leds and LPS color changes

[victor escobar]

I have a question. My tank has gotten leds and almost everything is becoming orange or green or blue. That is something that I do not like because it makes the tank more monotonous than it was. It is always the same I buy something red (lobo, cinarina, chalice, etc.) and they start becoming orange and then a bit greenish and all the same color. If the piece is blue then the blue intensify and if it is green then it becomes fluorecent green.


Do you have esperiences with leds and colors? It there any way to reverse the situation?

[Lynnmw1208]

do you have any royal blues in the mix? they usually bring out the reds in corals similar to fiji purple T-5 bulbs.

[NanoReefWanabe]

i thought i red that cyan/green leds brought out the red colours in the coral..

[organism]

What kind of LED's are they, and do you know the ratio of blue to white off hand? I have LED's and my reds pop :) It sounds like your corals may be lightening up a bit in color though, I've seen that quite a bit on fixtures that have too many white LED's.

[victor escobar]

Thank you for the replays. The question is not if I can see the red colors of corals (when just added to the system the reds are incredibly strong), the issue is that after the time the red corals become orange or green.

The system I've gotten is only white and blue 50-50 but I can control the intensity of both colors. Now I'm putting 70 % of the blues and 30 of the whites but things do not seem to improve. What is better to increase the intensity of the blues or the whites?

It is interesting to know that cyan/green leds or royal blues can make a difference.

It is going to be difficult for me to add any new line of leds but not impossible so I would like to have more opinions before doing it.

Have you had experience yourselves about that?

[Useful_Idiot]

I'm kinda bummed too. I have two red acans that turned very orange on me. The leds made them look great then after a few weeks then they became orange. Also a red and green chalice that the red is almost completely gone but the green is nicer. It used to be 40/60. I have a red chalice that is getting very pale but I haven't had it long enough to tell if it will stay this way. I'd love to know the answer to this question. I wonder if it's a higher light issue, or if it's a spectrum issue. I have 2 Ai sol blues run at a maybe 18k from the start.

[forddna]

Has anyone else seen color changes? And those who have, what LEDs are you using (what brand, what color combo, etc)?

I'm seriously considering swapping to LEDs for long term money savings (currently facing having to replace my 3 250w radiums to the tune of $230 w tax). But not if I am going to have Acans changing colors on me!

[sjwitt]

It may not be your lighting. Check your iodine and potassium levels. These are connected to pink and red coloring in corals.

[victor escobar]

OK I accept that the chemistry is linked to the colouring of corals, but the estrange thing is the commonality in different tanks. I wonder whether the spectrum of the leds is too linear in comparison with HQI so they are missing some parts of the spectrum necessary for some color pigments such as red.

I do not know if all tabks are suffering the same or it only matters with blue-white led lighting

[ChuckLawson]

How long are we talking about here for a color change? I've got three colonies of red or mostly red acans that have been under 50/50 cree cool whites and royal blues since february; one has gotten a bit less orange and more red, one has gotten a green cast to some white spokes, and a third has added a bit of a blue rim, but the reds are (if anything) a little redder...

I've got them in a slightly well less lit spot between my two fixtures -- one colony I had in a substantially brighter area for a few weeks, and it was noticeably unhappy -- heads held tight against the skeleton. This was the orangeish-red one -- I moved it near the other two, and it's turned more red, with all the heads much more inflated (gone from perhaps nickel sized to quarter-to-fifty scent piece sized).

[glang]

I am having same issue. Have several Acans with every color you could imagine in them. Several weeks later, they are all blue and yellow/orange in color but appear happy otherwise.

I am using Sol Blue AI's

[haysanatar]

Is it an actual shift in color? Or is it a wash out in color due to some missing wave lengths not emitted by cool white and blue led's for instance yellow/green/red areas?

I'm making my own led fixture as of right now and I'd heard of people saying their colors had washed out, I thought it was just a lack of certain wavelengths. IE you can't have a red object if it can't reflect that wavelength of light.

Personally I am using a mix of royal blue, cool white, warm white, and I'm debating on red.

50% royal blue 25% cool white 25% warm white and perhaps 12 red sprinkled through out with no lens.

All of which are on their own independently dimmable strands.

Any thoughts?

[haysanatar]

Just another possibility, could it be linked to uv radiation? If im not mistaken isn't one purpose of corals colorant to block uv, kind of like a tan. Uv isn't put off by most led's like some of the metal halides.

[Nvizn]

I'm a bit skeptical on this concept.

[haysanatar]

I'm not saying those are the reasons.. just possibilities.
has anyone here used any led's that were warm white or red over coral?

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=274
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/coralcare/a/whycoralschange.htm
http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=16+2167&aid=2693
http://www.reef-visions.com/forums/index.php?action=articles;sa=view;article=8

^
all mention shift in kelvin and uv radiation as potential reason for color change.

[glang]

Mine was an actual shift in colors because they had their original colors for a few weeks under the same LEDs and then the colors changed. I am not ruling out that there is a possibility that water conditions may have caused mine and I will be checking a few extra parameters soon (e.g., K and Iodine)

[haysanatar]

here is another good article http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/10/aafeature2

I still think its not a chemistry thing.

[hermesfansf]

That is very interesting. I recently bought a Aussie Gold Torch from my friend. The torch was super orange under his LED, but it is a kind of bleached under 250W MH now at my tank while my acans and brain colors are so colorful.

[haysanatar]

could be a change in intensity maybe?

[jwoyshnar]

I think the answer maybe what a few posters put above. One definitely is the color spectrum of the LEDs that you have. So many different areas of the color spectrum are missing when you only have white and blue.
Secondly I agree with the above poster with the uv thought. Like he said the reason they color up so much is because they are protecting themselves from uv.

[haysanatar]

So if that is the case, adding say some reds, warm white, or other led's in conjunction with the cool white and the blue should help. They also do make uv leds. I'm knees deep in a build myself right now and I'm debating adding a strand with some reds and maybe a few uvs in as well. would red be the color to add or as some one above mentioned would a cyan be better?

[victor escobar]

The lack of UV rays being responsible for the color change is something to research. I've been informed leds have not gotten significant UV radiation in them. On the other hand the combination of the missing UV rays plus high PAR (intensity) could be the reason for the lost (death) of red lobophillia and the risks with cynarina (low light corals including oxipora).

I like leds (especially for the low expenditure in the electricity bill) even if they are imperfect but maybe with an addition of certain low price colored leds of low intensity we could overcome the problem.

[organism]

OK I accept that the chemistry is linked to the colouring of corals, but the estrange thing is the commonality in different tanks.

There's really not much commonality, in my tank and in a ton of people I know their reds are red under LED's. In mine the reds are RED. Like I said above, it has a ton more to do with your blue to white bulb ratio than anything else. My ratio is 3 blue to every 1 white, in a 1:1 ratio, which I'll put dollars to donuts is the ratio in your fixure, your reds could very well turn orange.

It may not be your lighting. Check your iodine and potassium levels. These are connected to pink and red coloring in corals.

Also very likely.

[organism]

OK I accept that the chemistry is linked to the colouring of corals, but the estrange thing is the commonality in different tanks.

There's really not much commonality, in my tank and in a ton of people I know their reds are red under LED's. In mine the reds are RED. Like I said above, it has a ton more to do with your blue to white bulb ratio than anything else. My ratio is 3 blue to every 1 white, in a 1:1 ratio fixture your reds could very well turn orange. It could also be any number of things aside from the lighting, and it can be very coral dependent as well.

It may not be your lighting. Check your iodine and potassium levels. These are connected to pink and red coloring in corals.

Also very likely.

[haysanatar]

I don't see how having more blue will give you reder reds...
if the wavelength isn't there to be reflected.. it can't be reflected...
and if its not reflected... than it doesn't look red.

[jeremyblu]

I don't see how having more blue will give you reder reds...
if the wavelength isn't there to be reflected.. it can't be reflected...
and if its not reflected... than it doesn't look red.

This theory of yours was null before you even posted it. Read what the op said guys. It was red, then changes color. If there was no red wavelength. It would not have started red then changed to something else.........

Corals change colors specially lps under different lights and intensity. Specially under a change in intensity. I traded for red acan lord a few months ago that was under 400. Watt radiums. After being in my tank of ati And guiseman t5. it sprouted 12 rainbow Aussie babies. That same coral under sol blues looks like it does in mine. And I have seen green acan turn baby blue and red under sols.

[Jamesus]

I had the same problem with my Red corals becoming more orange once I changed to LEDs. Every other color in my tank was vibrant and I had great growth but not Reds. after about a year I added a ATI Blue + and a Purple + to my system and it fixed all my color problems.

[organism]

I don't see how having more blue will give you reder reds...
if the wavelength isn't there to be reflected.. it can't be reflected...
and if its not reflected... than it doesn't look red.

That's kind of the opposite of what I said: more whites will give you oranger reds, and less whites will give you redder reds. Blue are just there because if there's more of those, there's less whites to bleach the colors. I'll post up some pics when I get a chance of reds in my tank to show the difference :)

[kevlow]

I would like to report on my personal experience w/ this subject. In both the nano section and club forum I shared alittle on what changes my tank went through as I changed the led lights. My little 10g nano first went LED with one ecoxotic 8k/453 blue module, one 403 violet stunner, one blue stunner. My colors were great, LPS growth was very good, but I had little Acro and SPS growth.

At this point, I had LED fever and the more I read the more I believed that more was better.[More Power! -Tim Allen] I stripped out the Eco- LEDs and instaled a DIY 16 3w crees,[8cw and 8 rb] no dimmer and used two blue 403 stunners. At first my colors popped like i always wanted. Then after a couple of months my red acans had changed to orange, my purples in the lobos turned blue but the blues and greens were excellent. Warmer colors were washed out in both LPS and SPS. The growth was better then ever before in SPS but I wanted the color back and better LPS growth.

So I tried a middle ground. I used 6 3w crees [3 rb, 3cw], the 12w twelve led 8k/453 module, one violet stunner, one mixed blue/ white stunner, and two blue 403 stunners. Now I have growth and color. The pinks are popping, the purples have returned and the reds are improving. I have had this mix for several months now

What i have thought about these changes is that both intensity and spectrum played parts. With the 16 3w crees three inches off the water in a 10g tank, I may have been blasting the corals with light. At WWC in Orlando they have incredible corals but it surprized me how little light they hit them with. Now my tank has less powerful leds but more of them with better spread. It has almost the same total amount of watts but spread out with more and smaller emitters.

Also the spectrum is different. I have alot less cw hitting the corals and also the addittion of the violet stunner. The 403 does not visibly penetrate the water more then a inch or two, but I think that the unseen light still hits par and violet color that is low in our visibility range.

Pics are posted in the nano section under "resurrected 10g" about page 5 or 6 now. I do not know how to connect this link. I am happy with the results and I am using this tank to help revive some corals from another tank that did not do well. I know the changes that were made to the lighting. I know the changes I saw in the coral in response to the lighting. I am just trying to understand the science behind it.

kevin

[jc-reef]

I would like to report on my personal experience w/ this subject. In both the nano section and club forum I shared alittle on what changes my tank went through as I changed the led lights. My little 10g nano first went LED with one ecoxotic 8k/453 blue module, one 403 violet stunner, one blue stunner. My colors were great, LPS growth was very good, but I had little Acro and SPS growth.

