Will cruddy LEDs brown out corals?

[zesty]

I've taken the leap to trust a LFS to build me a DIY LED light with all the controls in the world and everything you could every want in a LED fixture. Well, except there was ball dropping on multiple occasions. 6+ months just to get the pendants with a borrowed power supply to turn the LEDs on and off and that's all the control I have after 6 more months later. :mmph: :yell:

Most of my corals have turned a shade of brown. My P04 is at or below .03 (salifert), my nitrates are at 0, (salifert). My CA is around 440, Alk: 9 and mag:1450.

I don't know what LEDs he put in, other than they came from ledgroupbuy.com. I've had troubles with this guy and getting information and the rest of my setup/controller complete. So, I'm wondering if LEDs can turn corals brown. I buy frags and they look great until I get them home and then they just get to be a brownish color (sigh). I've been super frustrated by this.

I'm just wondering what role LEDs can have to play in this situation?

Thank you for your help.
Matt

 

[rschwadel]

if the wattage is very low then corals can be brown, yes. A lot of corals depend on proteins to protect them from high amounts of UV Lights.. this i kind of like us getting a tan, except for corals the proteins create different (sometimes vibrant colors.) Just because a coral is colorful doesn't mean that it is healthy. in fact, some of the most healthy corals are sometimes brown. LEDS that have low wattage don't carry enough PAR or intensity for corals to show good coloring, and may even inhibit growth. I would work on finding out the wattage and also check potassium and strontium levels depending on how much LPS vs. SPS you have. otherwise your parameters look like they are in range. LEDs do look great but can really screw you if they are not properly put together, or if the bulbs are crap (which quite a few are). In my opinion lighting still takes 3rd place behind flow and food. Good luck Zesty and keep me posted I want to know the wattage of this DIY LED.

 

[rschwadel]

"Just because a coral is colorful doesn't mean that it is healthy."
this excludes bleaching. that is a totally different scenario that I hope you have no problems with.

 

[zesty]

if the wattage is very low then corals can be brown, yes. A lot of corals depend on proteins to protect them from high amounts of UV Lights.. this i kind of like us getting a tan, except for corals the proteins create different (sometimes vibrant colors.) Just because a coral is colorful doesn't mean that it is healthy. in fact, some of the most healthy corals are sometimes brown. LEDS that have low wattage don't carry enough PAR or intensity for corals to show good coloring, and may even inhibit growth. I would work on finding out the wattage and also check potassium and strontium levels depending on how much LPS vs. SPS you have. otherwise your parameters look like they are in range. LEDs do look great but can really screw you if they are not properly put together, or if the bulbs are crap (which quite a few are). In my opinion lighting still takes 3rd place behind flow and food. Good luck Zesty and keep me posted I want to know the wattage of this DIY LED.

I wish I knew the wattage of the LEDs, I asked the builder from the LFS and he never told me. We currently are not on speaking terms. I asked for my money back because he never delivered what he promised and I've never heard back from him. It's a shame. When I bought the lights, I was an LED noob and to a lesser extent a reef noob. Plus, I found out, he didn't put as many LEDs in the fixture as the normal fixtures have. So I have to imagine the PAR level is lower than a "normal" LED fixture. I also feel I was taken up a river with no boat or paddles...

I will say that my corals are growing. I have a mixed reef, SPS, LPS and a giant devil's hand leather. My acans are popping new heads, my SPS are growing (slowly) and everything else is appearing healthy in feeding response and growth. I feed frozen food (compared to ROD's) that's made locally Limpit's Coral Blend and reef chili 2-3 times a week and that's spot feeding everything. I feed my fish 1-2 times daily some quality flake/pellets. 20% water change with RODI water every 2 weeks.

I have decent flow. I have a 65 gal tank, 1 wp25, 1 wp10, 1 tunze PH and my return pump (mag 9.5)

Thanks!

