Confused about lighting

[Centerline]

I am glad I came across this thread. Some really good info here.
When I used Radions, I had almost everything at 100%. Overall power was at 100%. My problem was that my shallow tank [8"] is 4'x2'. To get coverage I had to raise the lights up to 16" above the water. I lost a lot of par and had severe shading.

I maintain that lighting is not near as important as water quality and now I am learning more about flow.

I believe reef keepers think that lighting is an easy, magical fix; and that if we can just buy a new light it will fix all of our coral's problem.
I also think that the light manufactures know that all the buzzers and bells are what keeps people upgrading and switching brands, which equals sales.
Tanks with great coral have great water. The biggest trick is to balance the amount of nutrients in your tank with the amount of light that you are hitting it with.
I want to write more but I must get off computer now, sorry.

Yes but still, will a lower K bulb help the OP with shading and growth? I'm sticking with yes!

 

[Centerline]

Ok, heres an "Anarchists" view. Skeptic is a more polite term.
I talk to old timers, manufacturers, and look at really old threads and research and hers what Ive found.
The same coral will grow under a 6.5 kelvin metal halide, a 20k radium halide, a t12 fluoro actinic 55k combo, a t5 combo of any color, cheap chinese black boxes, expensive black boxes, stupid expensive leds that let the user guess completely wrong on color combos.
What this tells me is, if the light contains parts of the visible spectrum the coral can use, it will take it and use it. Intensity is the only question.

White. what color is white? technically is all colors evenly distributed across the spectrum, 6500k. Some whites we buy are 8000k some 12000k some 4000k. all are generally green limited .


Shadowing. An easy experiment. One flash light over an apple at 12 over the apple. make it one 48in tube over the apple. Its the size of the source. You can now take 3 flash lights over the apple. it fills in from the single source. the more small sources creates one larger source.

I dunno, but its possible the mix was more blue(blue has less par) but not necessarily less pur(what the croal uses).


I recommend to Par meter uses a Lux meter. You can measure overall intensity. You can get 500 par on just a blue channel, prob wont grow coral but its PAR....


I highly encourage this. I would add a lux meter to the mix, as it measures only intensity. And intensity is VERY important. More important IMO that the silly knobs the manufacturers give us to control color so we feel smart(or dumb).

Its a lot of these reasons that lead me to continually advise, set the color to YOUR eye, and make the tank look great. Then set the intensity. Minor chances in ratios are likely only aesthetic esp green red etc and even though it may read on the PAR meter the coral likely doesn't care at all. Esp when we keep in mind Par meters are used to grow green terrestrial crops.

Sound crazy yet? Look at DR Sanjay's tank. all levels at 100%. And some of the famous high end coral sellers have given us their secret color combos for radions recently. White channel only.;)

You know what would be a good experiment? Build a 20X48 LED array that was absolutely packed full of emitters - a crazy amount and then make a diffuser for it - sandblasted glass cover. As long as you didn't go overboard with the sandblasting and could get 300 - 500 par out of it you would get great growth and no shadowing. Phillips has something like this going and it seems to work well. Of course everyone would be griping about the lack of shimmer ;)

 

[kevlow]

Yes but still, will a lower K bulb help the OP with shading and growth? I'm sticking with yes!

I don't know if lower kelvin would help with shading but I think it would with growth. I understand that the blue is achieved by deleting other parts of the spectrum leaving just the blue. Lower k would definitely provide the full spectrum to be used. More Pur for your Par, lol.
Kinda like the old 6.7k mh light with T5 or T8 actinic (to make it pleasent to look at) used to grow a lot of coral fast. Now many people use RB LEDs to support a low kelvin MH bulb.
Years ago I had a diy LEDs. All RB and CW. A lot of par from a lot of emitters but I lost my warm colors in the tank. My reds turned orange and yellows to green. Growth was average at best if not slow. But I did not understand that RB and Cw was high K and missing a lot of spectrum.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

a crazy amount and then make a diffuser for it - sandblasted glass cover.

or perhaps 3 ai sol with acrylic that has a light but even sanding. Like my tank right now. I can still pull 65,000+ lux(1000par ish) at full. I have it at 45,000 lux at peak. I do still have a nice bit of shimmer with it.