At this point, I had LED fever and the more I read the more I believed that more was better.[More Power! -Tim Allen] I stripped out the Eco- LEDs and instaled a DIY 16 3w crees,[8cw and 8 rb] no dimmer and used two blue 403 stunners. At first my colors popped like i always wanted. Then after a couple of months my red acans had changed to orange, my purples in the lobos turned blue but the blues and greens were excellent. Warmer colors were washed out in both LPS and SPS. The growth was better then ever before in SPS but I wanted the color back and better LPS growth.

So I tried a middle ground. I used 6 3w crees [3 rb, 3cw], the 12w twelve led 8k/453 module, one violet stunner, one mixed blue/ white stunner, and two blue 403 stunners. Now I have growth and color. The pinks are popping, the purples have returned and the reds are improving. I have had this mix for several months now

What i have thought about these changes is that both intensity and spectrum played parts. With the 16 3w crees three inches off the water in a 10g tank, I may have been blasting the corals with light. At WWC in Orlando they have incredible corals but it surprized me how little light they hit them with. Now my tank has less powerful leds but more of them with better spread. It has almost the same total amount of watts but spread out with more and smaller emitters.

Also the spectrum is different. I have alot less cw hitting the corals and also the addittion of the violet stunner. The 403 does not visibly penetrate the water more then a inch or two, but I think that the unseen light still hits par and violet color that is low in our visibility range.

Pics are posted in the nano section under "resurrected 10g" about page 5 or 6 now. I do not know how to connect this link. I am happy with the results and I am using this tank to help revive some corals from another tank that did not do well. I know the changes that were made to the lighting. I know the changes I saw in the coral in response to the lighting. I am just trying to understand the science behind it.

kevin


Interesting. I was in Lake Mary this past weekend at the SRC bi-annual conference and one of the speakers (Anthony Calfo) touched on this exact topic with LED's. He mentioned that one of the issues with LED's is that the wave spectrum peaks are extremely 'spiked' at its particular Kelvin temp instead of a nice 'blunt' curved peak you get with a MH/T5 bulb. He said the range of Nm are very very small and specific with LED's.

His analogy was the LED's peak wave length is like a laser beam trying to hit its target (the zooanthella sp?) and if that 'beam' is not the exact color/temp needed for photosythesis of that particular cluster of zooanthella, then they are screwed. Most corals have several kinds of zooanthella in their skin and require different spectrum for photosythesis... i.e. 420-480. A blue LED may be more like 430-435 (example only)...causing the 'color shift' in your corals or even zooanthella die off (lightening).

It sounds like when you added the different color LED's to your mix, you 'widened' the usable spectrum peaks, thus allowing more zooanthella to photosythesis and keep their original color.

I wish I could find some true Spectrometer graphs that have tested (not marketed) some of the LED's out there.


------

[victor escobar]

I would like to thank you all for the responses that I think are very interesting and educational.

In particular the last of jc-reef telling the reasons explained by Calfo in his conference. To say that leads only emit very narrow wavelengths is something that my intuition was telling me as part of the problem. (I still think chemistry +intensity+kind of coral-zooxantelas is also related), but the one million question is how to overcome the problem.

We have heard in the post that some hobbists have added other colors by adding other kinds of leds violet, cyano, blues etc) to the regular white and blue, Excuse me if I am a bit rud but I think they were added in a non very scientific basis that's to say " I put anything following intuition and see what happens".

Some results have been achieved, some of them sufficietly good other only satisfactory and I imagine others insatisfactory. I wonder whether we could find concrete solutions that are in the good direction and put them on a list.

[haysanatar]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=17507074#post17507074

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1885076

both of them are led color related the first what corals need the second fully aesthetic

[Texsun]

I had the same problem with my Red corals becoming more orange once I changed to LEDs. Every other color in my tank was vibrant and I had great growth but not Reds. after about a year I added a ATI Blue + and a Purple + to my system and it fixed all my color problems.
I experience similar color shifts with my LPS under AI Sol Blues. Couldn't stand it after a few months and am much happier now under T5s. I ran mine at 50% intensity with the RB and Blues slightly higher than whites. I thought that perhaps warmer white LEDs would help and even emailed AI about it but they never responded.

[JaneG]

I think your problem might be with the types of LEDs you are using. After reading a lot of topics about this, many people think it might be from UV (hence the use of UV LEDs in some builds), however this has been somewhat disproven. I personally think it's because the "standard" Royal Blue and Cool White LED build provides awful color rendering (and this could also have physical results on the coral colors). This is really obvious if you look at spectral graphs, because the Royal Blue has a really narrow spectrum in the blues alone and the Cool Whites are the same. I would suggest doing a build with Neutral White, Royal Blue and Cool Blue LEDs- I think you'll have a lot better results with your coloration. Also be aware that LEDs have PAR different from other forms of lighting, so it's VERY VERY easy to overdo it- I think this might be a lot of people's problems. Good luck! :beer:

[kevlow]

JaneG- +1. It appears that the fixture manufactures are about 2-3 years behind the DIYers.

JC-reef--- I see in your signature you have T5 and LEDs.Have colors improved? Has your experience been as Jamesus has stated.

[jc-reef]

JaneG- +1. It appears that the fixture manufactures are about 2-3 years behind the DIYers.

JC-reef--- I see in your signature you have T5 and LEDs.Have colors improved? Has your experience been as Jamesus has stated.

Well, I actually had a 6 bulb (2 fixtures) T5 over my tank from the start. I removed i fixture (2 bulb) and kept my 4 bulb fixture and added 3 Reefbrite LED's strips (2 blues & 1 - 50/50). My colors...especially the florescent colors really popped after the LED's were added. So to your question....my colors did improve...but I believe it is due to the combo where I now get a much wider spectrum of usable light over my corals.

After hearing Calfo's speech on LED's 'narrow' peaks I am ever more convinced that it will take a much larger / more diverse array of LED combinations; not just the typical RB & CW bandwagon that all the manufactures are jumping on now. Until the LED manufactures start increasing a range of colors, I will stick with my combo....or DIY a fixture with several colors. Even the MH users combo with LED's are very nice.

BTW my T5's are
2 - ATI B+
ATI Purple Plus (or Fiji)
KZ New Generation (sweet bulb!)


----------------

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[jc-reef]

Taken from redfishsc post:

You can clearly see the 'narrow' peaks of blue.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2017939

Here is the result of the LED testing we did about a week ago, along with a very good friend of mine who is a Marine Biology student at UNC Wilmington. Joe was fortunate enough to just get word that he's been hired by SeCore (yeah!) so these will be the only LEDs I'm able to study unless I happen upon another spectrometer.

The Spectrometer was an OceanOptics S2000.
http://www.oceanoptics.com/Products/s2000.asp

Current was held at 700mA with a benchtop powersupply for all LEDs except the XML graph below.

All LEDs were mounted to 1/2" thick acrylic (Corian) pieces as temporary "heatsinks", and held in place using jigs I constructed to keep things consistent.

For ALL test, the LEDs were 12" from the sensor. The sensor was never moved.

There are too many graphs to post them all here (28 graphs total) and about half of them are more for planted tank owners.

So I will link you to them in the following ways. Several people have offered to host them for us. Two of them are retailers so once they get them uploaded, I'll edit this post and include the link.

Here is my photobucket album with them all.
http://s919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/re...TING/?start=all (http://s919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/?start=all)


Here are a few of the most important ones, but please by all means look at the rest of them. Some interesting stuff was found. Most of it predictable but nice to know for sure.

Y-Axis is not PAR but a unit of intensity that the meter assigns. We are looking for a way to convert this number into something useful, but it serves as a great comparison.

Rebel Neutral White and 2 Royal Blues
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Rebel_nw_rb_rb.jpg

Rebel Neutral White, Royal Blue, Cyan
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Rebel_nw_rb_cyan.jpg

Cree XPG Neutral White, 2 XPE Royal Blue
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XPGnw_2XPEroyals.jpg

XPG Neutral White, XPE Royal, XPE Blue ("cool blue")
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XPG_nw_XPE_royal_XPE_blue.jpg

XPG Neutral White, XPE Royal, Rebel Cyan
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XPGnw_XPEroyalblue_RebelCyan.jpg

XPG Cool White and XPE Royal Blue
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XPGcw_XPErb_combo-1.jpg

XML Cool White at various drive currents
http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XML_coolwhite.jpg




A few others.

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Bridgelux_402_10wclass_cw.jpg

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Satistronics_cold_white_20w.jpg

http://i919.photobucket.com/albums/ad39/redfishnc/LED%20TESTING/Cree_XRE_XPE_royalblue_comparison.jpg



There are others on the album as well, including individual shots for the XPG cool, neutral, and warm white.... royal blue and blue, cyan rebel, XPE red and satistronics red, and various white-only combinations for planted tanks and refugia.

[chuckdallas]

Has anyone added a strip of red LEDs on an existing fixture?

[haysanatar]

I just ordered the rest of my leds for my fixture and I ordered a few deep reds 660-70 nm 2 per 2 foot section

[victor escobar]

It would be interesting to know the real experience with deep reds as there are some controversy related to the usefulness of this spectrum.

I'm really interested because for example humans do not use light for fotosyntesis but will die without light.

[mordibv]

This is a good thread . I am curious on the colors of red acro's . I had a Pac Sun early gen model that used bridgelux leds with a few UV leds in the unit . I had no problem keeping a Red Planet Acro red with this unit . Pac Sun did away with UV leds on the newer generation units . Stating the manu are behind the diyer's is not true imho . The above statement indicates otherwise . Why they stopped is beyond me .
LEDs in general put out little if any UV at all . T5's and halides put out quite a bit of UV .
I learned from a t5 user that if you put a cable tie around a t5 bulb such as a blue plus or the special in time it will make the cable tie brittle enough to fall off the bulb . This is from UV exposure .
Chemistry can play a role in coloration . Zeo heads and bio-pellet users have learned that these types of filtration methods will strip the water column of potassium . Red montipora's are known to pale out due to the lack of potassium .
I now use a manu unit that has cree Xp series leds in it . 10 cool white , 4 RB and 4 Blue's . I did add a rose/ red Tru Lumen strip to the fixture . It has 4 leds on the strip mounted to the rear of the unit . I was advised by the manu of my fixture that the color may bring the red's out but would only cause algae issues .
I did aquire a red milli recently but it was not really red in the store when I purchased it .
It has yet to color up .I can rule out potassium ,po4 as an issue as I have no measureable po4 and I add potassium once a week via . Lugols , Brightwell's Potassion and Eco NF metals + water changes TM Bioactif Salt . Since reading this thread I will use the rose /red strip more to see if it makes any improvements .
Any thoughts on how long to run them ? I will let them run 4 hours a day for starter's . I used to only run them for an hour before the blues shut down for the night since I liked the pop it gave the tank.
So in a nutshell I am as stumped about this as everyone else ,

[mordibv]

Didn't mean to jack the thread in the earlier post but here is an example of color changes with leds . This was an acan I named peppermint patty .

When I got it .

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff4/mordibv/70%20cube/Corals/DSCN1435.jpg


I split the colony and this is what is looks like 1+ year 's later

As of a few months ago . it is in the lower bottom pic .