 

[blufin]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I have the exact same problems with my DIY from a LFS. The only thing I can grow is green hair algae. I've lost hundreds of dollars in acro frags and I've decided to go back to MH. I had a smokin tank when using MH and I've had nothing but problems since going LED. After posting my setup and wattage, the kind readers here were able to determine that my lights were WAY underpowered for SPS.

Post a pic of what you have, maybe even with guts exposed and someone here will know what brand they are and what the wattage is. Like Jedimasterben. He's a savant when it comes to LED's.
Good luck.

 

[rschwadel]

Blufin MH are great because they have the bouncing light ability and help coral growth to be even unlike the "spotlight" effect given off by LEDs. If I could I would do both, one on each tank but I gotta earn it to spend it lol. I would love to compare both side by side! Sorry about your acro losses. I went from t5 to LED so I guess the transition was less harmful MH usually have such high wattage like 150-250 range. My best guess is the wattage on Zesty's LED was way low like you previous DIY. That must have been annoying..

 

[zesty]

I'll grab some pictures of the actual LEDs and post them here. I would love to know exactly what is going on up in there. I was suppose to have full control over 5 channels, sun up, sun down all that cool crap... Now I just want a quality light that I can get full spectrum and the ability to dim. I'm looking at Ocean Revive arctic series T-247. I'm trying to see if they'll come out on Amazon, that's (unfortunately) the only place I can buy new LEDs as my budget is limited to my amazon only card. haha! ahh, the fun of reefing.

Thanks for your input. It's been a frustrating ride, cause up until my lights started having problems with flickering and going out, I thought I had decent lights. I came from a really crappy PC fixture. I actually wish I had MH instead of LEDs cause they seem to be the tried and true light for corals.

I don't have any bleaching problems, not one of my corals have bleached under these lights. I've actually taken in some corals from a friend that were bleached out and some of them have come back with some color.

 

[TJ's Reef]

I'm sure that they're probably 3w emitters but how many ??? and what size/footprint of tank are you covering with them. A picture would most definitely help here of both the LED's and the Driver(s) running them. On my DIY LED array to cover a 60" x 24" x 20" Reeftank there are (96) 3w primary mixed color emitters and (12) 3w 6500K for a Noonday circuit and has better coverage/spread than what two 250-400w MH's would and as they are tuned runs less than 200 watts total.

Cheers, Todd

 

[zesty]

I'm sure that they're probably 3w emitters but how many ??? and what size/footprint of tank are you covering with them. A picture would most definitely help here of both the LED's and the Driver(s) running them. On my DIY LED array to cover a 60" x 24" x 20" Reeftank there are (96) 3w primary mixed color emitters and (12) 3w 6500K for a Noonday circuit and has better coverage/spread than what two 250-400w MH's would and as they are tuned runs less than 200 watts total.

Cheers, Todd

I can get this all tonight. I will take down one of the pendants and get some detailed pictures.

The tank is a 65 tall, 48"L x 12"W x 24"T. I hate this tank as a reef tank, but it's all I have to work with. Someday I'll get a better "reef-dimension" tank. I know from memory that each pendant has 33 LEDs total on it, 66 LEDs over the entire tank. The red LEDs on one pendant have been burnt out for about 4-5 months now.

Thanks!

 

[cparka23]

^^ +1 what Todd said.

I'll also add that the LEDs that you get from LEDGroupBuy are fine. I can't speak from experience with the "exotic" brand emitters that are on their site, but the CREE diodes are what everyone uses.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

If they are Cree LEDs from Milad they are quality 5 Watt for the XT-E and 3 Watt for the XP-E.

One huge factor for intensity is optics and drive current.

The same Cree Fixture without optics can be 1/3 as bright as one with optimized optics. The light output is the same its just wasted with spill on the fixture without optics.

Driving the Cree X series at 1000mA v 700mA will give you about 20% more light output and about 40% more heat.

Generally speaking LEDs are brighter than advertised. Its common for SPS to brown out or change colour any time the primary light source is changed.

On my personal SPS tank I had some new SPS additions brown out then a couple months later after they adjusted to the light they coloured up better than before.

