What kind of success are you having with acros under LEDs?

[Wade]

What kind of success are the LED users out there having growing acros? Do you have to have your intensity maxed out? What do you have and what % are your lights running? I know this greatly depends on the quality of the light. I have a RB Photon series. Thanks in advance for your input.

[victoly]

They grow well enough. I find that I can't quite get the colors that I wan't, but I'm playing with lots of variables at once, so it's hard to pin it on any one thing. I suspect it's the light spectrum for me personally. I run like 24 3 watt LEDs over a 29 gallon tank at roughly 65% intensity.

[Timfish]

Getting the right spectrum and intensity like Victoly said. A significant difference is the UV in many LED fixtures which seems to promote more green fluorescing protein development and is removed from most MH spectrums I've looked at. A specific example is an A. millipora which was blue under 14000K MH turned green under LED which was similar to 14000K except for the additional UV.

[wizardx322]

I'm having great success. Sps seem to color up faster and corals seem to grow quicker then when I had mh/t5.

My color for my corals are alittle different from when I get them from a tank with my but the are still great.

I run AI VEGA COLOR

White 66%

Red and green 45%

Blues 70%

[Neon Reefer]

75 Gal display coming from 50/50 CF 10K - Actinic

Running 360 watt LEDs (DIY) 144watt 12 K - 144 watt Actinic - 30 watt RB - 18 watt RR - 18 watt G - 6 watt UV all running at 80%.

Started w/ just the 50 /50 12K and Actinic, but when i added the rest of the spectrum in I noticed a very positive growth in my SPS and LPS. Good color after the shift in zoo- algae. Much of my SPS dumped the zoo-algae lightened up in color and is now regaining their distinct color after aquiring the desired new zoo-algae it prefered under the LEDs. No problem w/ blues under this spectrum but you can see I am only running small amounts of UV.

Losing all my lighter colored zoas and Palys however. Only the red and pink zoas seem to be thriving under the intensity of the LEDs

[Juiceman]

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/24628-sps-growth-under-leds-post-your-results/

Here's the thread I had on it a while back.

A lot of people come to pick up frags from me and have the idea that
LED's won't grow SPS coral. After looking at my old pics to now they
definitely do! Whether its faster or slower than other lighting I think
depends on the system. Here is a pic of one of my SPS that I was
recently trying to ID.



This is when I got it:






And this is 5 months later:






I will post more when I get home but feel free to post any of your LED SPS success!

2/13/13

6/17/13

[Juiceman]

I have 3 EVO 150 Fixtures running 100% white and Blue, 2 Build My LED fixtures running 100% Blue, and UV, and 2 Build me LED fixtures running 50% that have green, red, yellow, and white.

[Wade]

Thanks all. The one SPS I have (Stylophora) seems to be doing well. I has grown over the past few months, but not like Juiceman's. My lights are currently only at 60% as well. I may need to crank them up a little bit to see more growth. I've got an Acropora spp (turquoise) on the way which I plan to place at the top of my rock. It should be here Friday. Here's what I got http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/productDetail.asp?did=3&pid=1429&cid=52

[FarmerTy]

How's your other parameters doing? Ca, Alk, Mg, PO4. I ask because these are just as important as lighting to the growth rates of these corals.

[Wade]

I change my water about once every 10 days so my parameters stay pretty constant. I usually check them twice a month. At my last check they were:

Mg: 1440

dKH: 7.7

Ca: 400

PH: 8.14

PO4 and NO3 are usually undetectable

[Wade]

@Juiceman: Is your tank an SPS only tank? If not, how do the rest of your stuff handle the 100% lights? I've got several LPS, some montipora, and a few softies (leather and zoas).

[Bpb]

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/24628-sps-growth-under-leds-post-your-results/

Here's the thread I had on it a while back.

A lot of people come to pick up frags from me and have the idea that

LED's won't grow SPS coral. After looking at my old pics to now they

definitely do! Whether its faster or slower than other lighting I think

depends on the system. Here is a pic of one of my SPS that I was

recently trying to ID.

This is when I got it:

And this is 5 months later:

I will post more when I get home but feel free to post any of your LED SPS success!

2/13/13

6/17/13

Ever get an ID on that acro? I've got the same one (came from you actually, in a round about way). Never did find out what it is. It does seem to be the fastest growing acro in my tank. Sorry to distract the topic just wanna know what it is

[Juiceman]

@Juiceman: Is your tank an SPS only tank? If not, how do the rest of your stuff handle the 100% lights? I've got several LPS, some montipora, and a few softies (leather and zoas).

I have several large LPS colonies, Umbrella toadstools, nepthea, zoas, palys, and I used to have an rbta.

I'm definitely an SPS ADDICT.

as for the blue acro, it shall be identified as.....

Juiceman's Blue Acro...!

[Wade]

Can you tell me how high over the water your lights are and how deep your tank is? I think my issue with how successful I'll be in sustaining SPS is that my tank is built in and the furthest off the water I can get my light is about 8 inches. My tank is 22 inches deep. It looks like SPS is going to require my lights to be at 100% for them to do well. Will I fry everything else if I crank it up that high with the fixture being only 8" off the water or is that about the normal distance that most fixtures are mounted?

Edited October 24, 2013 by Wade

[Juiceman]

Can you tell me how high over the water your lights are and how deep your tank is? I think my issue with how successful I'll be in sustaining SPS is that my tank is built in and the furthest off the water I can get my light is about 8 inches. My tank is 22 inches deep. It looks like SPS is going to require my lights to be at 100% for them to do well. Will I fry everything else if I crank it up that high with the fixture being only 8" off the water or is that about the normal distance that most fixtures are mounted?

I haven't measured but they're about 7-9" away from the surface and the tank is 24". Not that different. If your going to ramp it up do it slowly over about a month. If any of the corals show signs of stress, move them down or leave the LEDs at their previous power setting.

[Wade]

I just found this snippet on another forum. Pretty interesting.

Corals really don't need any light at all for themselves. The zooxanthellae (algae) they keep for food needs light. The algae that corals use for food use Chlorophyll a & c (not b) and 90% of it is Chlorophyll a. The light that is needed for that Chlorophyll to do photosynthesis is really in the very short wavelengths of blue (400nm violet to 480nm blue) and some, but not as much, in the red (640nm to 680nm). So lots of blue. The red will come from the white leds which make white by mixing Red, Green and Blue into white. You'll get more that enough red spectrum from the white leds. Your eyes see white, but the zooxanthellae see red, green and blue (they don't have our eyes). The white leds also add a lot of other spectrum that your coral and it's zooxanthellae don't need and maybe even don't like. Corals from deeper water never see red, orange or yellow spectrum, and many of them are damaged by them. So they morph and make new pigments to block the unwanted spectrum (like sun tan lotion or sun block for us... we don't like UV spectrum so we block it).

The guy, headlessnwalkn, who said white grows coral is an... expletive deleted. Have you ever seen a chart about how light penetrates water? After about 20'-30' there is only blue and a little green spectrum left. Red is the first spectrum blocked by the water and it barely penetrates 5'-10'.

Edited October 24, 2013 by Wade

[sifuentes31]

Very intresting article....Sounds true enough to me