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff4/mordibv/Nano%20Build/DSCF1355.jpg


Another picture .

Doesn't help with a crappy camera . It's hard to take pic's with the leds too .

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff4/mordibv/Nano%20Build/DSCF1408-1.jpg


Part of me likes the rainbow look it has now but I wish it would have kept the original colors .

[haysanatar]

its hard to judge the white balance is off the reds look oranger and the green looks more pronounced.

[victor escobar]

No more experiences?

[victor escobar]

I have just been told that the missing wavelength for the red colors of LPS is more related to the UV spectrum than to the 640-660 red part. So the easiest solution could be to install a germicide lamp as an addition to the leds fixture.

Any experience on that?

[LeLutinBanni]

I am using a Maxspect 110w on my 32g tank.

The red is red.
The green is green
etc...

It is perfect

[haysanatar]

i think the germicide thing might be a bad idea....
they sell uv leds

[ritter6788]

The only problem I've had out of my leds was from my trachyphyllias. They both started to bleach so I moved them over to my 40 breeder with t5s. They are starting to color back up again. I have a red war coral with green eyes that never looked right under metal halides but it's beautifully colored now since I switched to leds. Very nice red and green. Acans, favias, etc. all kept the same color after switching from halides to leds.

[victor escobar]

As far as I know UV leds selling is not allowed in Europe. Do you know which trade mark is selling them?

[sfexplicit]

I have a ReefKoi 20K led unit over my softy/lps tank. My red scans that I've had for over a year under T5's turned orange.

[glang]

LeLutinBanni, what color temp are the whites in your LED fixture? Neutral or cool?


sfexplicit, I have had the same exact thing happen to me using Sol Blue's, which have cool white LEDs. What whites do the Reefkoi fixtures use?

[victor escobar]

At the end and reading everything I have taken the decision to complement my led ligthting. I have bought a 30 W T8 fluorescent fixture and the fluorescent is a light for reptiles with UVA and UVB spectrum. I will inform you about the results.

[organism]

Have you made sure it's not too much uva/uvb to burn your corals?

[Matthew91]

I thought that what ever colors they have for example red, that is the color they do not absorb

[steevareno2002]

subscribed

[[WDT]TardFarmer]

Subscribed

[dan10342]

Have you made sure it's not too much uva/uvb to burn your corals?

I was gonna say the same thing. I only run my daylight LED's for like 1 hour a day.... The same thing happens with t5s and halides. Too much light and LPS lose color

[96p993]

Has anyone changed their time and intensity of lighting for a period of time to see if the colors come back?

[sfexplicit]

LeLutinBanni, what color temp are the whites in your LED fixture? Neutral or cool?


sfexplicit, I have had the same exact thing happen to me using Sol Blue's, which have cool white LEDs. What whites do the Reefkoi fixtures use?

I'm pretty sure they're cool whites too. I can't say it's that it's too much light. With PAR meter the red acans under my ATI Powermodule on the sand bed was getting about 200-250. Under my LEDs it was getting about 150. Ive read that PAR meters read 20% under with the LEDs. But I'm leaning towards spectrum of my setup. I also have an orange and purple yuma I've had for years under T5's it too has morphed into a gold color.

[kevlow]

Has anyone changed their time and intensity of lighting for a period of time to see if the colors come back?

I changed the intensity by swapping out the set up from primarily 3w LEDs to primarily 1w LEDs. The formerly red acans still remained orange for several months.

Two weeks ago I returned the set up to primarily 3w LEDs but with magenta and violet ecoxotic stunners to supplement and highlight the reds and purples. I am very happy w/ this set up so far. The acans are showing a rosey color now. Not dark red but no longer just orange. Trumpets, acans cyphastria and brain corals all have responded well to return to 3w LEDs.

One big difference this time was decreasing the amount of CWs. If you have dimmers I guess you could just dial down the CWs. I do not have dimmers so I reduced the CW to RB ratio and added the magenta and violet stunners.

kevin

[extoker]

Subscribed.

[96p993]

I changed the intensity by swapping out the set up from primarily 3w LEDs to primarily 1w LEDs. The formerly red acans still remained orange for several months.

Two weeks ago I returned the set up to primarily 3w LEDs but with magenta and violet ecoxotic stunners to supplement and highlight the reds and purples. I am very happy w/ this set up so far. The acans are showing a rosey color now. Not dark red but no longer just orange. Trumpets, acans cyphastria and brain corals all have responded well to return to 3w LEDs.

One big difference this time was decreasing the amount of CWs. If you have dimmers I guess you could just dial down the CWs. I do not have dimmers so I reduced the CW to RB ratio and added the magenta and violet stunners.

kevin

Im interested in your ratio with the reds included as well as the LED layout you have come up with, guessing this is a DIY fixture

[kevlow]

Im interested in your ratio with the reds included as well as the LED layout you have come up with, guessing this is a DIY fixture

The lay out is this:
front
6 3w cree led strip all RB
ecoxotic stunner 6w magenta
6 3w cree led strip 3 CW, 3 RB
ecoxotic stunner 6w violet 403nm
ecoxotic stunner 6w 8k white, RB
6 3w cree led strip all RB

The RB is 15 cree 3w
CW is 3 cree 3w and an 8k stunner strip.
The red is not really red but a magenta stunner from eco.

Colors all improved when I returned to less intense lighting but the reds did not come all the way back. Pinks and purples came back quite well. Also SPS looked good but growth slowed.

I thought that by returning to higher intensity I could keep the sps happy but, by reducing the number of CWs and adding the magenta and violet maybe the reds would return and the Lps still grow and stay colorfull.

It is not perfect but it is definitely the best combo I have tried on this little
10g nano. I posted pics last week in the nano tank section. Here is one or two. The red acans in front are continuing to improve in color and growth/ multiplying. The red chalice w/ green eyes is growing and is more rosey and less orange. Excuse the poor photos. I do not know how to adjust the camera.

[TropTrea]

I Just happened upon this thread and feel it points to something I suspected since the initial introduction of LED lighting.

Years ago I did extensive research in lighting and one thing that I found was that the light spectrum of most LED lights at the time were extremly narrow spectrumed. As in example a 550 nm LED produced virtualy nothing shorter than 540 nm or longer than 560 while a florescent bulb with simply one phosphate blend targeted for 550 nm actualy produced 40% of it light at wave lenghts longer than 560 nm or shorter than 540 nm.

With the "white" LEDS they basicly balanced the output between three frequencies that the eye is most sensative to mainly red, green, and blue. For different color temps they simply shifted the ratios at these frequencies.

When the LEDs first came out for aquariums I feared that they would be strong in several wavelenghts year weaker in other required by corals for good coral growth as well as coloration. Corals contain various photosensative chemicals each which require light at a specific frequency if these frequencies are not available in adequate quantities these chemicals deminish and other photosensative chemicals present that have the proper wave lenght light available to them start dominating. This can causes changes in the corals growth as well as the corals over all color.

Now I was assured that the newer LEDs no longer have these tight wave lenght ranges but I seriously doubt that they are as wide as florescent butlbs and most Hide bulbs. Hearing simular comment from several sources to thae listed here increase my suspicions.

What would be great is if someone with a light spectrum anylizer actualy plotted out the wave lenghts of these newer LEDs that are frequently used in the Aquarium trade today. This would easily prove my suspicions either correct or incorrect. With some accurate plots of the Various LED's it would also make it much easier to select bulbs for particuar situations and even if my suspicions are correct allow for a slection that would be the best for the individuals needs.

[victor escobar]

I agree with Trop Trea. The whole issue is about the needs of corals and the fact that leds have a very narrow espectrum. Even with the new leds the issue is not resolved because they can have different picks at differet wavelegths but we have many different especies of corals in our tanks and some of them need more of one or more of another.

I do not think it is related with fotosyntesis even if there arezooxantellae that need some of the blue espectrum and other some of the red.

I tink it is more about other pigments that make the coral to have especial colors. In fact when I decided to put a reptiles fluorescent (T8-30Watts)the reason was to concentrate in the lack of UV espectrum in the led's setting by introducing a curve of wavelegths in the UVa and UVB part.

There is something that is very important in reptiles setups and this is that the reptiles will definetely die if the light in not suplemented with UVA and UVB lights they need to synthetise vitamins. I imagine corals should have the same problem in the long term (as reptiles) and that is the reason for my experiment.

Of course as humans exposed to UVA and UVB corals should change colors in order to protect themselves from the radiation and this is exactly the role of certain coral pigments.

This has nothing to do with the colors you see that of course and always are linked to the reflection of certain wavelegths but we should not forget that a red coral when recently intruduced in a tank with leds is still red but shift to the orange after sometime in the tank. (not all especies shift to orange my experience is with cynarina, blastomussa, lobophyllia, scolymia, acanthastrea, chalices)(other corals like acropora, montipora zooantus will remain red)

[haysanatar]

I know I tried to spread out my lighting spectrum as much as possible.
I used a mixture of royal blue, cool blue, warm white, neutral white, and cool white. ( i have some deep reds leds that I haven't wired in yet and I am looking for some good violet ones) at first my reds were amazingly brilliant. Way brighter than they had ever appeared.. it was like being punched in the eyes with a neon red. Now my reds do appear more of a redish orange. They still look good, and my oranges look amazing almost a neon gold.

[jc-reef]

I Just happened upon this thread and feel it points to something I suspected since the initial introduction of LED lighting.

Years ago........

What would be great is if someone with a light spectrum anylizer actualy plotted out the wave lenghts of these newer LEDs that are frequently used in the Aquarium trade today. This would easily prove my suspicions either correct or incorrect. With some accurate plots of the Various LED's it would also make it much easier to select bulbs for particuar situations and even if my suspicions are correct allow for a slection that would be the best for the individuals needs.

I already did on post #37 from this thread. That post was taken from another post in the advanced or DYI (I believe) forum. Just click the links in that post and you will see many of the current LED's tested under a spectrometer. He even gave a link to the spectrometer used.

-------

[JHawlz9989]

If increasing the drive current gives you a greater percentage of reds and greens, why not raise the current and raise the fixture? I'm not sure how high you would have to raise it if you increased the current from 700mA to 3A, but would that be a viable solution? Would it drastically reduce the life of the LEDs?

Josh

[possys]

I had the same problem with my Red corals becoming more orange and lost color after 8months of using LEDs. All of other color in my tank was vibrant. I change back to T5. It not just because the coral color was changed. The LED break dawn after 4 months and new replacement break dawn after 4 months again... I still think that the LED will be great lighting fixture for reef tank but I'll wait for 2 more years for better LED and price.

[TropTrea]

Years ago I did some research on the peak frequencies required by corals, and some of the less advisable frequencies. The most impoortant frequencies I found were.
417 nm 436 nm 447nm 452 nm in the UV to Blue Range
475 nm 485 nm in the Green Range
625 nm 655 nm in the Red Range

Undesirable that has a tendecy to promote Cyno Bacteria growth were
565 nm and 685 nm visably in the yellow and red range

Now White Lighting is tuned to three frequencies which the eye is most sensative to namely 435nm for Blue, 535 nm for green and 580 nm for red. As a result some of the frequencies used by corals are not always available in the ratio the corals would like to see them.