Once we see the pics along with the driver specifics we can have a very good estimate of output. That said nothing beats a before and after PAR reading whenever changing lights.

Bill

 

[zesty]

Here are the guts to my light.
Sorry for the dust...

power supply that's on loan while I wait for the controller...

 

[zesty]

Forgot the overall. There is more than 33 now that I look.

 

[ReefLEDLights]

Please "Draw and Quarter" the person at the LFS responsible for this unless the price was severely discounted.

The soldering is second rate and what are those drivers?

The LEDs from LEDGB are quality but the rest of the parts for lack of better terms are generic Chinese.

36 LEDs...Bridgelux (Possibly Counterfeit) and Cree XP-E without optics driven at max would be about a 175 watt MH at best.

Note: I'm being generous in my PAR estimation

Bill

 

[zesty]

Please "Draw and Quarter" the person at the LFS responsible for this unless the price was severely discounted.

The soldering is second rate and what are those drivers?

The LEDs from LEDGB are quality but the rest of the parts for lack of better terms are generic Chinese.

36 LEDs...Bridgelux (Possibly Counterfeit) and Cree XP-E without optics driven at max would be about a 175 watt MH at best.

Note: I'm being generous in my PAR estimation

Bill

Bill!! I now remember the name. I had to go check your profile. I saw one of your fixtures at The Aquatic Experience in Chicago last fall. Wow, what a fixture!! and what a quality of build, I love your lights! Had I not went down this path and spent the money on what you see here, paired with the money I'm about to spend on some new LED lights I would have enough to get them from you, this is the reality of being taken for a ride. :cry::frusty: Seriously, I remember exactly where you were and the tank that it was over. WOW.

So, as for my current fixture, you pretty much stated what I was afraid of. I asked the builder to build me LED lights to be able to grow anything in my current tank and I gave him my tank dimensions. 6 months later, I got this fixture you see above. I took his word that he gave me a quality fixture. Well, so much for customer service.
I've tried to ask for my money back, however due to "health issues" and the roof caved in at their shop, they are no longer open. The only way I have to get ahold of them is through email and phone and you can guess how many times they have gotten back to me after I asked for my money back. Sigh...

The drivers, I don't know what they are. He stated he was building everything on arduino to control the lights. I don't know if that's what you are seeing in the fixture or what it is. Someone told me the power supply is from Steve's LED. I however, don't feel comfortable with a 6 year old and her friends that could come over and stick their hands fingers or whatnot in the power supply box when I'm not looking. I trust my daughter, but you never can be too careful with kids.

Thanks for taking a look at this for me. I am pretty bummed out about this, gives me the socked in the gut feeling. Also takes some of the steam out of the hard work that a guy puts into the rest of his setup and the care to try and keep it healthy and growing. sigh.

Matt

 

[ReefLEDLights]

You do have a couple options other than "cutting bait".

The builder did do one huge thing well. He used standard 20mm Stars for the LEDs. This allows you to swap them out for the latest Cree 5 watt LEDs any time you want.

These run about $3-4 each mounted on the star. You can find these from numerous vendors. Optics add about $1 and this is money well spent as depending on the type will double + your PAR and reduce the spill.

Its hard to tell but the LEDs other than from LEDGroupbuy are most likely Bridgelux knockoffs from Steves which are just for a vague comparison 1/2 of the Cree X series.

The drivers if they are still working well can still be used. Cheap ones generally last about two-three years. Later if you choose you can upgrade the drivers with higher quality remotely mounted ones. Both Ecotech and Acan do this and it keeps the AC volts away from the fixture.

A lot of LED Fixtures are Class 2 were the LED volts are less than 60VDC. This at the standard drive current will not kill you but in a worse case incident may by as unpleasant as licking a 9v battery. As long as the kids do not have access to the AC side you will be fine.

The Arduno generally dims using PWM which is one of the common dimming options available for many drivers.

The simple addition of Carclo Reflectors will double the light reaching the coral. Depending on the tank dimensions and fixture height this might be the easiest way to improve the fixture.

Bill