starting an led monthly sps growth rate topic

[ksicard]

I decided I'm going to be posting monthly pictures of all my SPS corals to show growth/failures (hopefully no failures). I will post pics of each frag I have and update monthly, hopefully this documentation will show what it takes to grow SPS and how my LED's hold up in the long run. I will start the pictures when the rest of my lights come in this next week, which should be tuesday or wednesday!

First a quick breakdown of my tank:
80g tank (with sump water)
Bubble magus dosing pump
Tunze ATO
two little fishes GFO reactor
1 mp40w and 1 mp10w on the ecosmart modes
500gph return pump
Tunze 9006 skimmer
matrix carbon
Phosban for GFO in reactor
weekly water changes of 15%
daily dosing: 4ml of Ca/4ml of mg/5ml of DKH broken up over 4 times a day
twice weekly dosing of Fuel
Current parameters: Ca 455ppm/Mg 1355ppm/DKH 8.4
photoperiod: 12 hours (lights are ramped up and down throughout the day, peaking for 5 hours a day)
Lights: steves leds consisting of 28 nuetral whites/28 royal blues/15 violets/14 true cool blues all on seperate channels and wired up to my BOOSTled light controller.

I'm keeping my DKH low until I build up more bio load in the tank as I only have 1 fish that is a pencil wrasse, I've read that a high DKH in a ULNS can be problematic for SPS.

I'm very open to questions, comments, and concerns of any kind. And again pictures start next week once the rest of my lights come in.

[outdrsyguy1]

sounds like fun, looking forward to watching it grow

[Totalchaos13]

Will be interesting to see your progress, but frankly I'm still waiting for a true scientific comparison of coral growth and longevity differences when ONLY the lighting is different and absolutely nothing else. Not likely to happen though...

Don't get me wrong. I believe there is nothing wrong with choosing whatever lighting you like and can make work. It's just the engineer in me wants to see more objective data.

[ksicard]

hey totalchaos13, check out this link. I think this is exactly what your looking for. Half the tank underneath 400w and 250w MH20k and the other half under Radions that are set to mimick a 20k halide color spectrum. There's videos, pictures and all sorts of information on the matter. They say its to early to tell the differences but maybe you can follow like I will be when they get more conclusive data.

http://www.vividaquariums.com/aquari...Experiment.asp

These articles and the info they provide is what made me make the jump to proper LED's. And I choose to go with a DIY led setup rather than radions and vegas for a lot of reasons, if anyone wants to know the reasoning and logic behind this choice feel free to ask, I'll provide facts and charts of why.

[falos]

Originally Posted by Totalchaos13

Will be interesting to see your progress, but frankly I'm still waiting for a true scientific comparison of coral growth and longevity differences when ONLY the lighting is different and absolutely nothing else. Not likely to happen though...

Don't get me wrong. I believe there is nothing wrong with choosing whatever lighting you like and can make work. It's just the engineer in me wants to see more objective data.

there is a study check aa's website

[jmike50]

Will be following...good luck!

[Totalchaos13]

ksicard, that is awesome! Exactly what I'm looking for. When I began planning my current 180 I was very much on the fence between MH and LED. Ended up going with three 400w Radions since I had found no empirical data to convince me LED was right and when in doubt I always go conservative. Thanks for the link.

[BlueSpot]

I am interested to see your growth pics. I have LEDs also. Three maxspect mazarra p-series are over my 93 corner in a triangular pattern (had no clue where to start on a DIY). I love them and it was a bonus that I dont have to run a chiller. I didnt have the space for one anyway and tank stays at 76-78F. I obviously have no way of comparing LED vs halide. I have only really gotten into sps heavily a few months ago but have been happy with the growth.

All my corals show very good color and excellent polyp extension. All my frags have really encrusted, thickened, and are now branching like crazy. Some of them had color shifts over time. Usually the color change is cool and the coral looks better than when I got it. I have only had a couple corals that didnt seem to like LED after acclimation. I love the separate channels and being able to customize/program. It may seem stupid but I even love the cloud setting. Basically I love LED, but I love the trusty MH too. It will be good to see results in a different tank with different set of lights over time. Great idea for a thread!

