Lights Of Old VS LED's

[Forsaken77]

I have a question regarding the TYPE of light I should be using.

About 20 years ago I had a 72 bow FOWLR tank that was highly overstocked (my first saltwater tank) and I used a power compact fixture that just sat on top of the glass hood with 1 daylight bulb and 1 blue actinic bulb to form a 50/50. I NEVER had algae issues then. I rarely changed the coarse filter pad or carbon back then either.

Fast forward to now... I have a 93 FOWLR tank that has constant diatom issues going on for almost 2 years. I have a single AI Prime lighting this tank at high percentages, but the red, green, and UV spectrums are completely off and the white is about 80%, with deep blue at 100%, lighter blue at 85% and violet about 65%. This is for 7 hours per day.

I use the 18 inch gooseneck mount that is about 15 inches above the tank and it completely lights the tank with no disco affect.

So my question is why did the much brighter power compacts that ran the length of the tank cause no algae in a neglected tank, but the Prime (original) is creating diatoms everywhere light touches?

I picked up 3 Primes for my 180, but am wondering if these are the wrong type of light for a FOWLR setup. I like the control and adjustability through the app with these lights, but am wondering if these are a more coral type light and therefore create more algae.

Is there a certain spectrum, like 12K, 14K, ect... that I should have it set at for less algae growth? Or should I try to use non-coral lighting, like Current USA Marine Pro instead? It just seems odd that a neglected tank with brighter lights (and no skimmer) had no algae while the dimmer LED light is creating more algae.

My levels are fine also... Po4 is 0, Nitrite & Ammonia are 0, and Nitrates are at 4ppm, nothing crazy, and use RODI. Back then I used tap water. Plus I do many more water changes now then back then. I took a long break in between.

Any suggestions on the lighting situation would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GoVols]

When I think diatoms then silicates come to mind.

If you want to try the orbit, then I feel like you will be happy. I ran the orbit pro for almost a year.
The regular orbit has a lot wider spread than the pro, to light up a tank.

But, I can't say that your diatoms will go away with the orbit.

 

[Forsaken77]

When I think diatoms then silicates come to mind.

If you want to try the orbit, then I feel like you will be happy. I ran the orbit pro for almost a year.
The regular orbit has a lot wider spread than the pro, to light up a tank.

But, I can't say that your diatoms will go away with the orbit.

I thought silicates also. So for the past year I've been using a Spectrapure High Capacity Silica-Buster DI cartridge for the DI resin on my RODI unit. That's their best DI resin that removes silicates as well. No change at all. So that's why I'm thinking it's more about spectrum color with these LED's. Because I never ONCE had diatoms using the old power compact lights. I've tried all different salt mixes as well with no change. I didn't even know what Diatoms were until I started using the AI Prime.

But they say that Diatoms can grow with too little light as well. So I boosted up the light more, to everything at 100%, except the red & green, and they grew 10 times faster.

One thing that came to mind was MarinePure. Because they leech small amounts of aluminum, I thought maybe it was them leeching silicates as well. I use a gallon of the balls in my sump, which is way more then necessary, but was originally told by Cermedia that you can't use too much MarinePure. So I ended up talking to the head R&D guy from Cermedia MarinePure and he told me about their controlled aluminum test results before it was made public, but when I brought up silicates to him, he said that I was only the 2nd person to suggest that to him because I was using way more than was needed for my water volume. But there's no other way for silicates to be in my tank. They weren't there when I was using tap water, so they aren't from my water source with RODI and a silicate removing DI resin now. Which leaves the lighting or the MarinePure balls. And I have another fresh gallon of them still in the box, along with their biggest block, to use on my 180. Now I don't know if I should, or if I should change the lights because I don't have corals.

If anyone else can chime in on this, it would be helpful. The silicate testing on MarinePure would be a good episode for BRS to investigate if using to much causes silica leeching.

 

[GoVols]

I feel your pain but I just don't know enough about AI's color spectrum's.
I would like to tag along and hopefully a AI Prime "Jedi" can help you rule it in or out.