Green Acropora turning Brown

[Troylee]

The average LED user: "I don't know maybe I am turning the lights on too bright, should I go from 55% to 50%??"

The acros in Troylee's tank when he flicks on his metal halides every morning:

Pretty much! I think there more like this after 10 min.

 

[Formulator]

Just blast them from day 1 you don't need to acclimate most acros to light.

Yes! I do this with every coral that goes into my tank with MH/T5 hybrid and I’ve never lost one due to lighting. Lowest PAR in my tank at the sand bed is 150-200. 700+ at the top.

 

[daniel_mourra]

Updtae! Acro alot Better. It was a par issue. Took it to 250 PAR on a higher rock… to weeks later growing alot better!

 

[jkobel]

Ok well that’s probably the issue there… if I remember correctly from previous years, 1xr15 per 2 tank ft for softies and 1 xr30 per 2 ft for mixed reef and 1 xr30 per tank foot for wall to wall sps. So if you want to stick with xr15s you might want to add a few more units to keep acros. You can get away with only a couple of units but placement of the sticks will be key and difficult to get the punch you need in a tank that’s over 6.5 ft long and somewhat tall with just 3 xr15s. I run 4 XR30s in my2 yr old 4 ft long tank ( I know I could use 3 and be ok but the 4th fills in all the shadows and gaps) …. There are a lot of “lower” light sps you can keep like several montis and even some acros do well in lower par but generally for “acropora” you want to give them a solid 250 par minimum.

In this example what intensity are you considering?

All my macros seem to do poorly in the long run. I was thinking my lights are too bright but maybe it’s too low.

5’ tank. 3xXR 30 at 50% is what I’m running.

All the LPS are thriving. The SPS are not

 

[Falc!]

In this example what intensity are you considering?

All my macros seem to do poorly in the long run. I was thinking my lights are too bright but maybe it’s too low.

5’ tank. 3xXR 30 at 50% is what I’m running.

All the LPS are thriving. The SPS are not

I run all channels and 100 except for greens are only at 10 and overall intensity is at 63%. Blues 1 hr before and after for ramp. But I do run 2 OR3 bars, with lenses removed to give a lot more spread…. Par wise, corals at top of the tank receive around 550ish, 350 in center and about 250-275 at bottom glass