbs were putting out too much in the wrong ranges. There was a day when MH and NO and VHO bulbs were not good for coral either. There were no message boards or "featured articles" from BRS or MarineDepot telling everybody that the early junk was "the bomb and the future" and when people did not buy them, the companies figured out how to make a bulb that was for this hobby... and they make money still today. The argument that nobody can afford to R&D a diode for a hobby is complete bunk - the truth is that nobody has had to do it yet. It is not necessary for any of the manufacturers since people will buy their stuff anyway. It will come soon IMO - LEDs are being abandoned at a higher rate than any other light.
Example, I have some quite common SPS corals like Hawkins and Red Planet from ORA. There are times where I put a pair of 3x250W HQI Aquamedic lights over my standard 120G. I do this when I want color to really pop and for some growth. This makes a total of 6 250W Phoenix 14K PAR emitting machines over a somewhat small tank. Par can easily get over 1000 even 10-12 inches deep. The corals thirve moreso than with the one fixture. People with a single cheap LED can kill those same corals unless they turn the whites down to 20-30% and even then, they do not always flourish under 1/10 of the PPFD, PAR or any other measure of light than what they can get with high end MH setups. The 14K Phoenix puts out a better spectrum, so you can use more of it. People will commonly post that their LED is too powerful, but this is not right... it has too much of the wrong spectrum. FWIW, outside in Missouri under summertime sun, the par in a tank that I had outside was 1200-1500 depending on the time of the day - no issues at all with any corals, even some supposedly "low light" polyps that melt under some LEDs.
Lots of the LED fanboys have started to switch to T5 and MH and will never go back - they used to post a lot on the older threads and have since left the board from the thrashing that they got from people who "looked up" to them as LED users and are now ****ed that they changed over. Some went with LED along with T5 and MH and have since taken the LED off completely since they had no real value. Some know that their LEDs are not as good as what they had, need the other things that they offer (lower heat, less electricity (which is highly debatable)) and are willing to live with a subset of species and less color.
Dang. That was long. Sorry.
Mostly what I mean by "wrong kind" is LED based anymore, but was also quite common in early adaptations of Fluorescent and MH tech as well. The bulbs were putting out too much in the wrong ranges. There was a day when MH and NO and VHO bulbs were not good for coral either. There were no message boards or "featured articles" from BRS or MarineDepot telling everybody that the early junk was "the bomb and the future" and when people did not buy them, the companies figured out how to make a bulb that was for this hobby... and they make money still today. The argument that nobody can afford to R&D a diode for a hobby is complete bunk - the truth is that nobody has had to do it yet. It is not necessary for any of the manufacturers since people will buy their stuff anyway. It will come soon IMO - LEDs are being abandoned at a higher rate than any other light.
Example, I have some quite common SPS corals like Hawkins and Red Planet from ORA. There are times where I put a pair of 3x250W HQI Aquamedic lights over my standard 120G. I do this when I want color to really pop and for some growth. This makes a total of 6 250W Phoenix 14K PAR emitting machines over a somewhat small tank. Par can easily get over 1000 even 10-12 inches deep. The corals thirve moreso than with the one fixture. People with a single cheap LED can kill those same corals unless they turn the whites down to 20-30% and even then, they do not always flourish under 1/10 of the PPFD, PAR or any other measure of light than what they can get with high end MH setups. The 14K Phoenix puts out a better spectrum, so you can use more of it. People will commonly post that their LED is too powerful, but this is not right... it has too much of the wrong spectrum. FWIW, outside in Missouri under summertime sun, the par in a tank that I had outside was 1200-1500 depending on the time of the day - no issues at all with any corals, even some supposedly "low light" polyps that melt under some LEDs.
Lots of the LED fanboys have started to switch to T5 and MH and will never go back - they used to post a lot on the older threads and have since left the board from the thrashing that they got from people who "looked up" to them as LED users and are now ****ed that they changed over. Some went with LED along with T5 and MH and have since taken the LED off completely since they had no real value. Some know that their LEDs are not as good as what they had, need the other things that they offer (lower heat, less electricity (which is highly debatable)) and are willing to live with a subset of species and less color.
Dang. That was long. Sorry.
Really great info and I'll research into it more. Also concur that there can be too much of the frequency corals don't need or want. Even recent research on how Red kills corals.
I have 2 250W HQI's (Phoenix 14K's) over a 72gal + ~340W DIY LEDs total on 4 LED strips. My tank parameters have been shifting lately so as a result my colors are a bit off. However a fellow reefer stopped by yesterday and also went into how my Natural White LEDs were "too yellow" but I had them only at 10%. My theory at the time was I will not run them at 100%, ever, so if 10% or 50%, the frequency spectrum will be far less, and more look like what I see on the T5's or HQI's. Again, no science to back that up, just my way of thinking. I really like how some tanks have the yellow, light pinks, and red pigments under a more 10k white look. http://reefbuilders.com/2012/09/05/welles-beijing/ for example. I often feel folks that have really blue tanks, like with Radions and VHOs, don't have yellow, pink, or true red corals. So to get that white, 10K look, I ramp up those LEDs more in the AM, then they go down to 10% when the hallides kick on.
I'm doing a test now, to have the natural white LEDs off for a week, to see how the colors look. I'll go 2 weeks with them off to see if I notice anything.
Thanks again for the great post.
I have 2 250W HQI's (Phoenix 14K's) over a 72gal + ~340W DIY LEDs total on 4 LED strips. My tank parameters have been shifting lately so as a result my colors are a bit off. However a fellow reefer stopped by yesterday and also went into how my Natural White LEDs were "too yellow" but I had them only at 10%. My theory at the time was I will not run them at 100%, ever, so if 10% or 50%, the frequency spectrum will be far less, and more look like what I see on the T5's or HQI's. Again, no science to back that up, just my way of thinking. I really like how some tanks have the yellow, light pinks, and red pigments under a more 10k white look. http://reefbuilders.com/2012/09/05/welles-beijing/ for example. I often feel folks that have really blue tanks, like with Radions and VHOs, don't have yellow, pink, or true red corals. So to get that white, 10K look, I ramp up those LEDs more in the AM, then they go down to 10% when the hallides kick on.
I'm doing a test now, to have the natural white LEDs off for a week, to see how the colors look. I'll go 2 weeks with them off to see if I notice anything.
Thanks again for the great post.
Based off of some actual evidence and science that corals will use energy to protect themselves from bad spectrum, including some UV, I also have a theory that some types of coral will eventually succumb to too much wrong light even if they grew or appeared to be thriving for a while. Basically, they wear down and cannot come back showing a false positive in the beginning. Further, if the coral is teetering on being able to survive under the spectrum, they will be less tolerate of other changes or issues in the tank and are more fragile. Again, just me, but I think that about 2M is the depth where corals start to suffer from wrong spectrum damage - most coral that is higher than this can handle the excess red/yellow/green, but then again, and this is SUPER IMPORTANT that most people do not get, they are also in the ocean with stable parameters and the light is the only issue that they have to fight. Fighting the light and dealing with hobbyists might be too much for some of them.
BTW - take this for what it is worth... nothing. I did not even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
BTW - take this for what it is worth... nothing. I did not even sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night.