piranhaman00
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PAR is largely a baseline measurement, spectrum is what matters, 1000 par from the sun does not mean 1000 par from leds
You have too much light.....
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LRT
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This is interesting id also like to see what Dana has to say.BUT - then you need high flow. But - I hope @Dana Riddle will pop in
I think I've seen @Randy Holmes-Farley post about the possibility of running higher alk with higher nutrients but dont remember reading anything on lower alk with higher par.
What other variables come into play here?
What about pur?
I really need to read up on all this do you have a link?
I apologize for the incoming novel...
Oh, we bleached plenty of them. It was usually 1000+ PAR though or a very quick switch and they didn't handle the change well. It certainly wasn't because we put some LPS in 200 PAR. A very big name in the hobby now tells people blastos NEED to be in shade to be successful. That is funny becasue mine sit directly under my 250w halide at over 350 PAR and absolutely love it. Colors have held, no bleaching, no shrunk in appearance, just growth, Lots of growth. Let me track down a picture...
The true SPS experts (that were growing crazy SPS most of us could only dream of back in the day) would constantly talk about certain pieces would only survive and color up if they could get them 500+ PAR. Some were over 1000 PAR even. These days you give an SPS piece 1000 PAR from an LED and it will melt. Basically overnight. Why? What changed from 15 years ago? If PAR is PAR (not your words, just conversing) like we are told, something doesn't add up. I wrestled with all of this for years. Ran LEDs from 2008 to 2014, took a small break, got back in the hobby with a Giesemann halide, switched everything to LEDs, and never found the success I once had. Bought a PAR meter. Got everything setup "properly" and still couldn't find that magic sauce. Tried AI, Radion, Kessil, and a couple others. Added T5s and started seeing things turn around. Mind you, my LPS all did fine. Good color, little growth. Couldn't get SPS to truly thrive no mattter what.
Went back to halides and after a couple week acclimation, everything took off! Just like I remember from when I started this hobby. PAR went up, so maybe it was that? I wasn't giving them enough light? My PAR meter said I was. In full honesty, the LPS colors aren't what they were before but the overall look and health is much, much better. So now I use Blue Plus T5s for that pop. I will use ReefBrite XHOs on the new tank for this same effect.
Sorry for the rambling. Just hoping to give a little more info and context
piranhaman00
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Bingo bango bongo
BRS is always saying par is par, nothing magical from T5 par, incorrect.
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MnFish1
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Doesn't it come down to acclimation? If you take a coral used to 200 PAR and put it under 1000 PAR - it will likely suffer. Perhaps not 'die' outright - but suffer - at least for a while. If you slowly - increase the PAR from 200 to 1000 (made up numbers) over 2 months - my guess is there would be less problems. Note - I'm not talking about having 1000 PAR for 12 hours a day. I have direct sunlight on my tank for 3 hours in the morning. The lights turn on about noon - and remain on - with a peak intensity (Radion G530) - at about 5PM, and slow decrease until about 9PM. The green star polyp - that supposedly does best in 'low light' - is brightly colored - and doing well - at almost 600 PAR near the top of the tank.
MnFish1
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I do not remember which article - I believe it was stated by Dana. But I do not know for sure. I know one of the people at an LFS here also mentioned the same thing - high Alkalinity and high PAR - especially quickly - is a recipe for disaster - but higher flow helps
Montiman
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Just for reference this is the Dana presentation I am referring to from MACNA a few years ago.
Turbocharge Photosynthesis! Alkalinity, Light, & Water Motion by Dana Riddle
Turbocharge Photosynthesis! Alkalinity, Light, & Water Motion by Dana Riddle
macna.org
Wow... just wow. So much in this thread.
First, nearly every coral that we have in our tanks was collected on one breath. No all, but most. You can go to the south pacific and collect and you will get a mask, bag and something to break/cur corals. The equipment and cost to dive to 100 feet is just too much for a coral that is going to bring less than a dollar. People do dive down, but they collect deepwater fish that will bring hundreds of dollars. If you don't believe me just Google what kind of equipment and training that you need to go to 30 meters... and why anybody would go down that deep to get a coral that you can get wading in waste deep water near shore.
PAR only measures the visible range of about 400-700nm and even then, the sides are weak. There are more wavelengths from about 350 to 850nm that corals can use for all kinds of things including energy, building sunscreen, fluorescence, transferring energy from one photosystem to another and the list goes on. 1000 PAR of LED is just that since LEDs only really have visible range of output, but PAR from another light source that says 1000 will have more usable light that is able to get measured.
