Tweaking the LED

[Salty Cracker]

[quote author=Salty Cracker link=topic=3647.msg33113#msg33113 date=1355199487]
  It also likely means that on my next tank I can go deeper, and grow coral taller

Oh Oh... Do I sense a future build in the works? :?
[/quote]

There is, but there is a huge renovation to do before I get to it, and that renovation will cost $$$ so I'm sort of stuck with this tank for a bit. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Some corals still look a little shell shocked today.  Those UVs must be insanely bright to coral tissue, or maybe because there was no real UV in the tank before it was  a total shock across the board.  Some corals seemed to recover right away.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I will also say that the clam looks better than it has since I got it.  Looks like it came out of a tron movie.  He sure liked the blast of the new bulbs.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well looks like everything is fine, just much much lighter.  In one day 20 or so sps colonies completely lost all their brown colouring.  In some cases they lost -all- colouring as in the case of the true undata, which was green with white polyps, is now a pale blue/green, however the polyps returned today, just harder now to see them. 

Overall, my red digi is now the most awesome pink.  The LPS colonies really seemed to like the change, there is already signs of new growth and colours are fantastic.  Blue stag had previously had a big of green to the underside, is now blue on blue.  The purple bonsai now has really bark blue tips (looks awesome). The sunset monti was pink with green polyps, is now pink/blue with pale green polyps.  A green granulosa is now yellow, looks better than it ever has. Substrate is still pearly white.  sunset millie is very very pale, but absolutely covered with polyps, stringy long ones, it looks like a bunch of weird caterpillars. 

So it's a relief that everything seems okay.  I'm only running a few royal blues for a few more days, and feeding fairly heavy. 

 

[AdamS]

Where is uv at?

 

[Salty Cracker]

UV be here.
I think I even got the white balance right, here's a current shot of the tort directly under the new fixture, just blues and UV's on.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Okay.  Colours starting to come back in almost everything.  Some things are 10x better.  So overall, I'm extremely happy.  The bleaching effect worked on the substrate too, so I am using a full shot of that as my white balance, and it seems to be working, the shots here are very close to what the tank looks like with the blues and UV's on.  So here goes.
b1 shows how the zoas reacted, their colours went off the charts.  However beside them you can see that the multicolour monti, which is normally baby blue with bright green polyps, is still pale beige with white polyps. 
b2 shows a tank shot, as you can see a whole lot of colour is still bleached out, the reds and purple sps specifically, the fire and ice millie for example is a light green, instead of the blue and pink, but the polyp extention is crazy, so I'm sure it will be fine.
b3 shows the meteor shower and the pink eye chalice from darryl is looking fantastic.  Both of those are thriving in definite shade, but they definitely were affected (in a good way). 

That's it for now.  I don't plan to add any more LEDs until I upgrade tanks.  I can whiten a tank in a day with what I have now. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Weird, the uploaded pictures look way more washed out than the pics I have here.  Ah well you get the idea. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well a couple of weeks later.

I had a few colonies straight up and rtn on me.  Luckily fairly bland ones and not too upsetting.

LPS is really taking off.  Could be the increase in feeding.

HOWEVER, there's still quite a few white-beige-pink colonies.  What I think I'm seeing is colour at the tips.  What I'm hoping is that the new growth has colour, while the colony stays light.  Basically, the dark brown that bothered me before has not returned at all.  I'd say 50% of the corals look good or really good (Darryls's ultra blue tort is finally ultra blue!).  Bonsai and red planet both have very good colour.  Millies are definitely very very bland, except for the new additions, I assume the old ones were accustomed to the old lighting.  The worst is the tricolour acro colony.  Was brown with dark purple tips, is now a huge pale pink.  Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet, just watching.

So I'm going to give it a month or so, to see how things develop.  I've never had rtn before, so that was interesting.  If everything keeps growing well, and if I can start getting darryl colours, I will be ecstatic.  I might even start to look for colonies that are more that $15 a pop lol.  Hopefully I'm on the right track!

 

[Salty Cracker]

The more I think about this and the more I look at it, I am not convinced it was the light change that affected the tank so much.  At the time I swapped out the lights, I also switched to reef crystals salt (had a bad reaction last time I tried it too), and had started heavy feedings.  One of the water changes dropped the tank temp 3 or 4 deg which could have in itself shocked the corals (I have a heater in the makeup water now).  All in all I lost 4 or 5 small colonies, luckily all the plain ones that I got before I started being a bit more selective. 

I'm slowly ramping up the lighting, we'll see how it goes.  I'm sticking with the reef crystals for now, just to keep stability. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

I don't know if anyone is still following or not...

Colour is coming back with increased feeding, but the brown is not so overall I think I have hit the sweet spot.  I lost just a few colonies that were very brown to begin with (ones I have had the longest) but new ones are doing very well.  I am going to go on record as saying that the UV  bulbs are a necessity, as simple things like coralline have started to grow, where it only grew near the window before.  Knowing that the new lights aren't affecting nice new colonies I think I'll eventually re-do my other 2 fixtures identical. 

