Could my programming on my LED be causing algae?

[Brady Bunch]

I am running a Photon V2 over a 75 gallon mixed reef. The tank is 6 months old. I have been fighting hair algae almost since the beginning. I have checked all the normal causes. Nitrates are at or very near 0, Phosphates are the same, I have shortened my light cycle and eliminated some of the reds. I have cut back on feeding quite a bit. I have a good clean up crew and sea hare. TDS is 0-3 on water change water. I am doing a 10% water change weekly. I started with all BRS Reef rock.

My question is, is it possible the lighting settings are causing the issue. I notice the center of the tank does not have algae. It is mostly on the sides and rear. My max output is

Channel3 Whites at 60%
Channel 4 Whites at 30%
Channel 5 Whites at 45%

Should I slowly raise the whites. The tank doesn't look blue but I am curious if I just do not have enough white light to slow the algae growth.

I do want to be clear I am not concerned the light is causing the issue but the mixture I have chosen. I LOVE the Photon. I would buy it again in a second!

 

[mcarroll]

Algae and related critters are cycling the nitrate and phosphate they are using.....testing can only detect nutrients free in the water.

How many fish and how much (of what) are you feeding?

How is skimmer performance?

The sides and rear reflect light, causing a multiplier effect on the intensity - that's the reason for the pattern of algae growth, but not the reason for its excess.

Before going any further with the lights, I'd suggest taking some readings with a meter to see where your levels really are.

If you don't have a light meter, start with a $free [HASHTAG]#lux[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#meter[/HASHTAG] app for your smartphone. (e.g. Galactica luxmeter for IOS) It uses the camera's light meter plus some software corrections to give usable lux readings. It's worth ordering an LX-1010B handheld lux meter (or similar) for general usage though....better readings and much safer to use around your tank! :) Around $15 delivered.

Post your readings from the app here! :)

 

[Brady Bunch]

I currently only have 3 fish in the tank. I am feeding them a small pinch of New Life Spectrum some nights and 1/2 a cube of Mysis shrimp other nights. They get fed once a day.

My skimmer is a Reef Octopus. I just checked and it does not appear to be adjusted correctly. I made some changes to it earlier in the week and the foam is not making to the top. Would you set it for a wet or dry skim?

I am going to order the lux meter tomorrow and will let you know the results.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Brady Bunch]

So I received the lux meter. I am showing 15600 at the surface, 7000 mid way , and 6000 on the sand. The tank is a standard 75 gallon.

 

[Midrats]

How'd you take readings under water with it?

 

[Brady Bunch]

The lux meter has a light sensor on a coiled wire. I placed the sensor in the water and kept the meter out of the water.

 

[Midrats]

So the sensor on the LX-1010B is waterproof? It sure doesn't look like it is. I've just been holding it at the waters surface.

 

[Brady Bunch]

No I wouldn't call it waterproof but for $15.00 and to get good readings I tried it and so far it has held up.

 

[lion king]

Red, yellow, and green leds have definitely been contributors in algae in my tanks. There is plenty enough yellow in 8k and 10k whites, I see no reason for green. There's plenty enough red in any violet, purple and some designated blue leds. If you have specific control over red, yellow, and green I would lower these if not just zero them out. I had a algae and cyano problem in my 210 fowlr and taped over all the red, yellow and green leds; within 2 weeks the tank is so clean I think my urchin starved. On another tank that I turned into a fowlr with a kessil on it, I had a ridiculously algae problem, scrubbing every week. I changed the leds to a blue/white current orbit fixture and all the algae is gone.

 

[Brady Bunch]

I turned off all my reds and it made a huge difference. I need to lower my greens next and see if that helps.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I turned off all my reds and it made a huge difference. I need to lower my greens next and see if that helps.

Glad to see you got on the lux band wagon.
Green doesn't grow green plants. Jus an FYI.
Red cyano. It might.
From all the algae threads I've been reading algae really is just caused by introduction into the tank. Cyano you can't escape except to out compete it with other benificial bacteria and nutrient export.
For export I'm really into refugiums.

Some algaes are so invasive the lights out doesn't even help. Those aren't usually green ones.
At 15000 lux you really have very little light.
But I don't know your depth and livestock.

I'm kinda guessing, correct me if I'm wrong. If you were at 15 k lux and turned down more channels and still noticed a decrease in alge it's because of the lessens intensity not the spectrum.

