Coral issues with Hydra

[Yarm79]

I'm having issues with my corals
All started when I switched to Hydras from 6x ATI
Bit about the tank
Alk 9
Cal 430
Mag 1400
Nitrate 0
Phosphates 0.08(ish)
Tanks 6ftx20"x30" high
3x Hydras fitted left to right 8" above the water
When I first got them I put them on 6 weeks acclimation mode
Current settings are
White 60
Violet 70
Red 30
Green 30
Royal Blue 85
Deep Blue 85
UV 50
Issues I have all sps that are shaded the tissue has just died off. Tops are fine but underneath totally died off.
LPS lost colour, torch has got very thin white / translucent polyps which were green. Fungia plate from bright orange to very washed out colour.
Unsure if the lps are bleached or not receiving enough light.
Don't have a par meter.
Lights ramp from 8:30 4 hours ramp down 5:30 4 hours
Any help other than 'put your T5's back on' would be appreciated
I have also had diatom / algae issues since putting them on brown sand everyday. Quite soul destroying tbh

[Allentown]

The recommendation is that you run them no more than st 50% power at first if you have corals in the upper half of your vertical space. Bleaching from too much intensity is common. They have to be acclimated with a 5% increase each week or to and then back down 5% once they get aggrivated with the previous weeks increase.

[myfrostymember]

i am no expert, nor do i own a hydra but from what ive read are hydra good for tanks 30" deep? seems you might be missing a little with penetration issues?

[meshwheel]

yep, you blasted the hell out of them! This is why it's a good idea to own a PAR meter. Or at least follow the manufacturers directions.
How high above the tank are the fixtures?

[meshwheel]

wow! 3 units 8" above the water? Well, I guess this answers my questions. 2 will be plenty for my 65 gallon.
Sorry to hear about the bleaching event. I would dial them way back and just wait and see who makes it and who doesn't.

[saltyair]

shut down your uv, red and violet - they should be slowly phased in.

[Yarm79]

Originally Posted by saltyair

shut down your uv, red and violet - they should be slowly phased in.

Thanks
How come?

The lights have been over the tank for 7 weeks now I didn't switch then on at that power.
Trouble is with them you need them cranked up to illuminate the tank (to my eyes) correctly
I was thinking if I had one or two more I would get a better spread? :-/
Think is some look bleached some look fine don't get it

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by saltyair

shut down your uv, red and violet - they should be slowly phased in.

This makes almost no sense at all. The T5s had all those spectrums.

This seems like a case of too much light and causing PAR shock. Although it's not all that uncommon for the undersides of SPS to die off with point source lighting. The light only comes from one direction.

T5s are more of a blanket and hit the corals with light from all over.

[Yarm79]

Would fitting reflectors to the sides of LEDs make no difference? This may sound like a stupid thing to say?
Maybe a single T5 unit in front and behind the led units would help?
Also feeding aminos maybe a good ideas?

[FlyPenFly]

Angle the lights so you're covering more shadows since you have multiple.

The hydra won't penetrate to your sand bed at 30" high without an optics swap. Read the AA review, the stock lenses were meant for shallow tanks.

You're probably bleaching your top corals with violets and your bottom corals are starving. LEDs have to be angled to prevent shading in SPS colonies.

[HurricaneSystem]

Originally Posted by FlyPenFly

Angle the lights so you're covering more shadows since you have multiple.

The hydra won't penetrate to your sand bed at 30" high without an optics swap. Read the AA review, the stock lenses were meant for shallow tanks.

You're probably bleaching your top corals with violets and your bottom corals are starving. LEDs have to be angled to prevent shading in SPS colonies.

I wouldn't give advice when you have no idea what you are talking about. LED's need to be angled? Why is that, when a T5 or MH does not need to be angled?

You are too into "reviews" and not into real world results.

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by HurricaneSystem

I wouldn't give advice when you have no idea what you are talking about. LED's need to be angled? Why is that, when a T5 or MH does not need to be angled?

You are too into "reviews" and not into real world results.

The pot calling the kettle black...

[FlyPenFly]

Originally Posted by HurricaneSystem

I wouldn't give advice when you have no idea what you are talking about. LED's need to be angled? Why is that, when a T5 or MH does not need to be angled?

You are too into "reviews" and not into real world results.

Once you have more than a poop tank, maybe you can dispense some advice about real world results. Well written well documented reviews are probably very foreign to you.

