New to LEDS Need Advice

[Billyboy]

I am new to this forum and have been keeping salt and freshwater aquariums for years. I just switched to LED lights for my 37-gallon reefish tank. I have a large damsel and a bunch of mushroom coral. The coral was doing great under my T-5 Fluorescent lighting. About a month ago I purchased an Ocean Revive Arctic T247-B Full Spectrum Dimmable LED Aquarium Reef Light. The aquarium is 21.5" deep. The light is suspended 5.5" above the rim. Since installing this light my mushrooms have not opened completely. The seller (a company that sells coral and anemones and say they use this light) told me to put intensity for blue channel at the lowest setting (1) and white at 5 (out of 100). I have left it there for 2 weeks with little change. I have tried LEDS before and gave up. This is the most expensive light I have purchased ($170). Any advice would be appreciated. I never had any issues with the T-5 (31 watt actinic, 31 watt white). I have attached pictures.
 

[paulsz]

How long does it run for per day?

 

Are all the mushrooms acting like this? Where are the mushrooms? Just in the center of the tank?

 

You could push the blues up. Make the blues 10%. Leave the whites at 5% for now. See if that helps at all. 

 

 

[farkwar]

5 hours ago, Billyboy said:

Since installing this light my mushrooms have not opened completely

I think I have an idea why

 

Your light it upside down

[farkwar]

7 hours ago, paulsz said:

 

You could push the blues up. Make the blues 10%. Leave the whites at 5% for now.

Why so conservative on the blues?

 

37 gallon

22" water

5" off the water

 

I would turn the blues up to 100% over a couple weeks.  Leave the whites under 10%

 

I doubt those are double LEDs or 5 watt LEDs

 

 

[Clown79]

I would put the light fixture up higher than 5".

 

1 better spread and 2 not such intense light.

 

Corals  need time to adjust to change and leds are powerful lights. Mushrooms don't need intense lighting.

 

Always slowly increase lighting. 3-5 % per week or you can easily fry coral.

[farkwar]

.

 

 

 

[paulsz]

8 hours ago, farkwar said:

Why so conservative on the blues?

just because it's mushrooms and they can live in low light. I have some in shade right now and extend out during the day for light. 

 

The thing I was thinking here is that the lights are almost completely off. I would want OP to adjust them up just a bit to see if the mushrooms react. I would think going from 1% to 10% would be enough for a start.

[Clown79]

25 minutes ago, paulsz said:

just because it's mushrooms and they can live in low light. I have some in shade right now and extend out during the day for light. 

 

The thing I was thinking here is that the lights are almost completely off. I would want OP to adjust them up just a bit to see if the mushrooms react. I would think going from 1% to 10% would be enough for a start.

You are right.

 

When increasing light, its always 100% better to go slow then to jack it and 1 month to 100% is not slow.

So your advice is sound advice

 

And just because the light isn't name brand doesn't mean its crap and not powerful.

 

I've used many none name brand led fixtures- most have been very powerful and could be run much lower with equal success to my Ai's.

 

 

[farkwar]

B

[mcarroll]

On 11/26/2020 at 2:05 PM, Billyboy said:

The coral was doing great under my T-5 Fluorescent lighting. [...](31 watt actinic, 31 watt white).

60 watts of blue-heavy (50:50) T5.

 

That's not a lot on such a deep tank.

 

On 11/26/2020 at 2:05 PM, Billyboy said:

About a month ago I purchased an Ocean Revive Arctic T247-B

90 watts of LED power.  I have these fixtures too...but not currently using them.

 

Still not a ton of power, but A LOT MORE than what you had....all things considered, maybe double the potential light of your old T5 fixture.

 

Assuming your 37 Gallon is just like mine (36" long, 12" wide, 19" tall) then it seems like you must only be lighting a fraction of your tank from side to side.

 

On 11/26/2020 at 2:05 PM, Billyboy said:

told me to put intensity for blue channel at the lowest setting (1) and white at 5 (out of 100). I have left it there for 2 weeks with little change.

Hm...that sounds like half a strategy.  Put it down that low...and then what?

 

The proper thing to do, if anything, would have been to match the light levels your old fixture was putting into the tank.

 

To make an assessment like that, you need some kind of light meter.

 

If you can get a PAR meter, that's great.  But at minimum, use a handheld lux meter (cheap on amazon or eBay) or lux meter app on your smartphone.  (Smarphone apps can have issues, so test the app for good results before using it on the tank.)   Personally, I recommend an inexpensive handheld lux meter.

 

Use your light meter to measure your old fixture at a distance equal to the distance it was set from the water line.

 

Then take measurements of your new fixture at the water line and adjust its setting to match the lux level recorded from your T5's.

 

In terms of color, you want mostly blue, with *just enough* whites to make things in the tank look good to you.  This usually ends up being around "20,000K" if you want to look at other tanks that use 20,000K lighting for reference.

 

What are your test results like for alkalinity and phosphates?