The photons are pretty darned well balance at full color ratio to please the eye and leasen algal growth already. I've been covering those lights for years and the owner is an old scooper who watched the evolution of mh to t12 to power compacts to t5 to t5 VHO. He knows spectrum. At every stage of the lighting game algae has been a big concern.

Yes R O Y ore preferred by green stuff. Mh and tubes do go r o y when they are old.

What's been working best for me is getting the nutrients down the benificial bacteria up. And then scrub.

The caked on ugly bits you might have to pull out and the really bad ones a light peroxide dip and scrub. So far it's working well. It seems that w the nutrients low it has a pretty hard time coming back. I do on those deep cleans use a canister filter w floss only as a super mechanical filter. It's my marine shop vac. $60 sun sun on Amazon built like a tank surprisingly.

Fwiw I have two tanks. SBreef light and ai sol's. Both tanks at 40000 lux and I don't turn anything down.

My coral qt had a similar issue but the weird normal Dino cyano diatom ugly phase as its new but I put it on a much longer full intensity light cycle (14hr). For the last two months as an experiment. So far it's working there too.
I kinda belive the light starvation is only a bandaid but with elbow grease and wise cuc including bacteria it can be done.

 

[mcarroll]

No I wouldn't call it waterproof but for $15.00 and to get good readings I tried it and so far it has held up.

Very interesting! I'd give that sensor a serious RODI bath after use....otherwise the connections will surely corrode on the inside in short order.

Your corals will be fine at those light levels, but as @saltyfilmfolks said, that's still not a lot of light....bare minimum. That said, I've run my second tank right around your light level for years and things seem fine compared to the other tank on the same system that gets 40,000+ lux.

Assuming your fixture does sunrise/sunset, I'd maintain at least a 10 hour light cycle with levels you have now....12 hours would be more natural.

Good moving cutting the "extra" lights....keep it 99.9% blue and white.

Set your skimmer to skim wet....should look like tea that's been sitting too long. ;) :P This will help a lot.

Once you get the skimmer working normally, make your fine-tuning adjustments no more than once a day, and make those changes based on the quality and quantity of the skimmate produced the day before. DO NOT make fine-tuning changes based on the skimmer's current performance.

Consider laying off the Spectrum dry food until this is over, but don't feed the fish less. Your fish need to eat...depending on the type of fish, they'd probably do better eating more than once per day. So consider feeding mysis more than once per day.....difficult with frozen cubes, but not impossible.

Last, can you post a tank picture that shows the algae? I'm curious how bad it is?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

My skimmer in the sump less 30 has been on the fritz for months.
I have no filer on it.

 

[lion king]

Green is just a combo of blue and yellow, it's the yellow that contributes to algae. Lower color temps like 6k and 8k contain a dominant amount of yellow and are effectively used in planted tanks, to purposefully grow algae. This is also what happens to older bulbs, simply put they start to yellow out; that contributes to algae. Red is the most effectively used led in algae scrubbers, so why would you want these in your display. In 30 years I never had a cyano or extreme algae problems until I started using full spectrum leds.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yes and no. Green is a specific wavelength. They may use dye sto accomplish it but in a spectrometer you only see green spectrum it's not separated into yellow and blue. Same goes for a filter.
I will absolutely agree a lot of manufactures did not pick the colors well esp at first. Mixing warm and cool plus blue. It's really sloppy. It's one reason I avoided cheap led's. And even the spendy ones had problems.

Combine it with what I do believe is a downfall is the users ability to mix colors ratios. It's a neat trick and you feel like your doing something but w a t5 the spectral grade we are all so familiar is chosen. If you can push and pull that spectrum you'd better hope you understand spectrum as well as an engineer.
And fwiw a Phoenix and a Radion and popular t5 do contain red. It's declared on the box and you can see it w a cheap tool.
6 and 8 k don't contain a dominant amount of warmer colors in truth. Because you can mix it an a umber of ways it . Esp depends upon the source of the light. 5600 is Day light. It's not actually a warm color. 3200 is a tungsten light bulb. You can mix either of those colts and still get the same number and mix no green into it. It's not full spectrum. A 20k Radion does not have the same spectrum as the color of the light in a valley in indirect sun. But it is also 20k. And 20k in the ocean is yet another color mix altogether.
And 17k at sunset still contains blue.