 

[USMC4Life]

Can I add a question to this, as now I am totally confused as well. Before I got 32" SB reef light LED I ran MH and cheap LED's. MH gave me ok growth on corals, cheap LEDs did nothing. But the moment I got the SB they had "true UV" and my corals exploded with growth. So is it the UV or the overall combination? Because I was playing with settings and when I upped the UV I could see the growth difference in a matter of days.
So is strong UV is something to look for more than aesthetics?

 

[GoVols]

Phillips has something like this going and it seems to work well. Of course everyone would be griping about the lack of shimmer ;)

+1
Philips on the right track and the two guys that I know that run them say they come close to MH shimmer but I have not seem them up close so I can't verify what the "Coral Care's" shimmer looks like.

 

[kevlow]

You know what would be a good experiment? Build a 20X48 LED array that was absolutely packed full of emitters - a crazy amount and then make a diffuser for it - sandblasted glass cover. As long as you didn't go overboard with the sandblasting and could get 300 - 500 par out of it you would get great growth and no shadowing. Phillips has something like this going and it seems to work well. Of course everyone would be griping about the lack of shimmer ;)

I am going to try to do something like this right now. I am combining two SB fixtures together to get 18"x32" covered by over 240 emitters. [ I think there is 121 each].

A trait of led lighting is that the emitter is actually very small. When I have used wide angle lens it seems to take the same amount of light and spread it further so it is weaker. Everyone thinks Leds are so strong. I think they are just very focused. Small amounts of light that are focused. My thoughts are that there is not really that much light, only light focused directly under the emitter.

My goal is to double the size of the light foot print. I want more vertical light shinning straight down over a larger area of the tank. T5s achieve this and MH does by having huge reflectors.Keeping them high allows the lights to blend without being in the puck design. I hope to keep the 300-500 par but over a larger area then before. I also hope to get rid of the shading.

I realize that when you change one part of the equation then you upset the whole apple cart. Increased light may mean I need to increase nutrients. Increased light and nutrients means increased growth which means increased consumption of alk and cal. If I don't catch the depleted nutrients then I burn the corals because of high light/low nutrients [at which point many people say " LEDs are just too strong"]. If I don't catch the depleted alk then try to raise it to recover, then you burn the tips [ and then people say "it's those LEDs, they are just too strong]

I just want to enlarge the area of my tank that is usable for acros and stop the shading and par fall off.
If something goes wrong it will not be the fault of the lights. It will be that I did not adapt to the changing equation.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Can I add a question to this, as now I am totally confused as well. Before I got 32" SB reef light LED I ran MH and cheap LED's. MH gave me ok growth on corals, cheap LEDs did nothing. But the moment I got the SB they had "true UV" and my corals exploded with growth. So is it the UV or the overall combination? Because I was playing with settings and when I upped the UV I could see the growth difference in a matter of days.
So is strong UV is something to look for more than aesthetics?

I don't believe it is the "uv". IME Some leds just don't grow stuff right. In my JBJ 28g and the JBJ light i have, although it can get crazy high intensity, it just never grew anything. kept it alive but that was it.
The othe thing so many stayed away from in mh esp was reds and yellows. Its also funny that a mars aqua grows coral quite well, and from a few friends I know grows macro algae tanks and refugiums amazingly well too.

 

[hart24601]

A lot of great points here. And I am in the camp of pick what looks good to you. If you are hitting acceptable PAR, which is debated but plenty of threads out there, just run what you like.

I do also agree with how much lighting get focused on by us reefers, but it really isn't nearly so important with how many powerful lighting options we have today. It get extremely hard to give a set number of rules about what K lighting grows coral faster, what PAR does, what flow does, what nutrient levels do, what alk levels do because they are all related. Even in a side by side test say between 20k and 10k for growth those results would only be applicable with exactly the same water conditions (flow, nutrients, alk and such) in your home tank vs the test tanks and that is only if the testing was really good, If the person is running different alk then those results might totally be reversed and we have not gotten into the PUR difference between 20k and 10k!