Yes there are both photoshythesis as well as pigment chemicals in the coral. The pigment corals are there mainly to take light an particular wave lenghts and bend it to other frequencies that are used by other chemicials for photosynthesis. These pigments in corals can absorb light at 450 nm and bend it so the chemical requiring light at 485 nm gets enough light. In this priocess you also get the physicial appearance of the coral glowing or a neon appearance at that frequency. These most frequently occur in the shorter wave lenghts but can occur at almost any wave lenght. Other pigment simply reflect light back at the a said wave lenght which is usualy a wave lenght that some of the phorosynthesis chemicals require.

So in reality even though there are a half dozen target wavelenghts for photosynthesis when it comes to color there is probably another two dozen wave lenghts that are required.

As several people mentioned each coral is unique in what wave lengts will give it its maximium growth and coloration. If you had a tank that was specific for one type of coral in one color odds are you could get great results with only 4 or 5 specific wave lengts of light in the right intensities. However most of us have a variety of corals and therefore the wider the spectrum usualy the better.

[victor escobar]

After 2 weeks using the reptiles T8 I do not see any difference in the colors of corals but on a ricordea that is shifting to a more redish orange and trachiphyllia getting more colored (now they are a very light blue and are becomeing more multicolor as the were six months ago).

On the other hand the corals close to the fluorescent light (the ones that changed dramaticly to the orange and then to the brown have suffered the UV light and herefore I had to turn on the lights on only for two hours a day as a precautionary measure. I do not want to burn corals that becanme defenseless due to the lack of UV wavelengths for six months).

[haysanatar]

I'm curious to see what a high range violet would do they have some that spill into uv. (plus I like the purplish actanic look)

[victor escobar]

The situation ow with the reptiles fluorescent is that the recordea color became much more strong and the lobophyllia is startint to color up. The cvhanges are slow but the trend is really positive.

[SmokedOut]

Great Thread..defenitly following Along;-)

[Useful_Idiot]

any updates? I ended up adding 2 t5s to my 2 AI's and got my reds back. I would love to use led supplements instead though. These took a turn for the worse don't you think? leds seem to bring out yellows that didn't seem to be there.
under leds
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m640/useful46/coral/IMG_1162.jpg
with the t5 supplementing
http://i1135.photobucket.com/albums/m640/useful46/coral/IMG_1467.jpg

[TropTrea]

I thought that what ever colors they have for example red, that is the color they do not absorb

The way corals appear is a combination of two things mainly reflective light and florescent light. The florescent light is what makes many of them so stunning and beautiful.

For reflective light your correct what you see is the wave lengths they do not absorb but instead what they are reflecting. However all light that the absorb is not necessarily utilized to build the coral. some of it is actually harmful especially light in the 685 nm wave length and light below 380 nm. Some corals need a limited amount of this light but in excess it will burn them.

Florescent light is a completely different animal. There are over 100 known chemicals in corals that fluoresce. Each of these chemicals absorb light at a specific frequency and emit light an another specific frequency. While more than half of these florescent chemicals are excited by light in the range of 415 nm to 460 nm these are not the only frequencies that excite these chemicals to fluoresce. about 98 % of them are excited by wave lenghts between 380 nm and 655 nm. The biggest thing though is the florescensing wave length is always a longer wave length than what is excited. In some cases the difference is only about 10 nm between excitation and florescence while other chemicals are as much as 130 nm.

An interesting experiment one can do is is light there reef with only a few LEDs of a specific wave length. First 420 nm, then 454 nm. 460 nm and finally 500 nm. After this light is on for an hour in an otherwise dark room you will see which of your corals have chemicals that are excited by that particular of the spectrum. If none are excited and fluorescing than you will need to add any light in that frequency range.

Also keep in mind that most corals have an average of three different florescent chemicals in them. so if a coral fluoresces at 420 nm it may also fluoresce at 460 nm only the florescence will be a different color to your eye.

[TropTrea]

I had the same problem with my Red corals becoming more orange and lost color after 8months of using LEDs. All of other color in my tank was vibrant. I change back to T5. It not just because the coral color was changed. The LED break dawn after 4 months and new replacement break dawn after 4 months again... I still think that the LED will be great lighting fixture for reef tank but I'll wait for 2 more years for better LED and price.

What kind of LED's are you running at what current? I have heard of people running them now for years without a break down. Cree just announced that there XM will run extended periods of time at 1,000 ma while prior they recommended them to run at 700 ma. Also what kind of heat sinks and colling do you have for your LEDs? As with any electronic device heat is the biggest culprit of problems with them. Running at 1,000ma they recommend at least 16 square inches of heat sink per LED. If your just using plate aluminum you have two sides acting as a heat sink but should be spacing the LED's about 3" apart with fans you can cut that distance down a little.

[Jstn]

How does coral do under the radion, or any DIY with red leds? It seems IMHO the lack of red in the AI may contribute to the color change.

[haysanatar]

If there is a lack of red fluorescence maybe the culprit ins't a lack of red in the light.... the color that that is fluoresced is of a lower energy than what is abosrbed correct? so isn't it possible that it could be a lack in the yellow or orange areas?
also if it was a change in fluorescence and not a change in pigmentation due so another factor wouldnt the changes be more immediate, rather than over several months as most people have noticed.

[TropTrea]

Remeber a few things.

The colors we see in forals is both reflective light and florescent light. Florescent light is created by chemocals that absorb one wave lenght of light and emit light at another wave lenght.

The exciting wavelenght of corals varries between corals there are basicly 100's of different chemicals in corals each with there specific wave lenght that they absorb. If there is no light at the wave lenght that they are absorbing then they will not floresce. Some corals have multiple colred florescent chemicals and need multiple wave lenghts.

LED Lights are a basicly narrow spectrum lights which helps them create more intensity at a set wave lenght. As an example a Royal Blue LED may be most intens at 454 nm but only produces 1/4 as much light at 435 and 460 nm. Yet a T-5 bulb tuned to 454 nm will peak at 454 nm and produce 25% as much light at 410 nm and 490 nm.

Therefor to reach a wider range of excitation wavelenghts the LED's need both Royal Blues as well as Blue LED's. But still there is an area around 510 nm that LEDs seem to not create enough light regardless of what combination you use.

Now as far as RED's go. In nature corals get very little red light. It has been proven that Red light in the 685 nm range can be very costly to corals in excess. If your corals as not as red as want them and try to increase your red light on them to bring out the red color you may easily be bleaching out the red with to much light at 686 nm. which is in the high end of the red range.

As I'm experimenting with LED's on my corals I starting to think more and more that They would work much better with a mix with probably something like a single ATI Aquablue Special HO T-5 bulb. this would fill in the weak area of LED's mainly around 500 nm.

[Jstn]

I see, that makes sense, thanks for the info.

[haysanatar]

i just feel like if it was a fluorescence problem it would be more immediate not a slow shift like what most people see. What vho would you think would be good? I might consider trying that.

[TropTrea]

Im sorry haysanata but you are very wrong about this when it comes to corals. Clorals have chemicals the floresce light. They may absorb light that is at 470nm (blue green) and emit light at 620 nm (red redorange) Without the light at 470 nm they will not floresce regardless how much red light you put on them.

Yes there are also things that reflect red light and look red when you put a red light on them. But these are seldom corals. Actualy many corals are very sensitive to red light and if you put too much red light on them it will bleach out some of florescent chemicals and could eventualy kill the coral. In nature cortals get very little red light and deep water corals do not even see any measurable amounts.

[TropTrea]

i just feel like if it was a fluorescence problem it would be more immediate not a slow shift like what most people see. What vho would you think would be good? I might consider trying that.

If a florescent chemical is not getting the proper wave length light to excite it that chemical will slowly diminish and be replaced by a chemical that is getting enough light to excite it. Sine they are two different chemicals they each would emit light at different wave lengths. sine one chemical is diminishing and another flourishing the color will gradually change to that which is emitted by the chemical that is getting enough light.

No this does not happen immediately but over days weeks and possible even months. It takes time for the coral to produce the new chemicals and the old chemicals do not instantly vanish.

[cfmx]

Great thread! Tagging along.
I also am having the bleaching of lps and sps under Ecoxotic panorama led.
My system is a 25g Ecoxotic cube w 4- (12w) 12K White/445nm Blue and 3 - (12w) 445nm Blue over my tank.
Reds have turned orange and sps just haven't colored up as they have under 150w MH in our 34g Salona.

[haysanatar]

ok see that makes sense I can see a shift in pigmentation

[TropTrea]

Great thread! Tagging along.
I also am having the bleaching of lps and sps under Ecoxotic panorama led.
My system is a 25g Ecoxotic cube w 4- (12w) 12K White/445nm Blue and 3 - (12w) 445nm Blue over my tank.
Reds have turned orange and sps just haven't colored up as they have under 150w MH in our 34g Salona.

My thoughts is you have too much red light which does cause bleaching of some corals if in excess. The red light actualy comes from the so called white LED's. I'd see if you can swap a few of the white LED's for Blues 460 nm.

[Cptn Spaulding]

The red spectrum penetrates only a meter or so into the water in the wild. The vast majority of corals will NOT grow as fast if you are throwing a lot of red into it, especially LEDs (which are spotlights and penetrate deep), and you will also have the possibility of having more cyano in your tank..

It seems acans are a huge color shifter when it comes to LEDs. My colony of red acans turned slightly orange under a DIY 7kwhite/royal blue fixture. Every other coral looks fantastic and has not changed colors. I also have a tank with nanotuners 20k PAR38 lamps only. Open brains are more colorful than with my T5 bulbs (I have a rainbow, a green/purple, and electric green). Blue/green plate coral has never looked better, my gold/orange acans look a bit washed out but I, at the moment, have not had just actinics on that tank in quite some time, so its hard to say how they really fluoresce. SPS are coloring up (hawkins echinata, tricolor, caroliniana, various acros, pocci's, birdsnests... A pink lemonade acro is growing so fast all of its tips are white), zoas and palys look fantastic, the torch coral in my picture is better than ever. Basically, I keep a lot of different types of corals under the so called "blue-white" setup, all under 20k lighting, and the ONLY coral I have seen to change its color slightly (and only a small amount of time/due to a possible narrow spectrum band and not bleaching) is acan lords, and usually the red/orange/yellow ones, not the green, purple, blue. Red trachys/scolys/lobos seem to retain their color under this lighting. Anyone experiencing trachy/lobo color changes it is most likely not due to the spectrum of light hitting your coral, it is the strength of the light hitting it. They bleach easily. If they turn lighter guaranteed it is getting too much light or at least a bit more than it was earlier.

This is totally an interesting read, and it does seem many people out there don't have much knowledge on LED's themselves. There is a lot of information out there, some false, some true. If someone can find anything about acanthastrea lordhowensis and color shifts due to spectrum of lighting, or the common spectrum it is commonly receiving in the wild, I'm sure it would be a good read.

I read these threads and see so many people talking about lighter colors on their corals with LED lighting. Most of it I feel is due to bleaching, as they are underestimating the PAR LEDs can pump out. Some, as in the OP's case as well as my red acan case, could possibly be due to lack of needed spectrum. In either case, the animal doesn't seem to be hurting. They are thriving and growing, but the original color ceased to be. Is necessary spectrum not as big of a deal as we think it could be long term if there are no obvious signs of stress other than a color shift?

