LED Lighting Recommendation

D

dward0487

I have a 30 gallon DT (36"x12"x16.5" WxDxH). Currently, I have a 3-strip LED fixture sitting on it. My lights are all 36" Reefbrite XHO strips (2 full blue and 1 full white). Each strip has 30 1.5W CREE LEDs in it (they are actually 3W LEDs, but they are only driven to 1.5W). I'm using the tank mounting legs for them, which puts them about 2 inches above the rim of the tank.

My problem is that I have no idea how powerful these lights are in my tank. They are plenty bright, but I don't know if they are TOO bright. I currently have a mix of softies, LPS, and a few SPS corals. My water testing shows everything to be perfect, but some of the corals don't look as "happy" as I'd like. At this point, I'm not sure whether I should adjust my light output up or down.

I want to borrow a PAR meter, but the club's meter is checked out and Marc is sick, so I can't borrow his right now. I guess I'm just looking for some advice on this situation right now.

I have a dimmer for the white strip, and I've been running it at about 60%, but I'm not sure that's the best way to go... Perhaps I should dim the second blue strip instead. If anyone has any thoughts on how I should adjust my lights, please let me know.
 
Is it just personal worry or are the corals showing signs of stress? IMO those are great lights, (I used a 50/50 RB w/ a trulumen actinic and loved the combo) but I would buy dimmers for all to adjust accordingly, but otherwise, "if it's not broke, don't fix it";)


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I'm still trying to figure out the best settings for LEDs over my tank even after having used them for over 3 years. [smilie=smile.gif] That is probably due in part to me switching things around every year or so though.

If your other parameters are in-line and stable then bleaching would be what I would look for as a sign that you are getting too much light. Can you describe what you mean when you say the corals are not "happy?" Keep in mind that changes in appearance of corals can occur slowly, especially various SPS so it may take some time for new additions to color up especially if there have been other changes recently. PAR meters can also be deceptively misleading when it comes to LEDs given the way they read the out of LED lights. I discovered that the hard way when I matched PAR readings from my previous light to some LEDs and then bleached everything out in less than a week.
 
I was originally running one white strip and one blue strip. I decided to add another blue along the way. Ever since I added the second blue light and toned the white down to 60%, my hammer coral has only extended to about half of what he used to... I also have some nuclear green palys that seem to be getting smaller and they're looking shriveled. They were about halfway up in the tank, so I moved them down and they still look like they're getting smaller. They're about 1/4 the diameter that they were when I got them... My fire and ice zoas (which are on the bottom) don't seem to open up as fully either. My problem is that I don't know whether to turn the white light up or down... Maybe I should be reducing the blue light instead. It's confusing without a general idea of how much light I'm putting out. The tank looks "bright" either way, so it's a tough call.
 
i have a Ecotech Radion Pro over my 60g cube. i think they are like 170w running 80%. So for your 30g. 3 x 30w strips would be perfect. When you added the third strip, it could have shocked your corals. Have you tried to turn the 3rd LED strip off and see if the corals go back to normal? If they don't, i would suggest ruling out the light and considering a different cause of the corals being unhappy. Maybe there was something else that was changed that could've cause it. I know you've probably heard this a million times, but have you tested all of your water params? Has copper somehow leaked into the water? Are you using Prime with your salt mix during water changes to remove the Chlorimine?
 
I do test my water parameters very often, and as I said, they're all good:

Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
Phosphate - 0 ppm
Alkalinity - 9.5
Calcium - 425 ppm
Magnesium - 1400 ppm
pH - 8.1
Temp - 79.5 degrees

My RO/DI water always reads "0" on the TDS meter. I'm using Red Sea Coral Pro salt at a salinity of 1.026. The position of the corals have not changed since I put them in the tank, and I haven't changed the powerhead positioning either, so the flow is the same as always. I just find it strange that a few of the corals seem to be showing these changes since the second blue light. I got it provide more light for photosynthesis. I read conflicting reports on whether blue LEDs add a lot of PAR... Some people say they add very little, while others say they add a lot. I just wish I had some sort of baseline for my tank so I could be sure...

My nuclear green palys were at mid-level in the tank, and they started hugging the frag plug and wrinkling around the edges, so I grew concerned. As time went on, they started to look physically smaller. I moved them down to the sandbed and they still look like they're getting smaller! So I don't know if I just have a ton of light and they don't like it, or if they haven't been getting enough light in my tank all along. It's frustrating...
 
Here is a pic of par over my tank when I was running 70 leds. 2/3 blue and colors 1/3 whites. Always ran them at 100% a few inches off water line. Tank is 20" deep and 48" long 26" wide. I am growing sps on sandbed just fine. I was getting 1000 par right at the light, 660 just at water line then 550 right below water line. I don't run lenses on the leds. I do run for a total of 14 hours with hour ramp up on and down. Then whites for 7 hours with hour ramp up and down.
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Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
Eckolancer, the thing that concerns me is that my tank looks so much brighter than yours, based on the picture you provided... Here was my tank before adding the 2nd blue light:

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And here's my tank after the 2nd blue light:

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In both shots, my tank seems much more "lit up" than yours does. That's why I'm wondering if I have too much light... Perhaps yours just seems darker in the picture?
 
Maybe this pic will show better. Older shot but pic shows lighting better. I really do need a camera as my phone sucks taking pics. Are your corals closing up from the lights? Or stretching for light?
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Sent from pay phone in the airport.
 
Your pictures still look a lot more "blue" than what I'm used to seeing in my tank, which is why I'm concerned. I can't really see any corals that seem to be "stretching" for light... If I were to guess, I'd say that they were probably getting a bit too much light, but I'm still not 100% sure.
 
Well, I finally got a chance to borrow Marc's PAR meter, and I took some readings of my tank. I found that the white light actually seemed weakest in terms of PAR. The blue lights seem to really bump up the readings. Based on what I saw, I ended up putting the dimmer on the second blue light instead of the white light, turning it down to 33%. Here's what I ended up with:

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As you can see, there's not a whole lot of variation from top to bottom in the tank. Readings ranged from 150 to 305. I know that when it comes to blue LED light, the Apogee PAR meters are supposed to read lower than the actual PAR that the lights are putting out. I'm wondering if I'm a little too PAR-heavy near the bottom of the tank... I might pick up another dimmer and place it on the other blue light to even out the dimming, possibly setting both to around 60%. What are your thoughts, guys?
 
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