Montipora

[tomaquar]

I bought a green montipora which slowly turned brown under compact fluorescent light. I upgraded to LED and everything in the tank turned around. The plate started to turn green again and the polyps were extending. Now however its starting to bleach. Im assuming I need to move it but should I move it lower or should I move it to a spot where the light is more blue. (the way the lights are arranged one side is more blue)

Also, if the polys look healthy should I expect it to come back? Should I move it back to the high light spot when/if it recovers?

Thanks

[HV1990]

Great start by going away from PC lights. They do not give off nearly enough PAR. Remember you just stressed out your corals by first not giving them enough light and then by slamming them with something that has alot for energy. I would move your monti (if you could let us know which one that may help) to the bottom of the tank or the farthest away and slow bring it up higher and higher every 3-4 days. That should let it acclimate and give you an idea where it is happy. Good luck .

[tomaquar]

Its a green plate. Dont have any more specifics than that although it is building new ridges despite the stress.

[thegrun]

+1, low it or you can also drape three of pieces of window screen (plastic) over the tank and remove one every 5 days to allow the coral to acclimate to the new light.

[westreef]

+1, I would do just like thegrun say. I killed several SPS by not acclimate them to the light. I learned the hard way.

[chimmike]

do you have the LED's on dimmers? I'd turn down the intensity

[moevilla]

Im thinking about using led's for my new setup. What type of led's are you using? How many watts/color temp., and how far above the tanks are they. Also, how deep is your tank?

[tomaquar]

Thanks for the input all. Unfortunately I dont have a dimmer but have moved the monti down. The others I had were under MH and have adjusted well.

The power on my LED is great. The manufacturer says it pulls 40 watts and it does not heat up the house. That alone should pay for itself in electricity. I dont have any direct info on the PAR of this set up . My colors are 455 nm blue and it says the white is 550 K white but I suspect they meant to say 5500. One of the LFS owners in her in ATL did a PAR on a more expensive version but I believe the frequencies are similar. He said :

"We compared the LED light extinction rates to T5's in a 20 gallon tank roughly 14" deep. The LED surface to depth measurements averaged 650 (s):530 (d) giving it about 20% overall light extinction. The T5 lights gave 340 surface and 114 depth par readings which gives a extinction rate of 66%. From this test you may conclude that the LED lighting was 30% more efficient than the T5 lighting in directing photons through water depth of 14". Also the data we collected shows that the LED lights put off higher ranges overall (LED 650:530 T5 340:114). "

Let me know if the rules of the forum allow me to post where I got mine for $150. If not send me a private message.