[Cptn Spaulding]

Ooh, also.. I have a lighter red acan lord colony under this lighting that has not changed at all. So I suppose not all red acans are created equal?

[haysanatar]

i had a gold/ coppery chalice turn into a tarnished copper color its still pretty but its not the goldish copper it was.

[cfmx]

So if the thought is my white LED is causing bleaching of color, then I'll need to come up w a solution.
Unfortunately the 4 white LED run on 1 ballast. I wonder if I can plug the LED into a dimmer switch to tone down the brightness? And if this would hurt the LED fixture? Or should I just run the white LED a couple hours a day? My biggest fear is my tiny maxi clam not getting enough light under so much blue lighting.
Currently the tank has 3 blue LED lights running also.
Here is a pic when the tank was first setup. We have removed 2 blue stunners in the center and replace w another panaroma blue LED. Giving the 3 blue lights.
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC03102.jpg

Here my what use to be red acan.
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0506_edited-1.jpg
What the color was under 150w MH.
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC06005.jpg

Under LED
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0512_edited-1.jpg
Under MH
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC00108.jpg

[TropTrea]

The red spectrum penetrates only a meter or so into the water in the wild. The vast majority of corals will NOT grow as fast if you are throwing a lot of red into it, especially LEDs (which are spotlights and penetrate deep), and you will also have the possibility of having more cyano in your tank..

This is only a half truth. While it is true that red is filtered out of the water it is not a sudden instant no red situation. What happens is that for every so many cm of water depth roughly 50% of the red is filtered out and only small percentage of the blue is filtered out. So if you look at it you can take this distance and say at x distance you have 90% of available Blue light available you only have 50% of the available red light, Double that distance and you have 81% of the blue and 25% of the red, triple the distance and you have 73% of the blue and 12% of the red. quadruple the distance and the the blue reduces to 66% and the red reduces to 6.25%. Even if you go 8 times that distance the blue reduces at a slower rate than the red and you still have roughly a 1% ratio of blue to red. The red is still there but regardless the depth but becomes eventually an immeasurable small amount.

Then there is also an issue on the purity of the water that can reduce all light faster under cloudy conditions since each particle reflects light of all wave lengths. But no red is false red is just diminished much faster than any longer wave length is.

Your comment is very true about "reds" and cyno bacteria. Cyno bacteria loves light at 685 nm and can flourish on light at this wave length even when the purity of the water is ideal. But also 685 nm light in excess has been proven to bleach out many of the corals if it is delivered in excess. But "red" as 645 nm has been proven to also be very beneficial to some corals and is a key fluorescing wave length for them.

So for coral growth and florescence some red needs to be there but really only in a very small amount. Theoretically if your have 50 blue LED's and 1 white LED you would probably be giving the corals enough red for there needs.

But the deep blue effect that people see from just a minimal amount of white LED's is not that pleasing when viewing an home aquarium. Without the reds and other colors reflective colors from many fish etc is lost. Most underwater photography we wee is done with bright strobe lights to bring out the reflective colors. a clown fish will have its red body look like a dark brown while the white stripes will look like a bright pale blue. So we added white LED's to the individuals personal likings. Some may like a 1 to 1 ratio other want a 1 to 6 or more ratio.

It seems acans are a huge color shifter when it comes to LEDs. My colony of red acans turned slightly orange under a DIY 7kwhite/royal blue fixture. Every other coral looks fantastic and has not changed colors. I also have a tank with nanotuners 20k PAR38 lamps only. Open brains are more colorful than with my T5 bulbs (I have a rainbow, a green/purple, and electric green). Blue/green plate coral has never looked better, my gold/orange acans look a bit washed out but I, at the moment, have not had just actinics on that tank in quite some time, so its hard to say how they really fluoresce. SPS are coloring up (hawkins echinata, tricolor, caroliniana, various acros, pocci's, birdsnests... A pink lemonade acro is growing so fast all of its tips are white), zoas and palys look fantastic, the torch coral in my picture is better than ever. Basically, I keep a lot of different types of corals under the so called "blue-white" setup, all under 20k lighting, and the ONLY coral I have seen to change its color slightly (and only a small amount of time/due to a possible narrow spectrum band and not bleaching) is acan lords, and usually the red/orange/yellow ones, not the green, purple, blue. Red trachys/scolys/lobos seem to retain their color under this lighting. Anyone experiencing trachy/lobo color changes it is most likely not due to the spectrum of light hitting your coral, it is the strength of the light hitting it. They bleach easily. If they turn lighter guaranteed it is getting too much light or at least a bit more than it was earlier.

This is totally an interesting read, and it does seem many people out there don't have much knowledge on LED's themselves. There is a lot of information out there, some false, some true. If someone can find anything about acanthastrea lordhowensis and color shifts due to spectrum of lighting, or the common spectrum it is commonly receiving in the wild, I'm sure it would be a good read.

I read these threads and see so many people talking about lighter colors on their corals with LED lighting. Most of it I feel is due to bleaching, as they are underestimating the PAR LEDs can pump out. Some, as in the OP's case as well as my red acan case, could possibly be due to lack of needed spectrum. In either case, the animal doesn't seem to be hurting. They are thriving and growing, but the original color ceased to be. Is necessary spectrum not as big of a deal as we think it could be long term if there are no obvious signs of stress other than a color shift?

I think this has a lot to do with how light is filtered in nature and how we are reproducing it in the aquarium. If we graffed out the amount of light that is occuring in the natural ocean it would look more a graph of the root of a fraction. With more light in the shorter blue wave lengths and less in the longer red wave lengths. But artificially produced light like we use has spikes in it at specific wave lengths and other specific wave lengths might have nearly none.

From what I'm seeing, reviewing spectrum's of various LED's, I'm strongly suspecting that we are insufficient in light around 480 to about 520 nm. White LED's produce there least amount of light in this range, and the Blues do not quite reach high enough into this range. Greens LED's if we added them actuarially do not reach down into that range. This aqua green range is where some of the orange and red florescence is excited. If someone is using all royal Blue LED's this low range can even be extended lower to about 475 nm.

Then their are the atinic florescence around 420 nm. This is where years ago we supplemented our corals with atinic lighting to excite the florescent chemicals that liked light between 380 nm and 460 nm. The royal blues peak at 454 and when you get down to 420 are not really producing a Lot of light. So again from this range we could be seeing a color shifting as corals try to adapt to the lack of light in that range.

CREE does make a LED that they sell as a CRI -- LED that I think would be ideal for the reef lighting, when combined with blues. But unfortunately it is a special purpose LED and they get a premium price for it. They also make a 420 nm which again is a special purpose LED at a premium price. If they ever add these to the XPE or XPG line I think they would help us considerably.

[palyam]

If a florescent chemical is not getting the proper wave length light to excite it that chemical will slowly diminish and be replaced by a chemical that is getting enough light to excite it. Sine they are two different chemicals they each would emit light at different wave lengths. sine one chemical is diminishing and another flourishing the color will gradually change to that which is emitted by the chemical that is getting enough light.

No this does not happen immediately but over days weeks and possible even months. It takes time for the coral to produce the new chemicals and the old chemicals do not instantly vanish.

Can the coral regain the old chemical if we give it the proper lighting?

or once the chemical is lost, the original color of the coral will never return?

[TropTrea]

i had a gold/ coppery chalice turn into a tarnished copper color its still pretty but its not the goldish copper it was.

This could easily be a lack of light at the ideal wave lenght that the chalice floresed at. I see this at the LFS that has corals under Roya Blue LED's. The reds slowly loose there pigments turning black. The tarnished look look is the addition of small black areas. the problem is finiding what wavelenght they need and suplementing it. My thoughts is it is between 480 and 520 nm but I could be wrong, not knowing what specific florescent pigment is involved with that coral.

What are you running for lights now?

[TropTrea]

So if the thought is my white LED is causing bleaching of color, then I'll need to come up w a solution.
Unfortunately the 4 white LED run on 1 ballast. I wonder if I can plug the LED into a dimmer switch to tone down the brightness? And if this would hurt the LED fixture? Or should I just run the white LED a couple hours a day? My biggest fear is my tiny maxi clam not getting enough light under so much blue lighting.
Currently the tank has 3 blue LED lights running also.
Here is a pic when the tank was first setup. We have removed 2 blue stunners in the center and replace w another panaroma blue LED. Giving the 3 blue lights.

So your basicly running 3 Blue Strips of LED's and 4 White Strips of LEDs from what I'm gathering. If so yes your ratio of Blue to withe is way to white dominant.

For most the ratio is closer to 2 blues to 1 White, but they range from a 1 to 1 ration to a 4 to 1 ratios . I would reccomend if possible going down to only 2 White strips and adding two blue strips in there place. But do it gradualy not all at once so the corals gradualy adjust to the light change. 5 Blues and 2 white strips would give you a much better balanced ratio gor your corals. Actualy your PAR would increase with this as well.

[Cptn Spaulding]

Cfmx, I must say it is probably due to the lighting on there now. That is a lot of light, you're probably bleaching them out a bit, LEDs are no joke. They are used to it by now though, and the only difference is a slightly different color. They all look lighter to me (aka bleaching, which can be caused from too much or too little light, or lack of nutrients). I do like what happened to your acans though. Those looks awesome.

This is only a half truth. While it is true that red is filtered out of the water it is not a sudden instant no red situation.

Yeah, I suppose I meant to say the vast majority of red does not penetrate deep. Thank you for clarifying.

White lights create more PAR than blue lights, so the closer to a 1:1 ratio you have of blue to whites (if you don't have more blues than whites) the more PAR reaching the bottom of your tank. I have also seen, and I'm not sure what they are called so forgive me, an LED bulb that almost looks teal. Now, I'm wondering, how would a few of those with some royal blues and some white bulbs of aquarists choosing fare for the corals? Maybe add a 420 nm actinic bulb or two? If the aforementioned spectra are indeed the most used by corals (which makes sense, and I have heard that before), then this should cover it, not some red and green bulbs which give a fake look to the tank and cause algae?

I also read somewhere that (especially DIY) LED's even if they are rated for the same spectrum, some will be off by as much as a full 1000k, either high or low. Looking at some LED bulbs on DIY kits, I did notice (really only in the whites) that some were more yellow, and some were closer to 10k...and these are 3w Cree LEDs, not some cheap knockoff. I can only assume this only helps the narrow spectral band argument. Anyone have any feelings on just adding a few different spectra of LED to negate this whole argument?

[smsreefer]

I think the key to success with LED's is obtaining the proper bin's in regard to getting the correct spectrum of light.

Buying Cool White, for example, in the 5000k - 1000k "grab bag" of loose LED's IMO, is not the way go.
Be specific in getting quality LED's in known spectrum's will provide the correct color rendition and growth

A photon is a photon delivered in the correct spectrum, the corals do not know the difference as to weather it is from a Halide, t5 or Led.

[Cptn Spaulding]

If you think Cree LEDs are considered a cheap brand, then you're right. It happens with almost every LED provider. I don't think anyone in their right mind would throw 5k bulbs on a saltwater tank, maybe 7k. It is rare for a bulb to be that far off (i.e. 1000k) usually its minimal, maybe a hundred or two, but if you stare into the sun long enough you can see the difference.