LEDs are hard point light sources. MH and T5 have reflectors that bounce light around and the nature of fluorescent tube lighting offers far more surrounding light. The Maxspect Mazarras have the best OEM solution to this and so does Reefbrite with their angled fixture. BML also does well with swivel tank mounts.

[rogerwilco357]

par meters are needed IMO for any light and should be used when switching just to make sure your par is in the safe zone sorry to hear about your issues. I have been waiting to switch over to leds for some time now but bought the par meter when i crossed over from metals just to make sure the transition went smoothly ..I have read where some led fixtures now have A setting for this transition but not sure which unit ?
hope it all works out any pics of the before and after?

[Wrench]

Originally Posted by HurricaneSystem

I wouldn't give advice when you have no idea what you are talking about. LED's need to be angled? Why is that, when a T5 or MH does not need to be angled?

You are too into "reviews" and not into real world results.

LOL you're kidding, right? After all the hot garbage and unsubstantiated comments you post about lighting?

I'd look long and hard at water chemistry or consider some sort of contamination as being the culprit. I keep corals in my frag tank under a weak halide fixture. When they get moved up into the display under 300-600+ PAR LED's I don't treat them to any light acclimation. I've not had anything bleach in the manner you describe.

[asylumdown]

FWIW I've had a heck of a time with certain species of LPS under certain brands of LED. For example, I can't keep brains or chalices alive to save my life in my tank SPS dominant tank with 8 gen 1 radions, but in my pico tank under a Kessil ocean blue, they all recover their beautiful deep, rich colours. The three things that are different about those lights are:

1. the addition of extra colours, the kessil had no red or green diodes
2. The ratio of white to blue
3. the overall intensity

Since I can grow SPS on the sand-bed in my big tank (25 inches down), I take washing out/bleaching of LPS in the same tank to be a sign of too much light, not too little, which makes me think that in your case you're frying your corals. However, that Kessil was only 12 inches above the actual corals in my pico as they were recovering, so they can clearly take quite a bit of light, which leads me to think that some LPS species, especially ones that typically live deeper, have a hard time with red LEDs. It's just a hypothesis and I know that halides and T5s have red in their spectrum, but the red diodes in the 'full spectrum' fixtures are as a single blinding point source of red light in exactly one wavelength of red. The only reason I maintain this hypothesis is how differently my LPS responded under a "full spectrum" fixture with a red diode, and another LED fixture with just white and blue. I've since broken down my pico because I don't have time for it, and now that all those corals are back in the big tank, they're bleaching badly again.

Yes LEDs are a point source of light, but so are metal halides and with three fixtures you should have some overlap. I definitely notice a sharp change in coral colour along the shadow lines in my tank, so I'm not sure how you can avoid that. I also notice that when I get an SPS frag or colony from a non-LED system and add it to my radion tank, some (most) corals goes through a significant period of change, often ending up looking nothing like when I got it. That process of acclimation and adaptation can take up to 4 months for some of my corals, and in some cases involved a period of 'bleaching' before regaining colour. In some cases, this makes more 'famous' corals look nothing like they're 'supposed' to look (my red planet is more of a pink planet), which for some people is a huge drawback, but in other cases it makes corals that look only ho-hum under other conditions explode in to real show-pieces.

If I were you, I'd try playing around with the colour mixing on my fixtures. First I'd try turning off the red and UV channel all together then waiting a month (it took 3 months for mine to fully recover under the Kessil). If the LPS don't improve, I'd re-weight the whites and blues so there was less white.

Another thing you can do if it's possible is to take the LPS specimens that are bleaching and put half of them in the shade of an overhang. I did that with one of my brains to test this exact problem and the half that was in the shade maintained it's colour, while the half that was getting direct radion light bleached visibly. I ended up with a coral with tan lines. If they're already all bleached it might not work now, but if you add other lps corals you can maybe do it with them. It would at least answer the 'is this too much or too little' question, as I did have a frogspawn that feel inside some rock work for 6 months (I'm a lazy reefer, what can I say) and when I finally rescued it, it had gone white from lack of light so I'd want to rule that possibility out.

[Allentown]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

For example, I can't keep brains or chalices alive to save my life in my tank SPS dominant tank with 8 gen 1 radions, but in my pico tank under a Kessil ocean blue, they all recover their beautiful deep, rich colours.

