My diffuser lands tomorrow, very excited to put this thing on!! After seeing one in person last month, I immediately could tell it's more then it's cracked up to be.
Actually yeah, I've noticed some major and minor changes in almost every coral. I was pretty surprised, but it's also only been 5 weeks. Not all good changes.
Being non-specific, almost every coral in the tank is picking up additional colors, or getting more pronounced color gradients going from a clear X color to a clear Y color. Even the corals that showed some negative results have all still picked up some positive traits, from faster growth to better denser growth patterns.
Additionally, the tank is starting to consume more alkalinity than it was before using T5 -- So the new light is sparking growth overall in the tank. This took at least 3 weeks to start turning around. At first my alk/cal/mag uptake was cut to 20% of my dosage. Just part of the change, takes some time, but at this rate I'm going to be dosing more than I had been before.
Good Changes
- Pinky the Bear: It's small, just a hair over 1/2" so I can't get a good pic of it with my current equipment.. BUT, it went from an overall gray-pink tone, to a pastel pink body with flaming neon pink rims on the coralites, and bright white polyps. It was probably the most immediate and significant change I noticed.
- Pink Floydish: My wild Aussie SPS table that looked very much like a pink floyd at first. This is the second largest positive change I've noticed. It basically doubled down on all of it's colors. It's light neon green tips are now a full blown toxic green color, it's light blue-ish body is now a deep sapphire blue, and it's polyps went from a beige-almost-orange color to a flame orange. It probably still is my favorite coral, and it's the 3rd image from top in my previous post.
- PC Superman Table: I've noticed it's growth picked up significantly, most notably in structure.. Now what I mean by this, is it's growth went from producing new long arms branching out, then up, it now started producing little arms on every branch as well. Basically it's begun growing more like a traditional table.
- FHC Arc Light: Began growing MUCH faster, and it's body went from a tan color to it's traditional deep blue with neon green tips. It's like an undead fox flame honestly, not the most expensive or valuable color but it looks good in the background making colors up front pop.
- Oregon Tort: Growing faster. That's about it, color is the same, it just picked up the pace a little. Nothing to squawk at.
Bad Changes
- Fox Flame: Started dying immediately. Full blown tissue loss even at low intensity and coral got a beige color from it's hot red color I had before.
After really wondering about this I did a bit of reading and found people who swear up and down it needs to be really high up, and others say it has to be really low.. After further investigation, people who keep it high and get it colorful run T5/MH, people who keep it low and colorful run LED. Jason Fox keeps his on the sand bed, several times he's alluded to Fox Flame being a low light coral, considering in his personal 180g he runs 4 Actinic LED's and 2 Reef Brite Tech Strips, and he keeps them on the sand bed... I'm inclined to agree with him now. So... For the good of the tank, the fox flame either has to die, or be chiseled off the rock as much as possible. We'll see what happens. If he dies, he dies. I can get others from people, but maybe he'll adjust to high LED light, who knows.
- Yellow Milli: Turned purple. Pretty simple, went from a straight up yellow with light green tint to deep purple in like 3 days. Kinda unexpected, but a few others did the same... Such as;
- Vivid Rainbow Delight: Turned deep purple. No clue why. Maybe it darkened up in response to increased light, as LED pierces much deeper than T5, but who knows.. A few others turned green, like the --
- PearlWrecker: Turned green. This was a phony homewrecker that turned out pretty amazing, and someone said it reminded them of pearlberry a little hence the name.. It's got a green encrusting base, and it transitions into a baby blue body, with hot purple tips, blue-fire colored coralites, and yellow rings around the coralite inner tips and white polyps -- That's 6 colors on one coral, pretty amazing. It wasn't what it was supposed to be, but it looks like the Rocky Mountain Frags "Psychoberry". My buddies colony looks stellar, mine turned green with a purple tip, lol... stupid hobby.
The PearlWrecker has a chance to be the most colorful coral in my tank, with the Pink Floydish behind it, and Pinky The Bear behind that. As far as contrasting colors go, the Pink Floydish is probably set to be the nicest coral in my tank by miles. But the fact that pearlwrecker
Looking good.