Regardless, I wouldn't hate on Cree LEDs, as they grow vast amounts of coral under my supervision with no problems on the lighting itself. You are right, however, on not getting cheap brand bulbs. They crap out on your sooner, aren't as bright, and there definitely is not as much uniformity between bulbs as per say a more reputable brand. I never said to get "grab bag" LEDs and it will solve your spectral problem, but I did say the slight asymmetry in the LED bulbs themselves could possibly help the whole argument a bit.

Back to the topic at hand, anyone hear of these more teal LED's I mentioned earlier? I believe a company made them in a fixture with blues and cool whites. It gave the corals that extra pop that a typical blue/white lighting system is missing.

[smsreefer]

double post

[smsreefer]

Captn Spaulding,
I'm not sure what made you think anything in my post was directed at you. It was not.
Just making some points.

I think the key to success with LED's is obtaining the proper bin's in regard to getting the correct spectrum of light.

Buying Cool White, for example, in the 5000k - 10000k "grab bag" of loose LED's IMO, is not the way go.
Be specific in getting quality LED's in known spectrum's will provide the correct color rendition and growth

A photon is a photon delivered in the correct spectrum, the corals do not know the difference as to weather it is from a Halide, t5 or Led.

[cfmx]

If I'm to add more blues than I will need to see about selling the 4 whites all together since they are wired to one ballast. I have 2 spare Ecoxotic white already I can use. Then with the sale of the 4 white LED I could pick up either 2 - Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 445nm/Magenta or 2 - Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 445nm/blue (what I already have.
This would give me 2-white, 3-blue, 2-magenta or 2-white, 5-blue.
Oh, the 2 spare whites I have are slightly different than the whites now because they would be Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 12K White/445nm Blue vs 12watts.
Your thoughts?
BTW-thank you for your help!

[TropTrea]

Cool whites have less red and more blue than warm whites. The Warm white are very strong in the red part of the spectrum and with too many of them you can actualy get an undesirable effect. Remember that corals only like a very limited amout of light at 685 nm and excess will bleach them out.

[cfmx]

In the next week I'll be trying something new. I will be removing the 4 Panorama white LED and replacing with 2 white Panorama Pro gen 2 (dimmable). I will also be adding 2 magenta.

Removing:
(4) Panorama LED Module 24V- 12 Watt 12k White/445 Blue
Adding:
(2) Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 12K White/445nm Blue
(dimmable if needed)
(2) Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 445nm Blue/Magenta

This will give me (3) 12w 445nm Blue
(2) 19w 445nm Blue/ Magenta
(2) 19w 12K White/445nm Blue

Hopefully this will help with the coral colors.

[TropTrea]

Someone called these teal LED's. Can someone give me more details or are you referring to the Cyan LED's that are made by Phillips? These are listed as 490 to 520 nm winch would be edge between what most people call blue and the beginning of what most people call green. It is also the wavelength that I noticed is lacking with most with all the white LED's.

If manufacturers data is correct these would be ideal to fill in that spectrum gap with perhaps a 1 to 6 ratio against the blue and royal blue LED's.

Rapid also lists a UV LED between 390 nm and 420 nm that could be used to fill in the extremely short wave lengths that we used to depend on the atinic 420nm florescent bulbs to handle. I would not consider this a teal LED but it could help the florescent coloring.

[TropTrea]

In the next week I'll be trying something new. I will be removing the 4 Panorama white LED and replacing with 2 white Panorama Pro gen 2 (dimmable). I will also be adding 2 magenta.

Removing:
(4) Panorama LED Module 24V- 12 Watt 12k White/445 Blue
Adding:
(2) Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 12K White/445nm Blue
(dimmable if needed)
(2) Panorama Pro LED Module 24V- 19 Watt 445nm Blue/Magenta

This will give me (3) 12w 445nm Blue
(2) 19w 445nm Blue/ Magenta
(2) 19w 12K White/445nm Blue

Hopefully this will help with the coral colors.

While I do think you have too much white now I think your going to reduce some of the green and add more red with the combination you listed. Yes you need some red but with most whites your getting a combination of all colors to equal the white that alone will give you more than enough white.

I personaly would run 5 445nm Blues and 2 12K / 445nm blues. wiith NO magenta's (reds)

[cfmx]

Its been about a month now since I completely revamped my LED setup.
My old lights consisted of 4-panorama white/blue w 3-panorama blue. My corals lost a lot of there color and turned brown/orange.
Now I'm running 2-panorama pro whiter/blue (white is a lot softer than the regular panorama and I'm dimming these about 50%), 2- panorama pro blue/magenta, 3- panorama pro blue.
I am very pleased w how my corals are coloring up after 3 weeks. My acans look fabulous they are getting all sorts of color, zoas are coloring up and so are my sps. Looking forward to letting things grow out now. :-)
I will try and get some new photos of the tank and corals.

[TropTrea]

cfmx can you piont to web page that describes the panorama LEDs? I have not seen any by that name and would love to find out what there spectrums looked like. My suspecion is the panorama white/blue are a higher wave lendght than the pro whiter blue. You are getting a wider range of frequencies hitting the corals now. But without comparing spectrums it is just a wild guess.

[victor escobar]

After some time I come back and i am happy to see the post alive with excellent messages of extremely high quality.

My experiment with the reptiles fluorescent did not give the results I could expect. Yes the corals became a bite more red but nothing important. In addition some of the species (lobophillya) did not react at all.

Now reading your posts I think we should try complementing witht light around 480 to about 520 nm. but I'm lost on the possible ways to achieve it.

[[WDT]TardFarmer]

I just picked up a T5 retrofit and two 80 watt kz Fiji Purple bulbs. This may bring out the reds that I am missing.

[TropTrea]

I don't see how having more blue will give you reder reds...
if the wavelength isn't there to be reflected.. it can't be reflected...
and if its not reflected... than it doesn't look red.

Fed in Corals comes from two completly different sources.

Florescent Red which is basicly shorter wave lenght light that is absorbed by the chemicals in the corals and and excites these chemicals to create light at a shorter wave lenght. With Florescense and the right coral you can light it up with 460 nm blue light and will glow at 640 nm orange. My Predarn to Post Dusk lighting is all 454 nm Royal Blue light and many corals glow different colors including red and orange creating almost a cartoon look as the rest of the tank is nearly black.

The second sorce is reflected Red light which is what your thinking about. But reflected light is mucn more evedent in rocks and fish than it is in corals or even anenomies. Yes there are some corals that reflect light rather than floresce light but the most dramatic ones are very florescent.

Basicly the ideal is to have the perfect balance in light which is nearly impossible. If you bring in to much light on the longer wave lenghts you actualy start washing out the florescense of some of the corals. On the other end of the sectrum if you only provide light for the florescense the none florescent items in the tank become too dark.

Everyone has there own preference on what a good balance is. This is why some perople go with a ration of one Royal Blue to 1 Neutral wite LED, and other go as far as even 6 Royal Blues to 1 Neutral White Led.

My experimental frag tank is now running
Pre Dawn to prost dusk 4 Royal Blues and 2 Near IR's
Dawn to Dusk I'm adding in 4 Royal Blues, 4 Blues and 2 Aqua's.
Then for Mid Day I add in 4 Royal Blues and 6 Neutral Whites.
You could say Im running an overall ration of 3 Blues to 1 White considering all my blues are not Royal Blues.To me it is still too white, at midday.

[TropTrea]

After some time I come back and i am happy to see the post alive with excellent messages of extremely high quality.

My experiment with the reptiles fluorescent did not give the results I could expect. Yes the corals became a bite more red but nothing important. In addition some of the species (lobophillya) did not react at all.

Now reading your posts I think we should try complementing witht light around 480 to about 520 nm. but I'm lost on the possible ways to achieve it.

I added two Aqua LED's to see how that would haelp in that frequency range. My only regret is that with just two of these LED's I do get color shadowing from some objects in the tank. But Im experementing on a 40 gallon breeder tank that is not very deep so the LED's are actualy only about 17" from the substrate, and an object 4" above the substrate creates a big shadow if it is a distance away from the LED.

I also added 2 NEAR UV LED's and I think they turn things overly pink. Interestingly people that see the tank comment why is that tank so pink?

[cfmx]

Here are some before pics (with old led lights) and after (with new led lights). Most noticable color change is the acans and sps. Colors are so much better now. :)

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0506_edited-1.jpg
after:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0893.jpg

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0487_edited-1.jpg
after (notice the front sps. The color is more purple w/ green):
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0923.jpg

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/RainbowPaly.jpg
after:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0930.jpg

tank shot:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0940.jpg

[TropTrea]

CFMX: I do like the changes from your begfore and after. Without looking at what you changed too and from I suspected you added a lot of Royal Blues and cut back on your whites.

I'm having problems taking pictures under my LED's everything picks up a Blue hue to the camera that is not there to the naked eye. What I realy love are your ACAN pictures. I see so many Acans that look like your before picture but I only see colors like what you have now in pictures never in real life. This shows that good lighting will definatly improve the colors of some corals at least.

While I'm not keen on the use of magentas I'm moving more to a Blue mix on my DIY LEDs. I had 8 Royal Blues, 8 Blues, 2 Near UV's and 2 Cyans and 4 Nuetral Whites on my 40 breeder but I pulled the near UV's because they shifted thing too Magenta and 2 of the Neutral Whites but will probably be adding more whites now as the reds and yellows did get overly washed out with all my Blues.

On a stand by themselves bases I found the Royal Blues and Blues both look the same real blue, But when I had a tank with royal Blues and another thank with Blues next to it there was a definate difference. The Blues looks more cyan, and the royal blues looked more purple. My guess is that is part of your change from old to knew as well.

There is a lot of personal taste in color selection. But the key is getting the corals looking there best in the owners eye.

[victor escobar]

When I had the reptiles fluorescent the colors I could see were, as you suggest, more pink-magenta but the corals did not turn neither pink nor magenta this was only what my eyes could see.

My concern is not what I can see but the corals themselves. I still do not think that corals (some especies) can last for long when they turn orange or brownish-green after a long period with blue-white combinations.

In fact I think they perish in a year time without the requiered wavelengh. Not all are able to adapt to the less than satisfactory wavelengths that le current leds provide.

(I'm sorry for being so prescriptive by I have already lost some acans, lobos and blastos)

[TropTrea]

When I had the reptiles fluorescent the colors I could see were, as you suggest, more pink-magenta but the corals did not turn neither pink nor magenta this was only what my eyes could see.

My concern is not what I can see but the corals themselves. I still do not think that corals (some especies) can last for long when they turn orange or brownish-green after a long period with blue-white combinations.

In fact I think they perish in a year time without the requiered wavelengh. Not all are able to adapt to the less than satisfactory wavelengths that le current leds provide.

(I'm sorry for being so prescriptive by I have already lost some acans, lobos and blastos)

I do not think that it is a matter so much of LED's not being able to produce the proper wave lenghts as it in our selections of LED's that create the balance which corals like. If you look at the spectrums of the White LED's they do cover the entire visual spectrum. Yet the balance between a Cool White, Neutral White, Warm White and the CRI LED's is very different.

