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Luxeon M disaster


BradVincent

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Saturday morning, I noticed something strange in my overflow. When I opened the canopy to see it, I was horrified to see it was a Steve's LED Luxeon M that was attached with thermal adhesive but fell into the tank. After removing the LED (still wired to an LDD driver!) I raced to my LFS and bought both of the cuprisorb packages they had in stock.

 

Not one piece of coral or invert has been unaffected by this. Xenia, BTAs, FrogSpawn, an Elegance and any visible polyps on SPS shriveled up, 2 clams closed tight, and my Acropora all looks bleached. Today, all polyps expand better, but Xenia and frogspawn are still mostly not expanding. Acropora bleaching is worse, even though polyp extension is better, and I fear I will lose some or all of it.

 

This is not to blame Steve's for their product. Copper heatsinks work better and cost more than aluminum, and I still feel they are appropriate for a reef - just be careful. I probably could have prevented this had I used a liberal amount of thermal adhesive instead of trying to stretch it and save a few pennies.

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Splash guards or screws would have prevented this, but so would just using enough adhesive.

 

So far, nothing has actually died, and almost everything looks better than it did a week ago, but I am still betting I lose something. All of my Acropora is still lighter colored than it was before, and ironically, the comon brown/purple valida - what I would have considered the hardiest Acropora in the tank, is the worst of everything. I saw dramatic improvements the first hour after adding the cuprisorb but recover after that hour has been very slow.

 

Shocking how much difference in the alkalinity/calcium my tank uses. I drip kalkwasser the old-school way. Before this happened, I was struggling to keep my pH above 7.9 - now I've gone above 8.4 several times, and I don't think its dipped below 8 even cutting way back.

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Remember to much adhesive is bad too as it can limit cooling. I take it an array redesign is on the cards including a splash guard?

Hope all recovers.

Is the LED and unit in general still working? Interested as to how well sealed the chips are, could also be the chip it's self has leached something nasty into the water. Carbon would be a very good idea.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Deleted User 8

Thermal adhesive or thermal paste? Two-part epoxy stuff that cures hard? Not sure how that would fail. Properly applied the bond is permanent and you don't need much at all, just a smear.

 

Buzz

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