Reef Breeders LED questions

[saltydawg11]

Hi all! I've been running a photon32 over my 75 gal for about 2 months now and can't seem to get the light power right on the channels. My zoo colony has been closed so I turned the day time light max down to 15 blue and white from 30 blue and 25 white. A week after my hammer coral was lost and my candy cane began to deteriorate. My colt and xenia are growing like weeds though. My parameters are fine ~5 nitrate, 480 calcium everything is fine. Advice would be soo helpful on what you guys set at so I don't lose more beautiful pieces.

[saltydawg11]

Also my mom saw my tank and felt bad for the clowns, like a typical mother, cause they were hosting my magfloat. So she went out and bought a long tentacle anemone without saying a word.

[triggreef]

That seems a little low imo, and i always stress that most people start too high intensity with leds. I would start out with a max at 40 blue, 30 white for about 4 hrs in the middle of your day. Rank up to and down from that. higher light corals centered in the tank, lower light near the edge. You can ramp up 5 percent every other week alternating pretty safe.

Take that as nothing more than the opinion of another guy with reef breeders. And a par meter.

[saltydawg11]

Ok thanks! Do you think I should change my settings now as you described or build up to the 40 blue 30 white from 15 over the course of a couple days?

[2FunKids]

I have two of the TT-AL12 over my 120w. I just recieved a PAR meter and found that even with my lights 12" above the water there is a much higher concentration of PAR shining directly below the light (quite concentrated). I am running about 50 percent of blue and 30% of the white. On my Tank it is giving me 250 Par in the middle at about 8-12" of water depth and that is through glass covers that haven't been cleaned in a couple of weeks. I am moving my lights to about 18" off the water to allow the light to diffuse more before hitting my corals and I am going to check things out again. Too bad your not closer, I could come check the par.

[Doogy]

How far is the light off the water? What degree optics? IME, 30 white on that light is very very powerful. I suggest getting a PAR meter and you should see why you are losing corals.

[Esage]

I'm running a 32" over my tank and I max out at 45% BLUE and 15% WHITE

[Ron Reefman]

I just tested my IT2080 for another thread and at 35% on both channels the PAR was 400 just under the water's surface with the light face 5" above the water. And at 12" under the surface the PAR was 130. That's too low. And that's at 35% on both channels. Mine have been in place for a year and I do an 8 hour sunrise, a 1 hour midday at 80% blue and 40% white and then an 8 hour sunset. The first 3 hours and last 3 hours are just blue and no white. But my tank is mostly sps & lps.

[saltydawg11]

wow thanks everybody! my light is about 7 inches above the water and the default 90 degree. I set it back to 25 white 30 blue the other day and my zoas finally opened back up. however this was the intensity i had it when i lost the hammer. maybe the white is to high then? Esage, how long do you max for? Ron, is there anyway you could send me your light schedule?

[TropTrea]

I'm no expert on Zoos as they are the hardest coral for me keep. But I can usualy keep them alive forever without any growth. Looking through your thread is seems that you lost several soft corals very rapidly after reducing your light. This is very surprising as I have seen some soft corals being shipped and not receiving any light for neartly a week and still perk up almost the next day. Therefore I would look elswhere for problems.

One big thing that several people told me could be my problem is chemical warfare between corals. This can hit in two different ways first corals sending out stingers ysualy at night. Solution being spread the corals farther apart. Then the second peans of attack is the release of poisons in the water that effect other species but not there own species. Sometimes carbon filtering will help here but carbon gets saturated with the poisions very fast and needs to be changed regularly.

[Esage]

Originally Posted by saltydawg11

wow thanks everybody! my light is about 7 inches above the water and the default 90 degree. I set it back to 25 white 30 blue the other day and my zoas finally opened back up. however this was the intensity i had it when i lost the hammer. maybe the white is to high then? Esage, how long do you max for? Ron, is there anyway you could send me your light schedule?

My light is 11" above the water with 90 degree optics. My tank is only 12" deep. My blues and whites run at max for an hour. I run a 10 hour sunset/sunrise.

[TropTrea]

I just went over the speca on the light. And would like to comment on my personal experience. This is a 300 watt unit which should be enough for a 150 gallon tank by itself. The led balance is much more white than what I would use so I would be running this light with probably 1/2 the setting on the Whites that I would have on the blue channel.

Overall after the aclimation period I would expect to run around 30% power on your White LED Channel, and about 60 % power on the Blue Channel. But As I said after the aclimation period.

If everything is finaly looking good for you now then wait at least two weeks before turning them up. Only move one of the colors up by a max a 5% every two weeks and watch for the reaction before considering any other changes. If you see anything negative then imediatly turn it back down to the prior setting as you hit the optimium level for that channel.

[saltydawg11]

TropTrea and Esage thank you! My zoo colony finally looks like zoos again colts are growing more like weeds, but my candy cane doesn't look any better. I'm going to increase my blue channel by five percent and see what happens.