Then there is the fact that different corals do have different lighting requirements. There are many corals that have been found to bleach out from an excess of red light especialy at 685 nm. Yet there are other corals that utilize and need light in the red range.

whit LED's it is only a minor change in the light balance that may be working great for Jack while it is not working for Herman. Where the overall challenge is to find something that will work for you or even better yet for everyone. But with new LEDs comming to the market everyday what was great two years ago will be obsolute today. How many people do your about building LED lighting with 1 Watt LED's today? Most of us are using 3 Watt LEDs today and the new LED's comming out now are 5 Watt and Even 10 Watt LED's.

I think that CFMX's pictures showing the difference between two combinations of LED's on the same tank and corals gives us all a good example of what difference is the LED's will create.

[kevlow]

Here are some before pics (with old led lights) and after (with new led lights). Most noticable color change is the acans and sps. Colors are so much better now. :)

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0506_edited-1.jpg
after:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0893.jpg

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/20111122_0487_edited-1.jpg
after (notice the front sps. The color is more purple w/ green):
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0923.jpg

before:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/RainbowPaly.jpg
after:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0930.jpg

tank shot:
http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i161/cfmx/DSC_0940.jpg



I am curious as to the types of lighting in your pics.

What were the old lights and what are the new lights?

[cfmx]

I am curious as to the types of lighting in your pics.

What were the old lights and what are the new lights?

Old lights:
4 - 12w ecoxotic white/blue led
3 - 12w ecoxotic blue led
New lights
2 - 19w ecoxotic pro white/blue led (dimmed 50%)
3 - 19w ecoxotic pro blue led
2 - 19w ecoxotic pro blue/magenta led

I will say the new ecoxotic pro white/blue doesn't have as much yellow as before.

[eamike261]

I put 12x Cree Royal Blue, 11x Cree Cool White, and 1x Phillips Red (with no optic) LEDs over my tank about a month ago. 80 degree optics, 9 inches above the water, on a standard 20 gallon tank, maximum of 900mA on both strings, haven't put them above 70% of that though. Used to have 2 high quality T5 bulbs before the LEDs, I forget the brand.

I've certainly had an increase of the orange and green colors. There were some light orange zoas that turned into a deep saturated orange that look amazing now. And some seafoam palys that were pretty much garbage colored but are now a nice teal. The only red I have is red zoas and they haven't changed at all, not sure if that would be different from everyone's acans.

[TropTrea]

I don't see how having more blue will give you reder reds...
if the wavelength isn't there to be reflected.. it can't be reflected...
and if its not reflected... than it doesn't look red.

It is very simple haysanstar.

There is florescense in a majority of corals. With florescense light from a set frequency is absorbed by the coral reather than reflected. It then activates a chemical reaction within the coral which allows it to floresce and a different frequency.

In the case that you are confused about the coral is absorbing light at roughly 460 nm (Blue) and then florescing it at 640 nm (red). There have been over 100 descovered florescing chemicals in different corals. Each of them absorbs light from its own specific frequency or wave lenght and then transmits light at a lower frequency or longer wave lenght.

It is also true that some corals do not floresce and we only see them as the color that they are reflecting light. But these are realy a small minority of corals.

And finaly there are corals that have a combination of florescing and reflecting. These are usualy the corals that will look one color under white lighting but as the ration of blue light increases the color will change.

As far as both UV and Red light is concerned these are very touchy areas for many corals. Yes they general will do better with a small amount of these wave lenghts. But in excess these wave lenghts can quickly bleach out corals. In nature few corals are ever exposed to Red or UV light, unless they are extremly shallow water corals.

[davidgnome]

If I may..I have been asking questions on why my zoas are losing colors for the past 2 weeks and just came across this..what could i do to make my setup similar to cfmx. My colors have all turned almost exact what youre pictures show. I have a tek 6 bulb elite, with 2 reefbrite leds..none dimmable versions. ati bulbs, as follows

blue+
blue+
aqua blue special
purple+
aqua blue special
actinic

reefbrite 3 w all blue, 48 inch module
reefbrite 3 w 50/50 36 inch
Could i lose the 50/50? or swap in a different kinda t5..i will do anything i just love my zoas and they are all gettin pale..everything is healthy looking open, but my colors are fading fast to looking nothing similar..reds to orange..pinks to brownish pink.etc..? any advice would be much appreciated!!

[TropTrea]

If I may..I have been asking questions on why my zoas are losing colors for the past 2 weeks and just came across this..what could i do to make my setup similar to cfmx. My colors have all turned almost exact what youre pictures show. I have a tek 6 bulb elite, with 2 reefbrite leds..none dimmable versions. ati bulbs, as follows

blue+
blue+
aqua blue special
purple+
aqua blue special
actinic

reefbrite 3 w all blue, 48 inch module
reefbrite 3 w 50/50 36 inch
Could i lose the 50/50? or swap in a different kinda t5..i will do anything i just love my zoas and they are all gettin pale..everything is healthy looking open, but my colors are fading fast to looking nothing similar..reds to orange..pinks to brownish pink.etc..? any advice would be much appreciated!!

For your T-5's I would change to
Front
Blue Plus
Purple Plus
Blue Plus
GE 6,500 K
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

This would decrease your red which is often associated with bleaching some coral out.

Also since we do not know what type of White LED's the the 50/50 strip is using you might want to try simply not using it for a few weeks to see if that makes a change. If they are using warm white LED's in it that is also producing a lot of Red Light.

also remeber with Zoos some varieties are very touchy with light. You can one type that is getting too much and another type that is not getting enough under the same conditions.

Initialy I had an issue with Frog spawn where the LED's I was using changed the color from a teal grean to a lime green. But when I switched from all Royal Blues to a combination of blues and royal Blues the color swiched back slowly to a more pure green better than in either of original light combinations. There are over 100 different florescent compounds found in corals each has its own exciting wave lenght and emmiting wave lenght. Most corals have several of these chemiocals and as the lighting balance changes so do the proportions of these chemiocals in the coral. They can technically be just as healthy but there colour will be different.

[davidgnome]

With nothing but led blue and 4 ati blue+'s will this be enough of the red spectrum or too much blue? for say sps and red corals that i have?...aslo in a 22.5 inch high tank how high should i have my lights hanging?currently my leds are 6 inches and my t5's are 7..is this good? and what schedule would you run time wise? appreciate the response will be ordering new bulbs tommorow..do you think maybe a magenta led like the guy above added would be useful..also the reefbrite led white kinda seem yellow looking..again thanks!

[oceanarium]

I have been playing around for the past several months trying to correct orange.. ing out issues with Acans, lobo's, micromussa and ricordea corals under our LED lights.

Experimenting with adding 405nm to our existing fittings (which we have a number of combinations) has proven to be a measurable and repeatable way of fixing this issue for us in all tests to date.

[adw]

I'm running radions and a christmas favia that I have had for over 7 years under many kinds of lighting is slowly changing from the bright red to an orange color. Kind of bummed.

[TropTrea]

I have been playing around for the past several months trying to correct orange.. ing out issues with Acans, lobo's, micromussa and ricordea corals under our LED lights.

Experimenting with adding 405nm to our existing fittings (which we have a number of combinations) has proven to be a measurable and repeatable way of fixing this issue for us in all tests to date.

Running the 405's is a l;ittle risky since it has been proven that 420 is benificuial to coral and 380 is detrimental to corals. Unfortunaly most BLUE LED's cut out before 420 nm so you might be able to help that gap pout provided you do not have to much light spliing in the 380 range.

I tried 2 of them in an array of 24 LED's and everyone commented that my whole tank looked pink. I saw no effect on the corals after 2 weeks so I pulled them and replaced them with 490 nm LED's. These seemed to help some of greens that were slowly tuning a lime green color and slowly moved them to more of a teal blue.

Sometimes I hate the narrow bandwidths of LED's but when you have enough of them it is so simple to just plug a few in where you thought something was lacking. Most simple Royal Blue and White combos to me are lacking in the 490 to 500 nm range and in the 415 to 430 nm range. There are nice LED's to cover that longer wave lenght but it is touch trying to fix the "atinic" range.

[TropTrea]

I'm running radions and a christmas favia that I have had for over 7 years under many kinds of lighting is slowly changing from the bright red to an orange color. Kind of bummed.

Most of the red pigments that floresce are excited by light in the 470 to 490 nm range. If your only blue led's are royal that would explain it. The Blues do cover the short edge of that range and if you add a couple cyan LED's (Philips Rebel) the rest of that range is covered nicely.

Now there also are a couple reds that are excited by light in the "atinic" range but outside the 405 nm LED's that get close to the dangerious 380 nm range there is noting comercialy available that I know of. If you go with 405's add them sparingly as they do turn the overall look very pink.

[drtrash]

Have the same exp with rainbow acans, some chalice. I am running AI sol blue (30% W, 55% B & 65% RB). Will be running lower levels for awhile but reds are more orange, pinks are not sure if I have any pink anymore. Not sure if I should be using more white or less

[glang]

I was thinking that for some reason, LED's were turning reds to orange and other colors to a basic brown. Turns out that in the same colonies that I witnessed such color changes, the individual polyps that were "shaded" from the light retained the original nice colors. I've concluded that the majority of my color changes in LPS is most likely due to too much light, not necessarily an LED specific issue. LEDs are just pumping out a lot of light, even when they don't appear to be all that bright. If it were me, I would try (1) turning the lights way down over time and/or (2) moving some of the acans, etc. to more shaded areas.

My take is that the intense light from LED's is just putting the growth of the zooanthellae (sp?) into overdrive, causing the browning of reds into an orangish color, etc.

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

Over in another thread,

Chuck, the apogee reads as much as 50% low when measuring LED PAR because it not calibrated to properly measure response in the blue region. It is meant to measure natural sunlight.

Also keep in mind that PAR is not the only lighting variable. Spectrum is important too. spectrum = quality, PAR = quantity.

Here's Apogee's response graph (http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/quantum/spectralresponse.html):

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb16/GeorgeMon/Pets/spectralgraph.gif

Since most "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a white phosphor (called "blue-driven white"), LEDs have a huge spike around the 450nm graph tick. As gbru316 said, that means the Apogee quantum meter under-counts the LED's PUR.

So can the problem be people using a quantum/PAR meter, seeing a false/lower reading than expected due to the nature of the sensor, bumping up the LED output and then over-exposing their corals?

[drtrash]

I think when I used a light meter (appogee) I was hitting 150 on the bottom at 50% intensity of light. Unit is 12 inches above 18 inch deep tank. Surface is in the 600-700 range. Will lower intensity and reevaluate colors over next few week. Your eye's are very deceiving when it comes to light intensity.

[oceanarium]

Most of the red pigments that floresce are excited by light in the 470 to 490 nm range. If your only blue led's are royal that would explain it. The Blues do cover the short edge of that range and if you add a couple cyan LED's (Philips Rebel) the rest of that range is covered nicely.

Now there also are a couple reds that are excited by light in the "atinic" range but outside the 405 nm LED's that get close to the dangerious 380 nm range there is noting comercialy available that I know of. If you go with 405's add them sparingly as they do turn the overall look very pink.

Not sure were you get the pink look from with 405nm ? I find they don't make any discernible change to the look of the tank itself being a part of the spectrum that is not particularly visible.

Adding spectrum in this range will fix the issue of certain corals orange... ing out with time under white / blue 450nm LED (including green, red, cyan and pink) combinations. Corals we have observed this effect with include some zoanthus and ricordea, red pigments in acan's lobo's and micromussa whereas other coral types we don't see this phenomenon and they maintain normal colouration under LED white and blue combo's as used in many off the shelf fixtures.

