Morphing and LED?

[elitegc]

So a few months back, I wasn't doing a great job with my TO water and my dosing. During that time I bought many corals. I often buy corals from a friend who has amazing colors on his corals. Specifically, I bought 1 Bowser zoa and 1 Latin Lover zoa (Cornbred strain). I thought they were happy because they were multiplying and were growing larger in diameter than in his tank, mine looked like they were on steroids. A few months went by and I went back to my friend for more corals (by now, I set up a doser and an ATO, I dose Seachem Fusion and Potassium) and I noticed his Bowser's are much brighter (yet smaller) than mine and my Latin Lovers have morphed into colors that actually look cooler than the original latin lovers. At that point, my parameters had been rock steady for about a month. I decided to leave my Bowser and Latin Lover plugs with him to see if his tank could restore the color and I took a new Bowser and LL from him to place in my tank for comparison. 3 weeks passed. The Bowser plug I left with him colored up some and the LL seems to have stayed with the morphed colors, and the single polyps I took from him are doing good in my tank.

This is where I'm going. During the 3 weeks that my plugs were with him, my 8 polyp Bowser grew 4 more polyps and colored up some and the LL went from 7 polyps to 12. I don't get that kind of growth so quickly. We both use the same LFS for saltwater (water changes), we do water changes with +/- the same frequency. He doses the 2 part from BRS and I use Seachem. I have China black boxes and he uses Ecoray LED. I researched Ecoray for reviews and get mixed opinions. Some people say they are glorified China boxes with 1w LED's while some people swear by them, but that's the only real difference in our tanks. He grows out corals and trades colonies for frags with Cornbred (Richard) and often times the colonies he grows out go back to Cornbred with even brighter colors. Also keep in mind my zoa's (bought from him) grow to probably twice the size.

Does anyone have their own opinion (supported) on these Ecoray LED fixtures?

I'm hoping to hear that some of you have had great long term results with the Black Boxes and my morphing is 'solely' a result of unstable parameters a few months back. I'm trying to avoid having to spend a couple thou$and on 3 light fixtures. I'm just a little ancy cuz I have added very expensive corals/frags since then (i.e. CB flaming bugatti chalice, CB Krakatoa God, 20+ eye Tyree Pink Watermelon, 6 eye CB 3G mummy eye, to name a few) and I would hate any color changing at this point.

In all fairness to my black boxes, I didn't stabilize my parameters til after those zoa's had already morphed. Should I be patient? Cornbred uses Black Boxes...

This may be a lot of rambling. After I read it over, it seems like I'm just thinking out loud. Any suggestions/input is appreciated...

 

[zesty]

I'll join your rambling; I tend to ramble at times too. This is all my opinion on our ecosystems that we keep in our own world.

I checked out Ecoray's website, they seem to be your middle of the road chinese box with a few upgrades. They will grow coral.

This is where I come in and say, how can you be 100% sure that your system and your bud's system are exactly the same? You can't and I wouldn't expect you to. There are so many variables that can slightly adjust that enclosed ecosystem. Ambient temperature, tank temp, tank salinity, pets in the house, children in the house, open windows (not in wisconsin) these are the things I think about when looking at different systems. Is all this enough to make a coral morph colors, I doubt it, but could it have .01% chance of changing your corals, maybe.

My best bet is the LEDs and the slight differences between the two units. Not all LEDs are equal, they have a tolerance range just like anything else being manufactured. So, you can have two cool white LEDs in your unit that can put off 2 different spectrums. This is where binning and paying the premium to get what you want comes into play. If you find a company that uses quality LEDs and BIN them, you can be more confident that your cool white leds are going to be as close to the exact spectrum as they can be.

Take a look at this picture. This is showing 2 different LED fixtures with cool white LEDs. These are not different LEDs, these are both cool white LEDs, just different BINs. They just took the BIN and matched them on each fixture, so they are consistent. Consistent is good in this hobby, for the most part, yeah?

This is just my belief that getting quality lights is where I'm going to put my money. I'll buy jebao wavemakers all day over MPs, but when it comes to lights, I'll never cheapen out again.

And also, I've seen my corals morph quite a bit over time even. That's kinda the fun of it (to me) unless you're trying to grow the specific same color coral.

I rambled my thoughts! haha!