Ecotech Marine XR15 Pro - Help !

cobraz · 05/31/2016, 10:58 AM

Light: Ecotech Marine Radion XR15 Pro
Mount: Ecotech mounting arm
Tank: Innovative Marine 40 Gallon 20" deep with a 3" and bed.
Doser: 20ml or Alk and Cal.
PH 8.12, ORP 350-400, Sal 1.024-1.026, Temp 79-80 degrees, O phos.
Cycle: 12:00pm on till 10:00pm = 10 hours
Set %: 1hour up to 50% and 1 hour down starting at 50%.
Skill level: 25 years in Reef tanks - very successful with Hards, SPS and LPS in the past.

ISSUE: Ok so now that you see the above here's the issue... I can not keep SPS to save my life in this tank with this light ... they always start to bleach from the bottom in a strip pattern to the top... no bugs no flatworms... it's crazy.

Can someone set me straight with this light.. and what to set it as - I have it on growth at 50% - I even tried A+B setting from the article that came out same issue. alk, cal and mag are fine - I do 5-6 gallons a week water change.

Tank is spotless no unwanted algae.. bio load is low in fish - just six.
Mix of LPS, SPS and Zoas..

Thanks for reading...

zsuman101 · 05/31/2016, 12:58 PM

Do you use carbon? I use radions, but am running the color program, its odd i 'll give you that, sometimes frags just cant settle in for whatever reason as im sure you have seen over the years, i personally wouldn't run an sps / mix tank with zoas or other softies in a smallish reef, do you have an efficient skimmer?, if so the combination of efficient skimmer and quality carbon with your water change schedule you should be successful, i dont think its the light. good luck. zsu

cobraz · 06/01/2016, 11:50 AM

Never had an issue running my last tank a 50 gallon cube with Ecoxotics light. Parts are all testing fine.. adding 20ml of Alk and calc... but can't keep an acro to save life in this tank and they loose color as well everything else colors up fine...?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk

Dapg8gt · 06/01/2016, 12:15 PM

I have the same tank and the same light in my daughter's room.. Imo the light is too bright directly under it for anything once you have it set up on higher power to get the par you need on the sand bed and sides of the rocks.. I'm swapping it out to a xr30 running lower overall power once I send in my Gen 1 for the upgrade. . I couldn't stop the shading of the bases of sps so I took them all out. Tops looked great but the rest was crap.

Have you used a par meter? Running mine at 75% on a custom schedule will give me 400+ in the center of the tank and like 50 on the sides. Imo the light is too small for the tank when it comes to sps and shoot I even have issues with some lps, different parts of the tank have super high par and others it's basically non existent.. Doesn't seem to be an even median it's all or nothing, basically too much and not enough with my rock scape.

What test kit are you registering 0 p04 with? That Ime has always led to numerous problems always with sps. Having undetectable nitrates and phosphates with good test kits is a no go for me personally. Always have had death and no colors with that combo.

Percula9 · 06/01/2016, 03:11 PM

What is the alk reading?High alkalinity will cause acro's to bleach.You want the alk to be around 8dkh.If alk is ok then lighting might be the issue.Put acro's at the bottom.Reduce white light to 40percent and blue to 60percent.

dkeller_nc · 06/01/2016, 04:44 PM

There's quite a number of possible reasons for STN (slow tissue necrosis) in Acros. One of the biggest is water chemistry instability. Most folks successful with Acros keep their alkalinity at about 8 dKH, and it varies no more than 0.5 dKH over a week's time. It's definitely possible to go a lot higher than that with the alkalinity so long as you have relatively high nutrients. A pretty incredible LFS near me has routine alkalinity that's around 12 dKH, but his phosphate tests out at about 0.5 ppm - 1 ppm, and nitrates around 20 ppm.

Your initial post suggested a specific gravity swing of 1.024 - 1.026. If that's accurate (i.e., your tank's specific gravity varies that much), that's an issue. If that's just repeated testing error, then it doesn't matter that much whether the sp. gr. is 1.024 or 1.026 so long as it's rock-solid stable.

With respect to your lighting; if this is your first foray into LEDs with Acros, you may find that they give you more problems than with MH/T5HO. Some acros seem to do quite well under high quality LED fixtures, some don't. There's quite a number of folks in the SPS forum that will suggest to you that an LED fixture is a fine light for your garage, not so much for your reef.

In my own experience, I've had no issues with montiporas, octocorals (pipe organs), turbinaria, seriatopora, stylophora, zoas, and others. A few acro colonies do well, but most do not under my Radion XR30w G3 Pros/XR15w Pros. Frags of the same colonies do quite well under high intensity fluorescent.