For me, how much light you can give depends on the source. I had corals under the sun in Missouri in a stock tank that had 1500-2000 ppfd from a LiCor Meter (Apogee did not exist back then). The stuff thrived - all of it from softies to LPS to mushrooms. Under MH, I pretty much have to cap it at 1200-1500 or else stuff can get mad. I have never tried under T5s to max it out, but 750-800 is no issue. Most LED need to be kept under 400, or stuff can get mad - some people do more, but they are outliers.
I keep my water parameters pretty close to NSW with alk around 7.0 and I could double the amount of MH that I have on my tanks and stuff would grow faster and look better after a week or two of ramping them up... maybe not twice as much to equal the wattage, but they would respond.
The bottom line is that quality of light likely matters more than people know. ...and not too many people know that light quality from LED is lower quality just in the spectrum that they do not emit. You can bet that soon as good IR didoes are available that are cheap and long lasting, they will be in your next generation of panels and most will need to upgrade. Same with IR... but they will produce heat too, so there goes that BS argument that heat is some sort of a killer. I am happy that the people who wanted to argue that these spectrums do not matter are mostly gone and the argument has more shifted towards how well can we do well without them.
Somebody take your apogee outside and measure the full sun. Going to be over 2000. Then put it 2 feet deep into a bucket of saltwater (or any water). You will be impressed. Full sunlight for these and they thrive. Of course, they get the highest quality light. I did not take this photo, but you can find areas all over the Coral Sea and South Pacific like this:
First, nearly every coral that we have in our tanks was collected on one breath. No all, but most. You can go to the south pacific and collect and you will get a mask, bag and something to break/cur corals. The equipment and cost to dive to 100 feet is just too much for a coral that is going to bring less than a dollar. People do dive down, but they collect deepwater fish that will bring hundreds of dollars. If you don't believe me just Google what kind of equipment and training that you need to go to 30 meters... and why anybody would go down that deep to get a coral that you can get wading in waste deep water near shore.
PAR only measures the visible range of about 400-700nm and even then, the sides are weak. There are more wavelengths from about 350 to 850nm that corals can use for all kinds of things including energy, building sunscreen, fluorescence, transferring energy from one photosystem to another and the list goes on. 1000 PAR of LED is just that since LEDs only really have visible range of output, but PAR from another light source that says 1000 will have more usable light that is able to get measured.
For me, how much light you can give depends on the source. I had corals under the sun in Missouri in a stock tank that had 1500-2000 ppfd from a LiCor Meter (Apogee did not exist back then). The stuff thrived - all of it from softies to LPS to mushrooms. Under MH, I pretty much have to cap it at 1200-1500 or else stuff can get mad. I have never tried under T5s to max it out, but 750-800 is no issue. Most LED need to be kept under 400, or stuff can get mad - some people do more, but they are outliers.
I keep my water parameters pretty close to NSW with alk around 7.0 and I could double the amount of MH that I have on my tanks and stuff would grow faster and look better after a week or two of ramping them up... maybe not twice as much to equal the wattage, but they would respond.
The bottom line is that quality of light likely matters more than people know. ...and not too many people know that light quality from LED is lower quality just in the spectrum that they do not emit. You can bet that soon as good IR didoes are available that are cheap and long lasting, they will be in your next generation of panels and most will need to upgrade. Same with IR... but they will produce heat too, so there goes that BS argument that heat is some sort of a killer. I am happy that the people who wanted to argue that these spectrums do not matter are mostly gone and the argument has more shifted towards how well can we do well without them.
Somebody take your apogee outside and measure the full sun. Going to be over 2000. Then put it 2 feet deep into a bucket of saltwater (or any water). You will be impressed. Full sunlight for these and they thrive. Of course, they get the highest quality light. I did not take this photo, but you can find areas all over the Coral Sea and South Pacific like this:
ninjamyst
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Coverage is more important than intensity. Ideally you want to avoid hotspots too. I rather run 3 XR30 with diffuser at lower intensity than 3 XR15 at high intensity. This reduces shadowing and really allow your SPS to grow into full colonies. I am building out a 60 x 30 x 21 tank and will be running 4 XR30 with diffusers.
MnFish1
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Thanks - that was the one I was referring to as well!Just for reference this is the Dana presentation I am referring to from MACNA a few years ago.
