Switching to MH from LED--advice

My buddy Evan127 motivated me to post up my settings vs email them out . It is not all the night data points as I do have some settings for a moon effect that change a little through the nite but it is the main daylight settings. I sometimes change the start and end times for daylight savings and I may have bumped each data point Brightness (not the color%) up buy a few % (1%-5%) since I took these screenshots. These settings are not going to give you those color popping blues in the middle of the day, you only get that in the morning and night (typically when I am looking at my tank). Late morning to late afternoon its going to be pretty white. I have two lights on a 65gallon 8 inches off the water.

Awe thanks Mark, someday I do want to try a metal halide set up just not on the tank I currently have.

From time I added coral until now is 3 years. That being said I have cut, hacked, replaced, sps like crazy, sometimes fist size colonies, some have gotten so big I have just given them away (Bob comes to mind). I also ran 1 light only for 1 year before I added a second. Like that red planet, got too big so its gone, kept a few frags as you can see when comparing the 3rd and 4th pics.

I have only ever used LEDs (Radion Gen 1) and have had really good growth and color (maybe it could have been better with MHs) but its been good enough for me. I agree with Bur in that the colors can be different (a coral in my tank can look diff than in a MH/T5 tank) but my growth rates seem good. The 100 billion ways you can set up the programmable LEDs are a big issue when switching as you can run anything you want and people mess with them to get a good "look" which might not be good for growth and real color not fake LED color (i.e. blue lights = blue coral but coral flesh is white when it should be blue), and almost no two people run the same settings and people just mess and play with them too much, vs the tried and proven plug and play MH and T5s (know your depth, coverage and time), it would be great if there were better presets on Radions or LEDs that are backed by results vs. trial and error. I don't mess with my lights at all, I used  graph that Ecotech sent out on the forums when it came out, tweaked it a bit based on other forum feedback a year later and that was it. I don't have them hooked to a phone/ipad/reeflink, or anything that would allow me to easily play with them or adjust them.

Edited by Bryce - March 28 2016 at 4:02pm

I did have thousands of dollars in coral which I lost to sunburn, three times(3 seasons), before I realized it was happening. That put MarksReef Coral Farm behind by 18 months and is part of the reason it eventually had to close.

Se la vie.

Aloha,

Mark 

Edited by Mark Peterson - March 26 2016 at 9:09am

kevin.st wrote: well, darn it.  Why is everything else still alive, then?  I have a 30 head Duncan, 7-8" monti, huge GBTA and those are all happy as ever!  This is why I think I am done with SPS.

FYI, Montipora are SPS. The troubles seem to have hit only the Acropora, right? So far, anyway. 

Edited by Mark Peterson - March 25 2016 at 3:58am

I actually was doing that quite often as this also held the temp a little more stable  Didn't matter.  Still had baked coral!

Ok.  I really appreciate the help.  I will keep the MH setup for another setup in the future. 

Back to LED's for while, since I already have a couple.

well, darn it.  Why is everything else still alive, then?  I have a 30 head Duncan, 7-8" monti, huge GBTA and those are all happy as ever! 

This is why I think I am done with SPS.

So, I ended up using a dual 250 watt halide setup over my tank.  I used it for about 3 weeks at 4 hours per day.  After about 3 weeks of using this light, I started noticing some corals were not doing well. 

My mille colony, about 5 inches in diameter starting losing color and actually turned white.  But not at the tips.  It was turning white from one side of the coral and over the course of 3 days, turned completely white.  I also had a couple of torts and chalices that have started turning white as well.

Once I started noticing these things, I took the halide off and put my ai vega back on the tank.

At this time, my ca was at 420, alk was at 7 at mag around 1250.  Nitrates and phosphates are very low.  But, I am wondering if my test kits were not reading correctly.  I have since bought a new Red sea pro test kit and levels seem to be OK.  I am dosing kalk through the ATO and 2 part as necessary.  I have about 25 frags, mostly small stuff. 40 gallon system.

I don't know, I tried to keep the lighting to a low photo period and had the light about 14 inches over the water.  I am not sure if I burned them or if I had that rapid tissue loss.  I'm honestly contemplating ditching SPS at this point.