[zeroKilo]

Originally Posted by ksicard

hey totalchaos13, check out this link. I think this is exactly what your looking for. Half the tank underneath 400w and 250w MH20k and the other half under Radions that are set to mimick a 20k halide color spectrum. There's videos, pictures and all sorts of information on the matter. They say its to early to tell the differences but maybe you can follow like I will be when they get more conclusive data.

http://www.vividaquariums.com/aquari...Experiment.asp

FYI: Vivid's 800 crashed a few months back, that's why they haven't posted an update in almost a year. I think some of the baseline SPS they were using for the experiment survived, but it was a big setback.

[Totalchaos13]

Originally Posted by zeroKilo

FYI: Vivid's 800 crashed a few months back, that's why they haven't posted an update in almost a year. I think some of the baseline SPS they were using for the experiment survived, but it was a big setback.

Ouch! Any idea what caused the crash?

[ksicard]

Originally Posted by zeroKilo

FYI: Vivid's 800 crashed a few months back, that's why they haven't posted an update in almost a year. I think some of the baseline SPS they were using for the experiment survived, but it was a big setback.

Really!? Well that's def disheartening. Any information on the crash?

[Ripped Tide]

Pics already!

[zeroKilo]

Originally Posted by Totalchaos13

Ouch! Any idea what caused the crash?

Don't remember. I read about it on their FB page a while back. I looked but couldn't find the old post. Looking at some of the latest pics though it's still a beautiful system.

[ksicard]

Zero can I get a link to the new pictures of after the crash? I'd like to follow up on their recent activity.

And as Ripped Tide requested here are the first batches of pictures for the growth, taken as of today 3/7/13.

Since switching to leds I've run into one new challenge, how on earth do I take quality photos of the corals under LED lighting! I'm having issues with getting the color to display correctly, I have Nikon D3x at my disposal to use since my brother is a photographer. Also I'm going to get a quality program such as photoshop to help aid my issue with the photos. If anyone can provide some insight on camera settings and photoshop settings on how to display color correctly please enlighten me. So here's my first attempt at taking photos via photobucket color editing lol.
















These pictures are taken before my new lights have arrived, I'll hopefully have much better quality photos for the next photo update after getting camera settings right and learning to use photoshop.
Some of the pieces are:
1.) ORA Joe the Coral acropora
2.) ORA red branching montipora digitata
3.) red/green plating montipora
4.) seasons grettings montipora
5.) ORA screaming birdsnest
6.) a tri color acropora from Florida
7.) another ORA pieces thats name is unknown to me. (he was browning out at the LFS, so I took him home for the price of $15. His color is already coming back after 2 1/2 weeks)
8.) a second piece of red branching montipora digitata. (I have two to see how one does in the middle vs. the top of the tank)
9.) a pink/cyan cyphaestra (I know this is not an SPS piece but I like it so I figured I document its growth as well)
10.) hollywood stunner chalice (not an SPS piece as well but I'd like to document this fast growing chalices growth)

Upon request, I'll document other corals growth rates as well. In the tank I have a small collection of zoas (including fire and ice), multiple Rics, red/green blastos, Assorted acans, a chalice, crocea clam, orange fungia plate, and a few others. I can also take requests for specific pieces such as red planet acro or others, as long as you can point me to a place of where to buy it. I'm a coral collector fiend so any pieces you may have that your willing to sell/frag let me know and I'll add it to the documentation.

I plan on adding: Jedi Mind Trick Montipora, Red Planet Acro, and others that I like as soon as I'm able to find them.

Edit: Wow, just discovered an aiptasia that hitchiked in on the montipora red/green after looking at these photos. Time to bust out the glue =)
I also forgot to mention that all of these pieces have been in the tank for 2-3 weeks, the tank was born on January 15th of 2013 so hopefully I dont end up having a crash from having such a young system. Parameters are all spot on and have been stable the entire time after getting my bubble magus dialed in.

Very open to questions, comments, concerns, and tips. =) happy reefing.

[zeroKilo]

Here is a link to the latest video I could find (its a facebook link):

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=...type=2&theater

[ksicard]

Thank you Zero!

[Ripped Tide]

Cool! I look forward To watching the progression. I have red planet. If you'd like a tiny frag to experiment with I'll "pay it forward"

[BlueSpot]

Ryan at Reefworks told me a trick he uses to get true colors in pictures even under LED. He said to use a piece of white pvc and hold it inside of tank. Take a pic of it then you can use the pvc in the pic to set your white balance.

[ksicard]

Very interesting bluespot, I'll give it a try.

And Ripped Tide, I'm sending a pm your way.

[BlueSpot]

I have a small piece of red planet that is growing out nicely. The red and green really pop under my LEDs. You will like it.