bleaching on new acro coral.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
i talked for a while to a "sps" coral specialist at liveaquaria. they are not big fans of led lighting for sps corals at all. even thought the par ratings are similar, they are not proven to support sps corals very well.

they seem to feel the corals are not reacting well to change. either the color or the intensity could be causing the problem.

i am going to switch to a 150w 20k mh. same lights that most liveaquaria uses.

i seached some other forums and found that many people are having problems with thier sps corals under leds. like loss of color and tissue.
 
Couple of notes for future attempts

you are definately on the right path. Good flow, good parameters, good lights coming. Leathers are notorious coral browners. Even in the best water quality. Some acros wont care, some do. Its a crap shoot. Keep an eye on temp fluctuations in the tank as well as any other fluctuations. The hardest part about keeping even the most demanding sps corals is stability. I would also dip every coral you put in this tank. What even a couple acro mites can do in just days is crazy.

One final note, the best way to see if an acro is dead, is to smell it. Smell the next one you get when you pull it out of its bag. You will never forget the smell, and that smell is the last thing to go. If it doesn't smell like an acro, its a goner.
 
Hopefully I will be able to keep the temps down with the mh lights. Thegood thing is the light will be raised about 3".

I'm going to wait a while to add any more corals. See how the other corals react to the lighting change first. I will probably start the mh at 5-6 hours for a week or so and raise it to 10 hours slowly.
 
i am reluctant to change lighting, i love the leds and all of my current corals are doing great. but the mh lights may improve the colors and allow me to keepsome acros.

im sure there are people the will say leds can keep acro, maybe they are differnt then mine. i dont know.

from what ive read acros dont react well to lighting changes.

ive heard the radium 20k mh bulbs bring out great coloration of most corals. we shall see.
 
Radium 20k look awesome, (honestly a little too blue for me), but at a very low par value. I know a few people who have spectacular SPS tanks with LEDs but they have uber expensive ones.
 
Me LEDs weren't cheap but who knows how good they really are. They were made by jbj for the 28 nano. Maybe they are too strong. I'm going to order a lux meter and compare my LEDs to the 150mh
 
mos90;4891300; said:
IF I could do it over again I would definitely not done a 28 gal nano. Shoulve converted my 125
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I converted my 125 to a reef and think the length and size is awesome. I used to have a 29 gallon reef and really love the larger size. Sorry to hear of your troubles with the corals. Let us know if you figure out the lighting situation. I am intrigued by the LED's but stick with halides because they are a proven coral grower.
 
The only bad thing about larger sizes is large water changes. Other then that a can't think of anything else but cost.

Simple, are u saying the 20 k has a lower par value? Compared to?

I'm almost positive the LEDs were causing my problems with the acros. As soon as I move them to the top they bleached out fast.
 
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