SPS pastel under T5's...cure?

[swhaley40]

I apologize if this thread should be in Lighting...but because all of my corals are SPS, thought you guys would be the best to ask. I'm currently running 4 blue+, 3 aqua blues, and 1 fiji purple. My corals are growing and the colors are super bright...just much more pastel looking than they are under halides. I've read in the past that aqua blues might be responsible...any ideas? Has anyone found a bulb combination that alleviates some of this? In some corals the color is way better(to me) under T5s than halides..others look too bland and washed out. I'm looking to fall somewhere in the middle. Thanks for your help!

Seth

[cato]

I struggled for a year with this problem. I literally tried as many different bulbs/configs I could think of. (and with 8 bulbs there were quite a few) :) Finally I got fed up and went back to halides. Couldn't be happier.

My T5 set up was 8 x 60" retro driven on icecaps with individual reflectors. (maybe a bit overkill on the intensity side)

Now I run 3 x 250w Radiums in lumenarcs with 3 VHO super actinics and I will never change (except to maybe 400's) :D. Love having glitter lines again also.

[deklin]

8 T5 over a 75 gallon with a high par bulb selection like you have is a lot of light. If you want deeper colors, lower you corals in your tank, reduce your PAR or increase your feeding and amino supplementation. If you go with the 3rd option, make sure you have a nice skimmer capable of pulling the dead organics out of the water before it decays to ammonia.

[SunnyX]

Im in the same boat as you. My coral color is great but they are pastel. Maybe someone has a solution for this, but probably not. As most T5's I have seen are pastel in coloring.

Whats weird is, is my tank half the corals are pastel and the other half are somewhat normal. Some corals I have found react differently to T5's.

[orangekush4]

I would remove the T5 and get your self a nice MH bulb and that will help with getting the colors you want.T5 = wast of mony.

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13881706#post13881706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by orangekush4
I would remove the T5 and get your self a nice MH bulb and that will help with getting the colors you want.T5 = wast of mony.

Lol, ok. Lots of help that was.

[Boyman]

hi sunny can we see some pics?

[swhaley40]

Thanks for all of your suggestions guys.

[fishboarder]

how many fish do you have in your tank? when i had 6 fish in my 75 gallon my corals were looking light too. after adding 4 more fish the colors got much better after a few weeks. like deklin said though, make sure you have a good skimmer and possibly a refugium to help with nutrient export. this has happened twice with my tank.

[swhaley40]

I only have 3 fish..Maroon Clown, Regal Tang and a six line. I haven't had a positive test for Nitrate since the end of my cycle...I wonder if my tank has extremely low nutrients.. I feed the fish sparingly but do feed oyster eggs and marine snow to the corals about 3 times per week. I do 10 to 15 gallon water changes every 6-8 days..I have a Remora pro with a mag 5. Doesn't seem to be a popular skimmer at RC, but with the mag 5 it produces some pretty serious skimmate.

[pusanpa]

I cut down the lighting period to 9hr a day. SPS seem to get darker now.

[t5Nitro]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13881706#post13881706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by orangekush4
I would remove the T5 and get your self a nice MH bulb and that will help with getting the colors you want.T5 = wast of mony.

I like this quote (not), considering when I started the hobby I went with a cheap T5 fixture. I am now on metal halides on my new tank, but I will be going back to T5 soon.

[CleveYank]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13881196#post13881196 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cato
I struggled for a year with this problem. I literally tried as many different bulbs/configs I could think of. (and with 8 bulbs there were quite a few) :) Finally I got fed up and went back to halides. Couldn't be happier.

My T5 set up was 8 x 60" retro driven on icecaps with individual reflectors. (maybe a bit overkill on the intensity side)

Now I run 3 x 250w Radiums in lumenarcs with 3 VHO super actinics and I will never change (except to maybe 400's) :D. Love having glitter lines again also.


MH Glitter Lines. I second that.

[JCTewks]

I would look at swapping one of the blu+ bulbs out for a Pure Actinic. The actinic has considerably lower PAR (it sounds like you might have too much light with 3 blu+), and as a side, your colors will have more "pop" with the extra actinic.

I also agree that you might be low nutrient. Try just feeding more!!! With more food the corals will grow faster too!

[ScallopKing]

i seem to be having the same problem too. a lot of my sps are what i would consider pastel coloring but what the hey, at least they have color. ;) any color is better than brown. seriously, though i am upping my feeding regimen and thinking about the suggestion to shorten the light cycle. low nutrients i believe on my tank also as i don't feed anything other than mysis and nori. probably your prob too swhaley40.

[jc16]

maybe dosing amino acids would help or add more fish maybe your nutrients are too low i've had the same problem until i started dosing amino acids

[Aqua Keepers]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13881229#post13881229 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by deklin
8 T5 over a 75 gallon with a high par bulb selection like you have is a lot of light. If you want deeper colors, lower you corals in your tank, reduce your PAR or increase your feeding and amino supplementation. If you go with the 3rd option, make sure you have a nice skimmer capable of pulling the dead organics out of the water before it decays to ammonia.

This about sums it up.

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13882007#post13882007 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Boyman
hi sunny can we see some pics?