Do you notice already a colour shift due to the change to LED?
Actually yeah, I've noticed some major and minor changes in almost every coral. I was pretty surprised, but it's also only been 5 weeks. Not all good changes.
Being non-specific, almost every coral in the tank is picking up additional colors, or getting more pronounced color gradients going from a clear X color to a clear Y color. Even the corals that showed some negative results have all still picked up some positive traits, from faster growth to better denser growth patterns.
Additionally, the tank is starting to consume more alkalinity than it was before using T5 -- So the new light is sparking growth overall in the tank. This took at least 3 weeks to start turning around. At first my alk/cal/mag uptake was cut to 20% of my dosage. Just part of the change, takes some time, but at this rate I'm going to be dosing more than I had been before.
Good Changes
- Pinky the Bear: It's small, just a hair over 1/2" so I can't get a good pic of it with my current equipment.. BUT, it went from an overall gray-pink tone, to a pastel pink body with flaming neon pink rims on the coralites, and bright white polyps. It was probably the most immediate and significant change I noticed.
- Pink Floydish: My wild Aussie SPS table that looked very much like a pink floyd at first. This is the second largest positive change I've noticed. It basically doubled down on all of it's colors. It's light neon green tips are now a full blown toxic green color, it's light blue-ish body is now a deep sapphire blue, and it's polyps went from a beige-almost-orange color to a flame orange. It probably still is my favorite coral, and it's the 3rd image from top in my previous post.
- PC Superman Table: I've noticed it's growth picked up significantly, most notably in structure.. Now what I mean by this, is it's growth went from producing new long arms branching out, then up, it now started producing little arms on every branch as well. Basically it's begun growing more like a traditional table.
- FHC Arc Light: Began growing MUCH faster, and it's body went from a tan color to it's traditional deep blue with neon green tips. It's like an undead fox flame honestly, not the most expensive or valuable color but it looks good in the background making colors up front pop.
- Oregon Tort: Growing faster. That's about it, color is the same, it just picked up the pace a little. Nothing to squawk at.
Bad Changes
- Fox Flame: Started dying immediately. Full blown tissue loss even at low intensity and coral got a beige color from it's hot red color I had before.
After really wondering about this I did a bit of reading and found people who swear up and down it needs to be really high up, and others say it has to be really low.. After further investigation, people who keep it high and get it colorful run T5/MH, people who keep it low and colorful run LED. Jason Fox keeps his on the sand bed, several times he's alluded to Fox Flame being a low light coral, considering in his personal 180g he runs 4 Actinic LED's and 2 Reef Brite Tech Strips, and he keeps them on the sand bed... I'm inclined to agree with him now. So... For the good of the tank, the fox flame either has to die, or be chiseled off the rock as much as possible. We'll see what happens. If he dies, he dies. I can get others from people, but maybe he'll adjust to high LED light, who knows.
- Yellow Milli: Turned purple. Pretty simple, went from a straight up yellow with light green tint to deep purple in like 3 days. Kinda unexpected, but a few others did the same... Such as;
- Vivid Rainbow Delight: Turned deep purple. No clue why. Maybe it darkened up in response to increased light, as LED pierces much deeper than T5, but who knows.. A few others turned green, like the --
- PearlWrecker: Turned green. This was a phony homewrecker that turned out pretty amazing, and someone said it reminded them of pearlberry a little hence the name.. It's got a green encrusting base, and it transitions into a baby blue body, with hot purple tips, blue-fire colored coralites, and yellow rings around the coralite inner tips and white polyps -- That's 6 colors on one coral, pretty amazing. It wasn't what it was supposed to be, but it looks like the Rocky Mountain Frags "Psychoberry". My buddies colony looks stellar, mine turned green with a purple tip, lol... stupid hobby.
The PearlWrecker has a chance to be the most colorful coral in my tank, with the Pink Floydish behind it, and Pinky The Bear behind that. As far as contrasting colors go, the Pink Floydish is probably set to be the nicest coral in my tank by miles. But the fact that pearlwrecker
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