Experienced 20 year reefer lighting question

hrdneglcry · Apr 21, 2024

I only started getting more into lighting in the past several years. When I kept fish only with live rock I used a standard shop light with a Marine Glo 48" and a GE Aqua Rays 48" on all of my tanks. So I started this time with an Aquatic Life 6 bulb 48" T5 over a 120 four foot tank. I had no complaints except it took a lot of space on the top and it was hard to keep an eye on the back of the tank for my eels (escape). I bought two Maxspect Ethereals. Nice lights. I hang them. The corals do ok. But all of my purple coralline died. The Aquatic Life had it growing well. I may switch back to the Aquatic Life but I paid a lot for the Ethereals and I worry that the corals are going to get shocked by the light change. Anybody have an opinion of this?

Heres the Aquatic Life. It definitely provides more light.

An older PIC of the Ethereals

MoshJosh · Apr 21, 2024

From the looks of it, the corals you are keeping should be pretty hardy and I would not be worries about shocking them (assuming the light intensity is fairly similar/not an EXTREME difference in PAR. . . and even then they would probably be fine). As far as the coralline algae goes, hard to say without more info. I would not assume that the lights caused it to die off, as coralline grows just fine under LEDs. Again from the looks of things you made some other substantial changes (Sump changed from picture to picture) so the coralline die off may have been cause by other factors.

Just my thoughts, hope that helps!

Hurricane Aquatics · Apr 21, 2024

In the pic with the LEDs, I don't see the refugium filled with rock that you had when you were running the T5s. Did something change?

If you had a refugium and now you don't, that changes nutrients and some other parameters possibly and would contribute to the coralline decline.

hrdneglcry · Apr 22, 2024

I had a fuge just not that giant one. I ran chaeto before though. I stopped because it did not get along woth the sinularia. The sinularia would eventually close and not open. I think it competed with it for whatever the sinualria feeds on. I never had much trouble with coraline. It grew under basic Marine Glo T8's. I do not dose and never did. But I can't get coralline to grow at all. Even with Purple Helix which worked well before. Changes are, large sump, no chaeto, and leds. I had pulled the chaetomorpha algae from the small sump already in the t5 pic.

I think the light spectrum is incorrect for it. Most people are using these LEDS. They are older. And maybe the way I run them also is less than needed.

Could the coral (GSP) be robbing the coralline of what it needs? It could have started after adding all the GSP. I had bad aiptasia so I added alot of gsp to not give aiptasia a spot. I had to use Berghia.

Hurricane Aquatics · Apr 22, 2024

hrdneglcry said:
I had a fuge just not that giant one. I ran chaeto before though. I stopped because it did not get along woth the sinularia. The sinularia would eventually close and not open. I think it competed with it for whatever the sinualria feeds on. I never had much trouble with coraline. It grew under basic Marine Glo T8's. I do not dose and never did. But I can't get coralline to grow at all. Even with Purple Helix which worked well before. Changes are, large sump, no chaeto, and leds. I had pulled the chaetomorpha algae from the small sump already in the t5 pic.

I think the light spectrum is incorrect for it. Most people are using these LEDS. They are older. And maybe the way I run them also is less than needed.

Could the coral (GSP) be robbing the coralline of what it needs? It could have started after adding all the GSP. I had bad aiptasia so I added alot of gsp to not give aiptasia a spot. I had to use Berghia.

No, the GSP isn't robbing it, but removing the chaeto after being in there a while will throw things off. The chaeto was consuming excess phosphates, etc and when you removed it, those rise up. I wouldn't panic an adjust let the system settle. Don't change a bunch of things as the chaeto removal stalled the coralline just from parameters being different. It will come back after the system settles back in.