Does anyone here grow coral under just blue lights? 

 

[TORX]

Of coarse we are still following. Nice to see someone documenting their LED info so well when they have a lot of SPS.

My LPS is doing great...but I do wish I had more blue. Luckly I did get the solderless kit, so all i have to do is order the new LEDs and about 5 minutes to switch them out.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Of coarse we are still following. Nice to see someone documenting their LED info so well when they have a lot of SPS.

My LPS is doing great...but I do wish I had more blue. Luckly I did get the solderless kit, so all i have to do is order the new LEDs and about 5 minutes to switch them out.

I'm almost 90% blue and the whites are still overpowering (when they're on).  I'm doing about 4 hours of whites, then running 8 hours (at least) of blue/green and then 4 hours of the UV channel mixed in there.  I still have beige in come colonies, but absolutely none of the 'brown' I used to have.  Most sps was dark brown with coloured tips, now I am seeing pink with colour slowly emerging.  I am getting a lot of that very light green on some acros, which I take for new growth, and the colours that is starting to peek out are florescent blue, pink, yellow and green.  I -think- I have finally cracked the T5 barrier (I swear I almost broke down and put in a couple of T5 tubes).  I think the UV's were the missing piece, and I am anxious to see what the market comes up with in the next 2-5 years, without question.  I'd like to see one bulb that could be altered throughout the full spectrum, and I'm sure it's coming.  I mean, I picked up 100 RGB LEDs the other day for $4 shipped from china. 3w and they self-cycle through the colours without an external chip.  useless for reef but I look at it as a preview to what is coming. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

I really should have clued in sooner.  Here is an example of what I was getting.  Can you tell which direction the window is in?  I really hope the UV is the missing piece.

 

[Salty Cracker]

A little update, since the new batch of LEDs is due to arrive shortly.  Coral colours are off the charts.  The biggest change is the sudden appearance of florescent pink in quite a few colonies.  Just the tips so far, but absolutely thrilling.  I find now I have far too much 'green' in the tank, so I've started swapping things out for nor reds, yellows and oranges.  Also, I have set a lot more room aside in the tank for colony growth.  In the full tank shot you can see the difference between the light output on the new center panel, and the panels on the outside edges.  This is just the 'blue' channel on, but the center is showing the greatest improvement in colour.  more updates as they come. 

 

[phi delt reefer]

Looking good man!

It'll be interesting to see if the additionally LEDs boost the growth further or help improve color.

In my tank I found some sps just colored up randomly after 4 months. No growth, no rtn or other issues but amazing color out of nowhere. They started to grow shortly after that. Sps are definitely a patient mans coral.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Looking good man!

It'll be interesting to see if the additionally LEDs boost the growth further or help improve color.

In my tank I found some sps just colored up randomly after 4 months. No growth, no rtn or other issues but amazing color out of nowhere. They started to grow shortly after that. Sps are definitely a patient mans coral.

Some of the colonies were ~1.5 years old.  They had soso growth, but very very poor colour.  This was an instant across-the-board improvement in all colonies (well the ones that didn't stn).  Growth is way way up on both sps and lps. 

Now these were changes which unfortunately I did all at the same time: Switched to reef crystals, added 'fuel', added in the UV bulbs and stepped up broadcast feedings.  I really don't think it is the feedings since I had fed heavily in the past and still had the corals just brown right up.  Knock on wood I've eliminated 99% of the brown and am seeing these new pigments come out.  So it's down to salt (unlikely), lighting (most likely), 'fuel' (50-50).  We'll know for sure when I upgrade the 2 banks of lights.  At the very least it will be much less frankenstein than the last time you saw them

 

[phi delt reefer]

lol, i was gonna ask if you had resolved your wiring mess since my last visit... i can only image what a second panel of LEDs will add!

I'm thinking about modding my ATI unit to include some LEDs.  I already got plenty of light...just need want some pop from the TV/RB LEDs.

 

[Salty Cracker]

lol, i was gonna ask if you had resolved your wiring mess since my last visit... i can only image what a second panel of LEDs will add!

I'm thinking about modding my ATI unit to include some LEDs.  I already got plenty of light...just need want some pop from the TV/RB LEDs.

Well there was 6 heatsinks with 12 LEDs each on them, plus a 6' strip with 28 LED's on it, I'm now going with 3 heatsinks with 36 LED's each on it, and keeping the 6 footer.  So more LED's but more compact.  I think it's still a zoo underneath the tank though

It takes at least a month as it is to acclimate new coral to the LEDs. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Comparison shot.  One with the 8 (yes eight) whites on, and one with the blue channel on.  Quite a bit of difference. 


***edit, helps if I add the pic.