May be switching to a 175 watt Halide

Don't need to run a skimmer with the minimal feeding and the water changes. I think you are on the right track buddy. BTW, I have had my battles with my LED's too but I feel that is from me trying to go too hard and cranking them up too high.

 

I've had them set high, low and in between with similar results.

 

I switched back to t5 from LED. I have a thread up on the results and ill try get some more pics into it. I'm not going to do the LED hate, but I couldn't personally be happier with the results. LED works for some folks and they should enjoy and be happy with them. For those it doesn't work for, switch. Why suffer when there are alternatives that work?

 

Your birdsnests exploded in the two months that they've been under T-5s. For me, I like LEDs, I just don't like the results. I had better growth with 2 t-5s than I've had with 55 LEDs (no SPS though). The colors were better too.

 

Out of curiosity, what are the units your measuring alk in? Alk in the 4-5 range on dKH seems pretty low... I'm sure i'm missing something though. I did find bottomless mimosa's earlier so my error margin is a bit wide. Hopefully that buys me a stupid question. =)

 

Sounds like a fantastic day. Meq/L are what my units are. It's roughly 10 dKH.

 

Yup that explains it. Knew something was off.

 

I was totally in love with my LEDs. They were cool, light, elegant looking, controllable, and didn't need bulb changes. But if they don't work for me, they don't work for me.

 

Something I am noticing with mine. Any minor change in the tank, my corals lighten up on the verge of bleaching. For example, when I started running gfo the first time. Everything lightened up and xenia melted. I'm thinking that was due to water clarity vs. the lighting. The other day, I put my 90 degree optics on and raised my fixture up a bit without changing the intensity. I'm now noticing a bit of lightening in my corals again. I did this with the addition of starting a vinegar regimen but I don't think the vinegar would have that effect that fast. I truly think that people under estimate LED's, especially the blues. One reason I say this, from my observation of my tank, it seems that the higher light loving corals (acros and encrusting montis) seem to not be affected at all by the changes but my plating acros and montis do. For some reason, the blues seem to penetrate much better with LED than actinics do with say t5 or pc lighting. This is just what I have seen with my own tank.

 

I wish i could get to the point of where my corals could lighten up lol. Did a 1 gallon water change and i am at 1.025.