Old LED lights -AI Sol Blue’s

[Lostoften]

Do old LED’s shift in spectrum or just slowly lose par? I recently set up a coral tank with some old AI Sol Blues that I have had for a decade plus. These lights likely only ran for 3-4 years, but several years ago. The tank they are on now has been battling an algae bloom, that has required running UV to fight. Could the lights be contributing to this?

I also fed “algae wafers” a few times and since doing this the tank has had problems. Maybe it’s coincidence or, these might have been the culprit. I have done a couple WC, and haven’t given these in over a month. The tank is a coral/invert qt, and thought these would help feed the inverts. However, once the bloom started the skimmer has been overfilling. I added some egg crate, between the body and collection cup. I also had to raise the skimmer higher in the sump, to prevent overflowing.

Tank: 40g breeder with 20g sump
Lights: 2 AI Sol Blue’s suspended about 12” above tank

Sg: 1.026
Temp:77.5
N03: 25
PO4: 0 (not ULR checker)
KH: 6.7
Ca: 435
Mg: 1300’s

 

[Ron Reefman]

I seriously doubt it's the lights, unless you are running a lot of white in the spectrum mix. LEDs do lose some PAR as they age, not not enough to be a serious issue... especially since you haven't used them that much.

I suspect you are just running the typical newer tank uglies issues. I had a very similar experience with my 40g aio tank after it had been running for a few months trouble free. But things cleared up after working at it for a few months. This is from a couple of months ago.

 

[Lostoften]

Thanks, just didn’t know if old LED’s were like T5/PC bulbs that once they start to go the spectrum is off. I did increase the whites, to increase PAR. Will look take a look at some old forums to find appropriate ratio.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I run whites in my tank, but only for about 4 hours during the 6 hour high PAR segment of my light schedule.

And leds do not change anywhere near as much as T5 or even MH do.