In all fairness, a brain is the one coral i have that doesnt seem to like ANY light i put over it. I have lost 1 inch of one end of it and an 1/8 of an inch along the outer edges. I drop it to the bottom, raise it up..nothing helps. I think some times this sort of thing just happens.....

On the other hand, i run my kessils at 100% for around 3-4 hours a day (the rest of the day is spent ramping up from 0 to 80, or from 80 to 50 or from 49 to 0) and it has not in the slightest burned any zoas or leathers or frogpawn...in fact, they LOVE it.

Thourhougly confused newb here......

At any rate, i have changed the program to only ramp up to 80% max and run for 1 less hour a day.....dont want to change it any more than that because it will probably shock the system. We will see what happens, im just trying this for a week to see if i notice any difference.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Allentown

In all fairness, a brain is the one coral i have that doesnt seem to like ANY light i put over it. I have lost 1 inch of one end of it and an 1/8 of an inch along the outer edges. I drop it to the bottom, raise it up..nothing helps. I think some times this sort of thing just happens.....

On the other hand, i run my kessils at 100% for around 3-4 hours a day (the rest of the day is spent ramping up from 0 to 80, or from 80 to 50 or from 49 to 0) and it has not in the slightest burned any zoas or leathers or frogpawn...in fact, they LOVE it.

Thourhougly confused newb here......

At any rate, i have changed the program to only ramp up to 80% max and run for 1 less hour a day.....dont want to change it any more than that because it will probably shock the system. We will see what happens, im just trying this for a week to see if i notice any difference.

I only have the Kessil 150, so no ability to dim it or control anything other than on off. Might have been why I was having success lol, it's considerably less powerful

[Allentown]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I only have the Kessil 150, so no ability to dim it or control anything other than on off. Might have been why I was having success lol, it's considerably less powerful

Yea right now i run the 360s 12 hours a day but 8-9 hours of that is spent ramping up and down. The A150s only run 6 hours a day. I started adding stuff at the bottom level and it did well but i suspect as i start adding stuff higher on the rock work im going to seriously have to reconsider my strategy.

Any advice you can give would be great (sorry for the hi-jack).

Ok back on topic...

[Yarm79]

No need to apologise for a hi jack, the more the merrier :-D
Thanks for all the comments. I did have the UV up to 90% so I'm guessing that was too high? Iv reduced all LEDs output by 5% see if that makes a difference. My torch which is White was next to my hammer, I'm wondering if that has made it go like that? My orange plate that is turning white, I have a bleeding apple scoly next to it which looks fine. Other lps look fine. SPS mixed, some look ok mostly they look crap. Pink Hystrix pinky brown, frags brownish. I think 2 more units with better spread and the intensity dialled down coupled with feeding would benefit the tank

[Yarm79]

I checked my Alkalinity a few days ago. It had dropped from 9 to 7
I have no idea why, I feel this has something to do with the stripping. Some of my other SPS have started stripping at the base
Not sure if activated carbon drops alk as thats the only thing I added any different?
I have tweaked my calcium reactor to 50BPM and 50ml of effluent a minute, since Mon it has risen to 9. Im going to see where it balances out. Searching RC seems some extremely advanced reefers run there tanks up to 12+dkh
Since the alk has started going up, the tentacles have been inflating daily on the washed out plate coral and it looks a lot better.
Been doing some reading up on the net and a lot of people feel that the Hydra is not up to 30" deep tanks. My lights are 8" about the water line so your looking nearly 40" to the sand bed. Also interesting to note is that corals higher up have not bleached, making me think maybe it is a lack of PAR issue. I dont have a Par meter and no one local on the forum has one so will just have to guess for now.
Since my original post I ordered 2x more Hydras. There was only one in stock so I currently have 4 above the tank long ways (left to right) 5" apart each.
I seem to have better light spread.
My idea when the other comes is to run them front to back to maximise light spread through the tank.
I have a center weir so would have to go //_ // if that makes sense

So I think lack of light and low alk has contributed in the stripping
Id be interested to know how people with this light run them on tanks this deep, if indeed anyone else does

Also to note the torch which turned white and stringy was next to a branching hammer. I thought as they were both Euphillia they would sit happily next to each other. I think the light change is a coincidence and the hammer stung it and it was probably on the verge of death? I dont know?

Thanks for the replies guys