fatoldsun
NJRC Member
I’m hoping to get some advice so I have tried to be a thorough as I possibly can be – hopefully this covers everything….
I’m trying to figure out, could this be an issue with my light spectrum from my new LEDs since it seems to be mostly one color area? By contrast, the blue & green stuff looks good
My new DIY LEDs have been up since early February. You can find the build here While I was putting it together my HQI bulbs got really weak (build took longer than anticipated and I was too cheap to replace them b/c I kept thinking I was days away from finishing) and I lost a LOT of the stuff I had. I never had great success with anything but a few things – some LPS (Hammer) and some soft stuff seemed to be good. After adding the lights and slowly pushing up their power I added some frags thanks to the generosity of folks here. One of the things I had that made it through the build was a small piece of red monti cap. After the LEDs went up, a lot of what had receded started to fill back in and it nearly doubled in size – in just 2-3 months. In the last two weeks, it has bleached or STN’d significantly.
The only real changes I made was to start dosing Coral Snow to help with some cyano that I thought might have come from the new lights. It seemed to pop up shortly after adding them. When I noticed the cap start to go I stopped using it. The cyano is virtually gone BTW. I’ve done some large water changes and it’s still dying.
All this got me thinking – of the pieces I have, all of my red/purple stuff looks pretty bad – especially when compared with the stuff in the blue/green spectrum – that stuff looks good and seems to be growing. Examples: I have 3 kinds of mushrooms in the tank, blue, green and red. All started as one. The blue I “propagated” into 4 but it is now about 12. Green I didn’t touch bbut it has grown to about the same 12 – some before and some since the new lights. The red is just bleaching out. I tried moving it thinking it was too close to the new lights and it still looks the same or worse. By contracts, the green monti cap is doing well. The only “red coral” that seems ok are the polyps on my superman monti frag. That was almost totally dead when I added the LEDs and it has recovered nicely and the base is blue for the first time since I got it. I have some recently added SPS frags – purple digi – the tips look purple-ish but the stalks look brownish. Purple Bonsai just looks very brown. It’s not bleaching and I do see some polyp extension but it just looks weak. I also have a frag of pink lemonade and it looks almost bleached. It’s not b/c I see some fluorescing under the moon lights so I believe the good bacteria is still there.
Anyone have any tips? Last testing was as follows: (Alk was low – lowest it’s been since I started keeping records– not sure why and calcium was low too but mine always is – this was 24 hours after a 15-20% water change)
SG – 1.026
Phosphate – 0.08
Nitrate 0.0
Ca – 370
Mg – 1320
pH – 8.15 (@11:00 AM)
Alk 5.9 dkh (red sea test - I usually use my Hanna but the red sea stuff was out and I’m low on Hanna reagent – I tested with both last week and Hanna was actually lower than the red sea – it was 6.5 and red sea was 7.0) – this could be the issue but I don’t know what could have caused it. – The only other change I can think of is my CO2 tank running my MTC mini-Cal was changed on 3/21 so about 3 weeks ago.
So, poor coloration of reds/purples
1. Light spectrum
2. Alk
a. Coral Snow
b. bad CO2
Any thoughts?
Here are some pics of what’s going on:
Red cap shortly after I got it
3 weeks ago
Last week
Today(before the lights were on so this is just natural lighting)
…and here’s the red shroom- sorry, it’s really hard to pick out but it’s the whitish- light pink thing roughly in the center
I’m trying to figure out, could this be an issue with my light spectrum from my new LEDs since it seems to be mostly one color area? By contrast, the blue & green stuff looks good
My new DIY LEDs have been up since early February. You can find the build here While I was putting it together my HQI bulbs got really weak (build took longer than anticipated and I was too cheap to replace them b/c I kept thinking I was days away from finishing) and I lost a LOT of the stuff I had. I never had great success with anything but a few things – some LPS (Hammer) and some soft stuff seemed to be good. After adding the lights and slowly pushing up their power I added some frags thanks to the generosity of folks here. One of the things I had that made it through the build was a small piece of red monti cap. After the LEDs went up, a lot of what had receded started to fill back in and it nearly doubled in size – in just 2-3 months. In the last two weeks, it has bleached or STN’d significantly.
The only real changes I made was to start dosing Coral Snow to help with some cyano that I thought might have come from the new lights. It seemed to pop up shortly after adding them. When I noticed the cap start to go I stopped using it. The cyano is virtually gone BTW. I’ve done some large water changes and it’s still dying.
All this got me thinking – of the pieces I have, all of my red/purple stuff looks pretty bad – especially when compared with the stuff in the blue/green spectrum – that stuff looks good and seems to be growing. Examples: I have 3 kinds of mushrooms in the tank, blue, green and red. All started as one. The blue I “propagated” into 4 but it is now about 12. Green I didn’t touch bbut it has grown to about the same 12 – some before and some since the new lights. The red is just bleaching out. I tried moving it thinking it was too close to the new lights and it still looks the same or worse. By contracts, the green monti cap is doing well. The only “red coral” that seems ok are the polyps on my superman monti frag. That was almost totally dead when I added the LEDs and it has recovered nicely and the base is blue for the first time since I got it. I have some recently added SPS frags – purple digi – the tips look purple-ish but the stalks look brownish. Purple Bonsai just looks very brown. It’s not bleaching and I do see some polyp extension but it just looks weak. I also have a frag of pink lemonade and it looks almost bleached. It’s not b/c I see some fluorescing under the moon lights so I believe the good bacteria is still there.
Anyone have any tips? Last testing was as follows: (Alk was low – lowest it’s been since I started keeping records– not sure why and calcium was low too but mine always is – this was 24 hours after a 15-20% water change)
SG – 1.026
Phosphate – 0.08
Nitrate 0.0
Ca – 370
Mg – 1320
pH – 8.15 (@11:00 AM)
Alk 5.9 dkh (red sea test - I usually use my Hanna but the red sea stuff was out and I’m low on Hanna reagent – I tested with both last week and Hanna was actually lower than the red sea – it was 6.5 and red sea was 7.0) – this could be the issue but I don’t know what could have caused it. – The only other change I can think of is my CO2 tank running my MTC mini-Cal was changed on 3/21 so about 3 weeks ago.
So, poor coloration of reds/purples
1. Light spectrum
2. Alk
a. Coral Snow
b. bad CO2
Any thoughts?
Here are some pics of what’s going on:
Red cap shortly after I got it
3 weeks ago
Last week
Today(before the lights were on so this is just natural lighting)
…and here’s the red shroom- sorry, it’s really hard to pick out but it’s the whitish- light pink thing roughly in the center