Here is some results of tests we have used these emitters in. In each case the corals are clones from the same mother colony and both have been under white / blue LED for some time.

Pink ricordea the one on the right was exposed to orphek 405nm emitters for 7 days.http://i978.photobucket.com/albums/ae268/oceanarium/IMGP2678.jpg
Red lobo the one on left exposed to 410nm 14 days
http://i978.photobucket.com/albums/ae268/oceanarium/2012_0403hammer0017-1.jpg
Acan the one on the left exposed to UV stunner 403nm strip lights 21 days.
http://i978.photobucket.com/albums/ae268/oceanarium/IMGP2705.jpg

[drtrash]

So did the UV 403 stunner add red long term, not sure what the other lights are? Seen a few people add a 403 & a magenta stunner not sure on results

[oceanarium]

So did the UV 403 stunner add red long term, not sure what the other lights are? Seen a few people add a 403 & a magenta stunner not sure on results

The red is stimulated buy the near UV spectrum over a number of days to weeks, so long as the spectrum is present the colours remain.

[drtrash]

really missing the pinks and the reds. Any benefit to add a magenta stunner? Not sure what the wavelenth is or is it just a red (white bulb). The AI is a great light but there is acolor hole that needs to be filled.

[oceanarium]

I use 660 and 630nm emitters in my lights to accent the rendering of the reds and pinks in our tanks. Visually they do add positively to the intensity of viewing things like coralines, pink birdnest corals and orchard dottiebacks. They wont change the colour of your corals though like the near UV will they are simply an aesthetic thing and to taste what some people like others dont.

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

I use 660 and 630nm emitters in my lights to accent the rendering of the reds and pinks in our tanks. Visually they do add positively to the intensity of viewing things like coralines, pink birdnest corals and orchard dottiebacks. They wont change the colour of your corals though like the near UV will they are simply an aesthetic thing and to taste what some people like others dont.

Have you seen an increase in nuisance/micro- algae with those wavelengths?

[oceanarium]

Have you seen an increase in nuisance/micro- algae with those wavelengths?

The reds are only a small percentage of the total emitters used, I would not recommend going more than about 5% max. My main coral system has about 20 fittings with some portion of red in them and about thirty fittings with no red emitters we don't notice any increase in algae or diatoms between tanks with or without red emitters.

I don't discern a health or vitality benefit from corals using these emitters, its purely personal taste on how my tanks and corals look.

[Justin74]

For your T-5's I would change to
Front
Blue Plus
Purple Plus
Blue Plus
GE 6,500 K
Blue Plus
Blue Plus

This would decrease your red which is often associated with bleaching some coral out.
...

It was so nice to have you speak the voice of reason and experience for almost this entire thread TropTrea. Your patience is a virtue, especially in this age of instant gratification! Kudos :)

However, this last quote I pieced out I have a very strong disagreement that stem from my own personal experiences.

Personally, some of my worst attempts at keeping LPS colorful, and sps true with out visual signs of UV bleaching was when using the GE. An extremely high PAR bulb, that spikes hard in the red range if I recall correctly. Too much, too hard IMHO, and unless the tank is 24" or more deeper, a complete overkill for the coral, and for the eye's aesthetics.

The use of just 2 bulbs; blue+ and 1 GE wont give you the full range of pigments being excited. Specifically greens and purples. Granted the GE has you more than covered for reds, but using is washes the tanks out so much it wont be the vivid red we all strive for. The blu+ will also encourage reds, oranges and blues, but leave greens looking more yellowy and purples seem to wash out as well.

The only thing I would change in your 6 bulb config is drop 1 Aquablue for UVlightings superactinic+ in fact i'd recommend you my lighting front to back:

Geismn act+
UV's superactinic+
Geismn aquablu+
Geisman pure actinic
UV's superactinic+
Geismn act+

Took me a while to finagle this exact combo but has really been the best combo I could find after seemingly trying every bulb in every mix of combos and brands not only through visual aesthetics but long term growth and coloration. Granted some things still need to be partially shaded, but without sounding smug, there really isn't one color under the rainbow that eludes me.

-Justin

[victor escobar]

Thank you very much for all the replies to this very inspiring comunication.

Now that I see the complexity of the led's world I also see the possibilities it offers. In particular I think the issue of spectrum is hidding other relevant issues.

For the average aquarist the possibility of changing the kind of leds in their (or mine) tanks is nor realistic because of the costs invoilved in the change. Due to that once I bought the withes and the blues I have I will not change them at least in 3-4 years and I have to adapt to them.

Now what I experimient is with the ratios and the intensities.

I think the leds PAR is so strong that for a LPS tank the best is to reduce the intensity of the white to the minimum and the blues significantly. By doing that I have recovered some favias and cynarine is orange but alive.

[GeorgeMonnatJr]

I think the leds PAR is so strong that for a LPS tank the best is to reduce the intensity of the white to the minimum and the blues significantly. By doing that I have recovered some favias and cynarine is orange but alive.

Good news, and thank you for sharing your findings.

[TropTrea]

really missing the pinks and the reds. Any benefit to add a magenta stunner? Not sure what the wavelenth is or is it just a red (white bulb). The AI is a great light but there is acolor hole that needs to be filled.

You need to watch what kind of magenta stunner.

magenta can be a combo of blue and red light.

Or it can be light under 430nm since this light stimulate ones night vision with visual purple in one eyes.

If your looking to emphisize the reflective reds then go with the red and blue combination, for florescent reds it realy depends on the particular coral and what the exciting frequency is of its particular chemicals that floresce.

[TropTrea]

Over in another thread,



Here's Apogee's response graph (http://www.apogeeinstruments.com/quantum/spectralresponse.html):

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb16/GeorgeMon/Pets/spectralgraph.gif

Since most "white" LEDs are actually blue LEDs with a white phosphor (called "blue-driven white"), LEDs have a huge spike around the 450nm graph tick. As gbru316 said, that means the Apogee quantum meter under-counts the LED's PUR.


this is why I personly question the value of some pof the PAR readings. If you look at the chart you see the sensitivity of the meter is basicly opposite of what corlas need. Corals need a lot of blue light that do not give an accurate reading on a PAr meter. This is why some LED fixture manufacturers use a lot of white bulbs namely to push the PAR numbers from the meter up while thay may be lacking an acceptable amount of blue light for the corals.

So can the problem be people using a quantum/PAR meter, seeing a false/lower reading than expected due to the nature of the sensor, bumping up the LED output and then over-exposing their corals?

[parrthed]

I picked this Brain up a couple weeks ago. It was under 12k reeflux 250w in the store and had been there for a few months. It was a nice teal green and very fleshy so I had to have it.

I wanted to acclimate it to my AI Sols so I put it under an overhang and left it there. Well, I was moving it out today and noticed that the parts that were exposed to direct LED were changing to a red striped polyp. The brain appears very healthy and eats regularly. I hope this isnt a problem, maybe just a cool morph under LEDs

Top ( the entire brain was this teal color, you can see some of the red along the edge)
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn175/parrthed/DSC_0469.jpg

Side that was fully exposed
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn175/parrthed/DSC_0463.jpg

[victor escobar]

It seems that the information provided in this post can be usefull and therefore I reopen it

[TropTrea]

One thing that we are missing it that have been over 100 florescent pigment isolated into different corals. Most if not all corals have several different pigments. Each florescent pigment requires a specific wave lenght to activate it florescence and in return emits light a a different specific frequency. The ratios of the florescent chemicals in the cors is very dependent upon the amount and wave lenght of light the coral is getting. If it does not receive light at a frequency needed by a particular pigment this pigment will slowy start diminishing in the coral. Siularly if another pigment is getting enough light it will flourish within the coral. There have been several studies done on this and they all proved that it is an important factor in why corals of the same species only under different light appear to be colored differently even though they are healthy. This can also be seen in nature where the same coral only at different depts of of the ocean may be considerably diferently colored.

Now on the Par meters I'm personally thinking they are less and less inportant. The light in the ocean is very heavy in the blue spectrum and very thin in the red spectrum. Yet when we use a PAR meter it is much more sensative to red light than it is to blue light. Actualy the opposite to what is ideal in the reef tank.

[victor escobar]

Hel Troptree.Thanks for the last post.

One question: I am not so concerened about the colors of the corals (even if as everybody the most flourescent the better for the view of our tanks), my problem is about the health of the corals, I am not sure about the link between the quantity, quality of the pigments and the health of the corals (geeting enough food from the light.- zooxantelae), In fact my feeling is that there is a link though not in all cases.

For example in my modest tank red lobophyllia change the colors (different pigments excited) but at the same time they slowly get weaker (2.5 years already getting weaker) and some of them at the end die.


What is your view on that?

[TropTrea]

As far as the healt of corals are concerned you have the photosynthetic chemocals that basicly convert light CO2, and Water to sugar which the corals use for growth. In slat water corals the most frequent of these are Chlorophyl A, Chlorophyl B, and Beta Carotene. Each of these have there own frequencies they need the light to be at to most effeciently cause this process. This light comes either directly or through the florescense of other chemicals.

Chlorophyll A needs light between 400 and 450 nm as well as between 670 and 680 nm. But it's most important peak is around 430 nm.

Chlorophyll B needs light mainly between 450 and 480 nm. With its peak need around 455 nm.

Beta Carotene can use light between 400 and 500 nm with its peak need at 450 to 480 nm.

There are other chemicals that are photosynthetic however most of these need light in other areas like Phycoerythrin at 560 and Phycocyanin 620 nm. Since most of the light is filtered out as one goes deeper in the ocean these chemicals are either found only in shallow water corals or receive this light through orange and red florescent chemicals in the corals.

Overall the basic idea is to get light in the 420nm to 480nm range to the corals for growth. The most needed light being around 455nm (peak of the Royal Blue LEDS') Then suplement with neutral white lighting just enough to make it pleasing to the eye. You realy do need much red light above 500 nm and the little that is needed will be well compensated for with the whites.

where a 100% LED system has it short commings is filling in that needed gap between 420 and 440 nm. There are very few LED's available in these frequencies at reasonable prices from the top quality manufacturers. Some of the ones that are available have broader spectrums and emit light as low as 380 nm which is the edge of harmfull on the UV end of the spectrum.

[Nano sapiens]

Excellent read. I noticed a lot of comments regarding reds turning into oranges. I experienced this phenomenon in an Acan, both with a 10K/Actinic T5 combo and with Similar spectrum LED strips (Ecoxotic Stunners). I suspected that something in the light spectrum was missing, so I added a 10K/Magenta strip and noticed a much improved color shift towards the red.

Here is the original very red Acan rescue frag (kept under full spectrum T5s at the LFS):

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee141/Back2dubs/BloodRedAcan060309.jpg

Orange phase under T5s/LEDs (top-most Acan in this pic):

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee141/Back2dubs/12gNanoFTS032810.jpg

Red is better, but still not what it could be (lower Acan mini-colony):

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee141/Back2dubs/Acans120812.jpg

It's difficult to say if the increase in the 'Blue' wavelengths peaks in the 10k/magenta helped the red pigment to redevelop or whether the 'warmer' spectrum (peak of around 650) of the Magenta has helped, or possibly a combination of both?