LED Help

[dshel1217]

I'll finish all my wiring for my diy LED light and I have a few questions on about acclimation.

Acclimation: I currently have 6 48” T5 on a 75gal tank the bulbs are about 9 months old.

I’m adding a 54 mixed led colored Cree LED. What do you guys recommend for light acclimation??? Blues and whites are running on 1amp and the UV and mixed colors are at .5amp Thanks guys.

[Timfish]

I would suggest either getting a cheap lux meter and compare the lights levels at teh surface with the two different fixtures or borrowing/renting a PAR meter and measure tha light levels at various points in the tank. If the levels are close I wouldn't worry about them. Or you could just arbitrarily start you photoperiod at 1/4 to 1/3 of what the T5s were running at and increase it an hour or two each week.

[victoly]

I went from PC to LED, and I just started really *really* low to be safe. I had my blues at 30% and my whites at 10% and have been slowly scaling up to where I'm at like 60/30 now.

[new55galSALT]

Light acclimation??? Please explain

[victoly]

if you had been using MH or T5, and then put your LEDs at 100%, you *will* kill all your corals.

[new55galSALT]

Going from screw in type to t5 is fine? Thanx cuz i about to make an led light out of an old coralife fixture its all metal and the wiring was shot so time to recycle it

[victoly]

Not all the screw ins are dimmable. If its non dimmable you may want to start out high and lower the fixture every week or so.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ct67stang]

i have a two t5 strip with a white and a blue bulb. i wanted my corals to "POP" so i bought a autozone led blue strip and stuck it between my two t5s i had no idea about acclimation. i only use it for two hours in the morning and two in the evening, with the original t5s on their same routine. i havent noticed any visible damage to my coral. am i ok or should i worry and make changes? like i said i did because i wanted my corals to stand out with the blue light but their health is more inportant to me ofcourse. any advise? and also what other colors (LED) can i add to make them stand out? thanks guys

[victoly]

there is a difference between autozone LEDs light output and the LEDs that most reefers are going to use. If they don't look irritated, you should be fine. Bleaching from light happens pretty quickly.

[texasreefer]

if you had been using MH or T5, and then put your LEDs at 100%, you *will* kill all your corals.

Victoly, *Will* seems pretty convinced. Now I'm not claiming to be an expert just sharing my experience, but I recently switched from MH to LED and did no acclimation at all. 6 weeks later my coral is still doing fine. No bleaching at all. I have zoas, gonoporia, mushrooms, candy canes and torches and a few other unidentified pieces. Am I lucky or do I just have less sensitive animals?

[bige]

if you had been using MH or T5, and then put your LEDs at 100%, you *will* kill all your corals.

Victoly, *Will* seems pretty convinced. Now I'm not claiming to be an expert just sharing my experience, but I recently switched from MH to LED and did no acclimation at all. 6 weeks later my coral is still doing fine. No bleaching at all. I have zoas, gonoporia, mushrooms, candy canes and torches and a few other unidentified pieces. Am I lucky or do I just have less sensitive animals?    

Maybe your LEDs aren't as powerful as you mh was. Several factors but I would still consider yourself lucky.

[Neon Reefer]

Not sure if you mean you are adding in additon to the VHO or swapping out the VHO. But if swapping out then:

54 - 3 watt Cree LEDs (164) on 24 watt converters would require ~ 3 amp total to drive @ 100% efficiency, twice that @ 12 volt. Gotta figure this to determine the total watts available to display.

If you have enough amperage to fully drive the LEDs then at 100% you have 164 watts on your corals. I utilize 360 watt system running @ ~ 300 watts and is about perfect for hard corals SPS and LPS at lower levels in a 75 G. However I am finding that some of my lighter colored zoas have melted away over time,even under the glass brace. I started @ 50% power and ramped up to where I am over a period of about 2 weeks. You should be Ok to go from a 324 watt VHO to 164 watt LED without too much change in LUX. However there are other mitagating factors that can affect this, such as your angle on the reflector. Wide angle IE 90 - 120 will not be as direct where below 90 will have a more penetrating LUX. Better safe than sorry so IMHO would start <75% and ramp up over 10 days.

However if in addition to existing VHO then you are doubleing your ~ LUX and should start at ~ 25%

But still expect some slight bleaching when moving to LED after a few days as your coral will need toexpel their current zooxanthellae for some more suited to the new color wavelengths, more like a color fading than actual bleaching and then they will color up again. Takes about 6 weeks to reach a full color up.

Andre'