Some montis bleaching help
- Thread starter newtoreef
- Start date
They shallower water species of SPS can handle the garbage spectrum from the white LEDs (too much yellow and green) - montis, poci, stylo, birdsnest and a few acropora will be OK. Other SPS can die under that spectrum. If you have any deeper water SPS like most true acropora, they might not like the 65% white, so keep an eye on them... the blue should not matter. If you just rock out the montis, then all should be cool.
Let's define strong... They are NOT "too bright" or "too much light" - this is nearly impossible since we cannot even get close to the level of the sun. ...it is too much of the wrong kind of garbage spectrum. PAR under sun in an outside tank that I had in KC was over 1300 somewhat in the shade with greenhouse netting. I can hit par levels of 1000 and slightly above with my HQI and they coral just thrive whereas 100 par emitted from some white LEDs will really cause some kinds of coral to really suffer or die and some naturally shallower coral do fine that are able to adapt with more slime and different light rejecting pigments (I am paraphrasing because I am not smart enough to remember the details). Some coral are not able.
This is a "too much of the wrong kind" issue depending on what you are keeping...
This is a "too much of the wrong kind" issue depending on what you are keeping...
The thing is that even MH light say a radium 20k will still produce 6700k 10k 12k 14k 16k 18k spectrum but 20k being the dominant at 80% and the other spectrums making up the other 20% and I know this cuz I have been using MH for other reasons for my job at a mmj warehouse for the past 5 years and that same 20k radium produces anywhere from 380nm to 750nm that's why you get all the different k values. The problem is that led light like the ai sol have cree XPGWHT whites witch are 6k whites this kelvin is about the 580nm hence the yellow white color that they make so I can see why the deep water acros would hate it cuz they get around 400-470nm spectrum if they are about 12-20feet deep cuz after about 12 feet of water nothing over 550nm can penetrate that deep and at 18feet nothing over 450nm
Basically... the spikes are too high in those ranges from green (500), yellow at (600) to red (around 650). They are very pleasing to the eye, but not so much for some coral. The Radium 20K, for example, will put out less of a spike in these areas as well as provide spectrum all across the range from UV to IR. ...so people turn the whites WAY down, which really helps, but you lost a lot of PAR and the spectrum will shift on the LEDs under less-than-full power. One of the researchers from either ReefBreeders or Pacific Sun suggested a 4:1 blue/white ratio to be run at 100%, but still warned that could be too much yellow/red for some Acropora. That ratio might also make for a very blue tank to the human eye, even if the coral is happy.