The color is great, just a little light. I love the growth I am getting so Ill keep my photo period at 11hrs. I think my problem is the tank is too clean. My skimmer is too large for the water volume. I will try and add Reefbooster twice a week and see if that makkes a difference.

http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p157/SunnyX_photo/New%20100gl%20Rimless%20Reef/DSC_0178.jpg

LEFT SIDE OF TANK:
http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p157/SunnyX_photo/New%20100gl%20Rimless%20Reef/DSC_0228.jpg

[gasman059]

Sunny Bud how long - no t5's just god ol mh's- your tank looks great but imagine what it would do with some nice 250's over it.

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13885901#post13885901 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by gasman059
Sunny Bud how long - no t5's just god ol mh's- your tank looks great but imagine what it would do with some nice 250's over it.

Well, I am happy with the T5's. Im gonna take out one of the Aquablue Specials and add a Blue+ in its place. The Aquablues are white and tend to wash corals out.

[crvz]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13881229#post13881229 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by deklin
8 T5 over a 75 gallon with a high par bulb selection like you have is a lot of light. If you want deeper colors, lower you corals in your tank, reduce your PAR or increase your feeding and amino supplementation. If you go with the 3rd option, make sure you have a nice skimmer capable of pulling the dead organics out of the water before it decays to ammonia.

I agree with this as well, seems that you're overlighting the corals. Another option would be to drop back the photoperiod, as I run my 4 T5 daylights only about 3 hours these days, and the corals have responded rather favorably to it (with the actinics on for about 7 hours).

[Aqua Keepers]

A member by the name of fijiblue has a thread where he tosses the theory that T5's should be higher off the water than we are lead to believe. I think he said around 6" would be better than the 3-4" most of us do.

[Aqua Keepers]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1332562

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13886918#post13886918 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pito
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1332562

Great thread, thanks!

[SunnyX]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13887091#post13887091 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SunnyX
Great thread, thanks!


Quote by Fijiblue from that thread:



"As I learned early on, 1000me2 is way too much for my application which was a 30 gallon with 95% SPS coral. When experimenting, cutting the light down with egg crate (which cut the light output
almost in half) made the Ph in the tank raise up a few points which showed me that the light was inhibiting many algae, including the zooanthallae in the corals, and was shutting them down (photoinhibition). When the light output was reduced, the corals resumed a somewhat normal photosaturation state (if there is one ) and photosynthesis resumed, consuming more Co2 and ultimately raising the Ph of the tank. This got me thinking...was there too much light with my T5 fixture?

I began wondering why 1000 micro Einsteins from MH's and 1000 micro Einsteins from T5's were different and perceived by the corals differently. One of the main differences is lighting orientation. A MH is a pinpoint light source, meaning it's energy is coming from a small envelope no bigger than 1.5 inches. That means the light has the strongest energies within that 1.5 inches. The farther you move side to side, the weaker the light gets. With a T5 bulb, the energy almost runs constant over the entire length of the tube.
Of course reflectors play a role in helping spread the light, but we need to focus on the principle of the bulbs themselves.

There is almost all too often the complaint of the correlation between T5's and pale corals. Gong on the information above, I believe that this is due to the abundance of energy that a coral is in contact with at any given time and possibly IR. Someone on RC once made the analogy (and please forgive me for not remembering who it was) that the differences between Metal Halides and T5's is like Chess. They said to picture Metal Halides like a bishop fighting off a few pawns in front of him. The light source comes from one angle and leaves a lot of shadows and so the coral can deal with this easily. Then is was said to picture T5's like a bishop surrounded by a group of pawns trying to fight them off. The light comes from every angle and weakens and/or destroys the algae inside, leaving a lighter colored skeleton behind.

My original theory was the different energy at play with T5's, mainly infrared. I started noticing that many of these European tanks that looked outstanding, including Szymon Jankowski’s tank (Tank of the Month) were using Acrylic shield over them. Why is this important? Well first of all, acrylic is going to block a significant amount of light penetrating into the tank. I tried getting PAR numbers from as many people as I could to verify the working numbers and conditions. Unfortunately, not many people had PAR meters or access to them. I noticed on my own tank that the PAR numbers were extremely high without the acrylic shield. With a shield they were almost 40% lower. Along with light, the acrylic shield blocked a significant amount of UV (the little that was there) and any other type of none visible light/ray. In an attempt to detect IR, I dismantles a video camera and assembled an IR camera using a few household items (all over the internet if one wants to try). The only problem with this is IR is basically heat. The camera didn't work as well as I would have liked it too, thus making it hard to distinguish and differences between the bulbs. I have yet to find the right tool for this application. I have tried to contact quite a few well respected scientist in the hobby, and some responded that they were going to test some of these theories. Unfortunately, I have not heard anything back.

In closing, I believe that the IR in T5's may play a role in heating the coral internally and destroy the algae within when not used correctly. Acrylic shield seem to be a must in order to prevent this breakdown and help keep corals in much more suitable lighting environment. Although none of this was proven due to the lack of data and equipment to experiment, hopefully it might help someone else in their quest and ultimately find an answer."