Turbocharge Photosynthesis! Alkalinity, Light, & Water Motion by Dana Riddle
Turbocharge Photosynthesis! Alkalinity, Light, & Water Motion by Dana Riddlemacna.org
outhouse
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over the decades you always have had good advise
I almost quit after almost loosing my 40 year old lobo, but stuck it out and turned my intensity down. I lost a lot of years switching to leds, luckily i learned the trick of turning them way down. Growth no where near MH and VHO combo that made me successful for over 2 decades, but im happy now with less electricity bills and a healthy tank.
Reef and Dive
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Unfortunately we do. If we didn’t (not in all cases but in too many) they would look much less colorful, like they look in nature.
But we want colors! So we abuse very often on excessive par, UV and other slight stressors in order to get what we call healthy.
But if we check science articles we discover those are very often considered stress factors.
Interesting fact: more advanced reefers tend to use more stress factors (I’m also guilty), the problem is that we fail to recognize what we are doing is pretty far from science concept of health for corals.
But we want colors! So we abuse very often on excessive par, UV and other slight stressors in order to get what we call healthy.
But if we check science articles we discover those are very often considered stress factors.
Interesting fact: more advanced reefers tend to use more stress factors (I’m also guilty), the problem is that we fail to recognize what we are doing is pretty far from science concept of health for corals.
piranhaman00
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No not even close! Haha leds use only a couple different nm of diodes. It’s not even close…
MnFish1
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HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHA - I meant the appearance. Of course they do not contain the full spectrum. But then again - neither do metal halides. The point is that the sun (measured by PAR) is far 'brighter' than any LED (Or Halide) - at various points of the day.
It has always been my experience that more high quality light leads to more growth and hardier corals that can survive a power outage, sudden parameter issues or something else. I have some softies too that grow super fast under the high output and quality spectrum MH - this makes them handy to sell and stuff. I also have Colorado Sunbursts that grow like crazy too under this light. Again, keep in mind that all of these likely came from less than 3m of water, so they were getting a lot of light before they were collected. There some photos of these in my rebuild thread including some of Poletti Jawbreaker that I grew under 6500k T5s.
None of us really know too much and most of the science and articles that we have are super narrow and need some blending and working to put them all together, but I feel really confident in saying that most corals will repsond to more light in direct proportion, if the light is high quality. Do they need it? Some do, but not all of them. However, all of them will glady take it.
Keep in mind that light stimulating the zoox is the only real, for-certain food (sugars) that photosynthetic corals get. People spend all kinds of time and resources wanting to feed them with building blocks (N and P), aminos that likely don't ever get to them, and all kinds of stuff in bottles and then cut way back on the real food with some low powered panels.
None of us really know too much and most of the science and articles that we have are super narrow and need some blending and working to put them all together, but I feel really confident in saying that most corals will repsond to more light in direct proportion, if the light is high quality. Do they need it? Some do, but not all of them. However, all of them will glady take it.
Keep in mind that light stimulating the zoox is the only real, for-certain food (sugars) that photosynthetic corals get. People spend all kinds of time and resources wanting to feed them with building blocks (N and P), aminos that likely don't ever get to them, and all kinds of stuff in bottles and then cut way back on the real food with some low powered panels.
LRT
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Hey Jda I wanted to know what your thoughts about PUR are if any?
I'm running T5 led hybrid on one of my tanks. 2x actinic bulbs with 50/50 mix of blues and whites on led. Id consider it a much more full spectrum than most run.
Anyhow im running my par a little lower than most around 180 on my green slimer and seeing really good encrusting as well as several new sticks growing since I got it 3-4 weeks ago.
My PUR is actually sitting around 230-250.
Is my slimer doing well because my PUR is higher and helping get coral what it needs at lower par?
Is T5 just a superior light source compared to led spectrum?
Idk and still trying to wrap my head around this.
Appreciate your thoughts
rynosreef
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I theorize that “angle of incidence” plays a huge role in why T5’s and Halides have historically grown acropora more consistently than LEDS. With T5’s the entire length of the tube emits light which then reflects an immense amount from the reflectors. Halides do something similar with their reflectors. Light is coming from everywhere from all sorts of angles all the time. LEDS are great for controllability and spectrum tweaking but they’re so much more directional. They are a point source light. I have an Orphek running near full blast, but man o man the moment just 2 T5’s come on the tank is sooo much brighter. I believe this angle of incidence plays a large role in why 400 PAR from T5’s and Halides is not the same as 400 PAR from LEDS.
arking_mark
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So my experience with Seneye was that it did not do well with my Kessils. It was about 75-100 PAR higher than the MQ-520.