Mostly I have found the nutrient levels, NO3, PO4 are what impacts color. Too much is brown, too little is faded. The K of light just might show off the colors differently.

As for growth it's all about feeding. Several studies of SPS show dramatic growth with feeding the appropriate sized food.

So, IME pick the light color you like, make sure it isn't too weak or crazy strong, manage nutrients for color and feed for growth!

 

[Centerline]

I am going to try to do something like this right now. I am combining two SB fixtures together to get 18"x32" covered by over 240 emitters. [ I think there is 121 each].
I have a very large sandbkast cabinet at one of my businesses
A trait of led lighting is that the emitter is actually very small. When I have used wide angle lens it seems to take the same amount of light and spread it further so it is weaker. Everyone thinks Leds are so strong. I think they are just very focused. Small amounts of light that are focused. My thoughts are that there is not really that much light, only light focused directly under the emitter.

My goal is to double the size of the light foot print. I want more vertical light shinning straight down over a larger area of the tank. T5s achieve this and MH does by having huge reflectors.Keeping them high allows the lights to blend without being in the puck design. I hope to keep the 300-500 par but over a larger area then before. I also hope to get rid of the shading.

I realize that when you change one part of the equation then you upset the whole apple cart. Increased light may mean I need to increase nutrients. Increased light and nutrients means increased growth which means increased consumption of alk and cal. If I don't catch the depleted nutrients then I burn the corals because of high light/low nutrients [at which point many people say " LEDs are just too strong"]. If I don't catch the depleted alk then try to raise it to recover, then you burn the tips [ and then people say "it's those LEDs, they are just too strong]

I just want to enlarge the area of my tank that is usable for acros and stop the shading and par fall off.
If something goes wrong it will not be the fault of the lights. It will be that I did not adapt to the changing equation.

If you need some help on the diffuser / glass let me know. I have a large sandblast cabinet, spare glass and can hook you up. I would just be interested in the results.

 

[Centerline]

I don't know if lower kelvin would help with shading but I think it would with growth. I understand that the blue is achieved by deleting other parts of the spectrum leaving just the blue. Lower k would definitely provide the full spectrum to be used. More Pur for your Par, lol.
Kinda like the old 6.7k mh light with T5 or T8 actinic (to make it pleasent to look at) used to grow a lot of coral fast. Now many people use RB LEDs to support a low kelvin MH bulb.
Years ago I had a diy LEDs. All RB and CW. A lot of par from a lot of emitters but I lost my warm colors in the tank. My reds turned orange and yellows to green. Growth was average at best if not slow. But I did not understand that RB and Cw was high K and missing a lot of spectrum.

Right, lol. Might help with the shading depending on placement

 

[Centerline]

or perhaps 3 ai sol with acrylic that has a light but even sanding. Like my tank right now. I can still pull 65,000+ lux(1000par ish) at full. I have it at 45,000 lux at peak. I do still have a nice bit of shimmer with it.

Did you just hit it with a sander and was the result a more even distribution of light? Any hot spots?

 

[Centerline]

Can I add a question to this, as now I am totally confused as well. Before I got 32" SB reef light LED I ran MH and cheap LED's. MH gave me ok growth on corals, cheap LEDs did nothing. But the moment I got the SB they had "true UV" and my corals exploded with growth. So is it the UV or the overall combination? Because I was playing with settings and when I upped the UV I could see the growth difference in a matter of days.
So is strong UV is something to look for more than aesthetics?

Is that the SBs alone or with the MH? And what brand an k were the MH?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Did you just hit it with a sander and was the result a more even distribution of light

yup.

Any hot spots?

Not really. I came out evenly.Definitely not noticeable visually . Didnt meter oddly either

 

[GoVols]

yup.

Not really. I came out evenly.Definitely not noticeable visually . Didnt meter oddly either

Once you put your diffuser in did you need to dial up your leds to higher intensities?

The Philips cranks out some serious power to bust through their diffusion plate.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Once you put your diffuser in did you need to dial up your leds to higher intensities?

I did yes. but im still only at 70% at peak.

 

[Mark Novack]

Good thread. I'm going to ask the guys at the store where they have two of the best 20 year old tanks that I have ever seen. So far they have not steered me wrong.