Addressing your light specifically, the XR15w Pro won't really cover a 2' long tank very well. That's not so much of an issue if your high-light corals are in the center of the tank, with lower-light corals on the sides. If you want better spread, you might consider installing the wide-angle lens that came with your XR15w and upping the intensity a bit. Most folks have found that acros in particular do better with highly blue-shifted spectrum from LED fixtures. This is a publication from EcoTech that compares an aquaculture facility's tanks lit by Radions, T5HO, and MH. You'll notice that the Radion program is mostly using the blue diodes, with just a little red, green and white thrown in.

05/31/2016, 12:58 PM	#2
zsuman101 Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 434	Do you use carbon? I use radions, but am running the color program, its odd i 'll give you that, sometimes frags just cant settle in for whatever reason as im sure you have seen over the years, i personally wouldn't run an sps / mix tank with zoas or other softies in a smallish reef, do you have an efficient skimmer?, if so the combination of efficient skimmer and quality carbon with your water change schedule you should be successful, i dont think its the light. good luck. zsu __________________ Full zeovit 24x24 starfire ati t5 radions ecotech and sicce pumps tunze skimmer apex gold yeah its nuts

06/01/2016, 12:15 PM	#4
Dapg8gt Registered Member Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Pacifica Posts: 3,741	I have the same tank and the same light in my daughter's room.. Imo the light is too bright directly under it for anything once you have it set up on higher power to get the par you need on the sand bed and sides of the rocks.. I'm swapping it out to a xr30 running lower overall power once I send in my Gen 1 for the upgrade. . I couldn't stop the shading of the bases of sps so I took them all out. Tops looked great but the rest was crap. Have you used a par meter? Running mine at 75% on a custom schedule will give me 400+ in the center of the tank and like 50 on the sides. Imo the light is too small for the tank when it comes to sps and shoot I even have issues with some lps, different parts of the tank have super high par and others it's basically non existent.. Doesn't seem to be an even median it's all or nothing, basically too much and not enough with my rock scape. What test kit are you registering 0 p04 with? That Ime has always led to numerous problems always with sps. Having undetectable nitrates and phosphates with good test kits is a no go for me personally. Always have had death and no colors with that combo. __________________ 15 years in the hobby yet still learning every day. 280g radium lit sps flat living in my garage rent free. Current Tank Info: 105g SPS dominant euro braced powered by 4 ecotech pumps and lit by an ATI powermodule controlled by a reef angel =).

06/01/2016, 11:50 AM	#3
cobraz Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Lakeland, FL Posts: 151	Never had an issue running my last tank a 50 gallon cube with Ecoxotics light. Parts are all testing fine.. adding 20ml of Alk and calc... but can't keep an acro to save life in this tank and they loose color as well everything else colors up fine...? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk

06/01/2016, 03:11 PM	#5
Percula9 Registered Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Orange County CA Posts: 3,819	What is the alk reading?High alkalinity will cause acro's to bleach.You want the alk to be around 8dkh.If alk is ok then lighting might be the issue.Put acro's at the bottom.Reduce white light to 40percent and blue to 60percent.

06/01/2016, 04:44 PM	#6
dkeller_nc Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Central NC Posts: 5,062	There's quite a number of possible reasons for STN (slow tissue necrosis) in Acros. One of the biggest is water chemistry instability. Most folks successful with Acros keep their alkalinity at about 8 dKH, and it varies no more than 0.5 dKH over a week's time. It's definitely possible to go a lot higher than that with the alkalinity so long as you have relatively high nutrients. A pretty incredible LFS near me has routine alkalinity that's around 12 dKH, but his phosphate tests out at about 0.5 ppm - 1 ppm, and nitrates around 20 ppm. Your initial post suggested a specific gravity swing of 1.024 - 1.026. If that's accurate (i.e., your tank's specific gravity varies that much), that's an issue. If that's just repeated testing error, then it doesn't matter that much whether the sp. gr. is 1.024 or 1.026 so long as it's rock-solid stable. With respect to your lighting; if this is your first foray into LEDs with Acros, you may find that they give you more problems than with MH/T5HO. Some acros seem to do quite well under high quality LED fixtures, some don't. There's quite a number of folks in the SPS forum that will suggest to you that an LED fixture is a fine light for your garage, not so much for your reef. In my own experience, I've had no issues with montiporas, octocorals (pipe organs), turbinaria, seriatopora, stylophora, zoas, and others. A few acro colonies do well, but most do not under my Radion XR30w G3 Pros/XR15w Pros. Frags of the same colonies do quite well under high intensity fluorescent. Addressing your light specifically, the XR15w Pro won't really cover a 2' long tank very well. That's not so much of an issue if your high-light corals are in the center of the tank, with lower-light corals on the sides. If you want better spread, you might consider installing the wide-angle lens that came with your XR15w and upping the intensity a bit. Most folks have found that acros in particular do better with highly blue-shifted spectrum from LED fixtures. This is a publication from EcoTech that compares an aquaculture facility's tanks lit by Radions, T5HO, and MH. You'll notice that the Radion program is mostly using the blue diodes, with just a little red, green and white thrown in.