Quote:
Originally Posted by Felixc395
Now for the most part, I've heard LED's are great. But there's still some that report color loss or browning.
I was wondering if this was due to either
- a large increase in PAR over their previous non-LED light that is just too much for the corals to take, resulting in fading.
- but I still can't figure out the browning part. I feel like at times this is a result of a non-light aspect as maybe water quality of flow isn't supposed to be.
Now LED's have been around a while, and I've also heard they don't cover the spectrum well. Based off some fantastic LED tanks, I don't believe it for a second.
But could someone clarify this to me? Does LED do an adequate job covering the proper spectrum, say an AI module for instance???
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I don't know about the browning but the bleaching is just too much light IMO. Before I went whole hog LED I bought a 14g cube and retro'd the hood solely for experimental purposes. Initially I had a 50/50 cool white/Royal Blue mix. The Royal Blues are in the 450nm range which we've learned is beneficial to our coral. i grew several monti caps which grew very fast, a branching hydnaphora, a couple chalices, and zoas like bam bam, eagle eyes, and some no names. All grew very very well...even fast. With the 50/50 mix the greens got very bright but the reds were not quite as vibrant. The chalices while growing lost a tinge of purple but the green rim on one really darkened up.
Earlier this year a friend brought over an ORA Tri Color Acro to put in it for a test. After a month the purple tips washed out to green but the thing kept growing. We became suspect that the color was too white so I took out half the whites a replaced them with the royal blues. A month later the purple tips came back, the chalices colored back up, and the bright greens got brighter. Now we had it figured out.
The Cree XPG cool whites (DIY, AI) are about 8000k temperature. When I did my 120g build I mixed in a few Cree Neutral Whites (~4000k) to throw some yellow into the mix and I went 2-1 Royal Blue to total white. I have since sold off the small cube and the pieces I had in there are part of my 120 and I can happily report that the tri color has really taken off and the purple has really exploded. The Chalice has doubled in size suddenly and colored up a nice purple with green rim and green eyes. Every SPS i picked up has colored up better than were they came from.
To me some zoas look very different though. Under blues they all look great but when my whites come on a few of them are not as vibrant but look healthy.
So with all that said I believe it really has to do with the power of the fixture with regards to bleaching and the color temp with regards to color.
I do not have 1st hand experience with the AIs but since they use Cree then I think highly of them but would opt for their 'blue' version which I think is the 2-1 blue to white which is what my experimenting over the last year has proven to be a winner for me on my DIY.