I do find it totally interesting you had so many issues e led. I know there were a lot as manufacturers struggled wi finding acceptable dyes filters and color schemes. An SPS guru friend of mine bought the same light on two tanks one acro Dom the othe LPS ZOA Dom. Wouldn't grow LPS.
Fwiw I have not head algae or cyano probs under led but maybe I got lucky.
What led s have you used.

 

[lion king]

I've used maxspect and kessils as well as a black box version for my fowlr. Current orbit and wave point blue/white for small fowlrs that I've had absolutely no problems. When I taped over the red, yellow, and green on the black box leds the cyano and algae off gassing disappeared almost immediately. Replacing the kessil with a current orbit blue/white instantly cured the algae problem in a converted reef to fowlr tank. I've talked with reefers at the lfs' that use radions and AI and many of them experience the same thing. When I tell them about the ryg leds they tell me that lowering those values fixed their problem.

This I know for sure, I've used power compacts, halides, t5/halides, and t8s on fowlrs and never ever had cyano or algae issues I would call extreme until I converted to full spectrum leds. My mature systems I put the kessils and maxspects on got a mild cyano outbreak that cleared on it's own rather quickly. Algae also became an issue that I also had to address. In new systems I used full spectrum leds on it was months of frustration before I figured it out. I just set up 2 new tanks, a 29g with a 18w wave point blue/white and got the basic diatoms. Added some cerith snails and in a week all clear; and it's been months now with no issues at all. Another tank a 40b with a current orbit blue/white, up for 3 months feeding a messy juvi jeweled eel and not a single issue.

I know it's mostly user error, reefers thinking they know how to balance their color spectrum; and thinking they can do it by eye. But if you have been around since before leds you have to notice the continually never ending post on cyano and algae. This just wasn't much of an issue before leds, because before leds if someone had those problems the answer was easy. It was a nutrient problem, phosphates and/or nitrates; take care of your phosphates/nitrates, increase your flow, 3 days lights out and you're cured. Not today, I conclude it's the lighting.

 

[Lenny_S]

LED Light settings definitely have a lot to do with whether or not nuisance algae and/or Cyano become problematic. But the quality of the LEDs are probably even more important.
Red light around the 650nm range is probably the highest contributor to algae and cyano. Green light really doesn't contribute much to plants. However zooxanthellae has been observed in a couple of experiments to use green light to synthesize certain proteins. But I'd put green spectrum under the "probably doesn't hurt" category.
The quality of the LEDs used has probably the biggest impact on whether or not you have nuisance algae and/or cyano issues.
I have a single 160 gallon system with a refugium. My DT has four AI Hydra 26's and two TrueLume 48" Marine Fusion strip lights. My refugium has an Aquatic Life Edge 24" LED. My DT has no algae at all and no cyano. While my refugium grows massive amounts of chaeto and cyano. Same system, same water, but very different results.
I've not done any control test, so this is only an observation and not any proof. But it supports the hypothesis.
On a side note, I use a lot of white and green light in my DT (relative to many other posts I've read) and my refugium light has no green specific LEDs.

 

[lion king]

Lenny from what I see you have very little red and very little yellow(even if green is a different wavelength there is a relationship to yellow) , which is what my main point was from the beginning.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

@lion king thanks for the input. Im going to do some field testing.
I personally havent had any cyano probs with led, despite the filth in my tanks:rolleyes:, I agree some manufactures are struggling and just do poorly. but I am going to do some field testing.
If you feel so inclined try out the sbreeflight. Is got all the colors of the rainbow too. but, I have no cyano despite high nutrients..

 

[Lenny_S]

@Brady Bunch to answer your original question, your light could be causing algae. It would be the amount of red light between 650nm and 670nm.
I could not find information on the individual channels for your light, but I did find the overall spectrum...

The spike at 650nm to 670nm is probably contributing to your issue. I don't know if that is from just the red LEDs or if it is also from poor quality white LEDs. But if you can't turn off just the red, maybe mask them off with some tape if you can.
That spectrum is almost identical to my Aquatic Life LED..

That light is what I use in my refugium and it grows macro and cyano very well.
In contrast the light I use in my DT has no spike in red...
Cree white LED

TrueLumen

I would focus on the red channel for now and keep nutrients as low as possible. Also, avoid any additives like trace, iron, and the like.

For reference here is a typical chart used to illustrate the different light wavelengths used by zooxanthellae and most photosynthetic organisms.