coralfarmer
Aquarist
Just a short video of the 240 reef. i'm going to work on the video quality.
http://youtu.be/dMaZGd2O7IM
http://youtu.be/dMaZGd2O7IM
240 reef LED's vs Halides
- Thread starter coralfarmer
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woodnaquanut
Active member
This is the tank at Ceasar's, right?
What are you shooting this with? iPhone???
What are you shooting this with? iPhone???
northbay-reefer
New member
The Kesil is just not cutting it. Looks cool but for a 24 x 24 inche area you will need 4 Kesils mount in a square configuration to replace one halide IMO.
coralfarmer
Aquarist
I get great growth off of the ones on the 240. But I have had issues keeping the deep purple colored SPS under them. But for everything else they work great. Tom if you mounted 4 A150w kessils on a 24x24 square you would fry everything. I've seen some beautiful SPS dominated tanks with Kessils. The only down side with the small A150's is no controller. The 90w A350 Tuna Blues are manually adjustable. I guess there will be controllers out soon for the 90's but not for the 30's.
But i'm still a halide fan too Tom.
But i'm still a halide fan too Tom.
coralfarmer
Aquarist
John,Yep I shot that with my iPhone
coralfarmer
Aquarist
Just put a whole bunch of new stuff in it. Some beautiful Scolymia vitiensis green, red ones. The red one is at the end of the video.
woodnaquanut
Active member
Hope you don't mind a few video tips.
Always use a tripod. This rule is tough with an iPhone. Assuming you don't want to spend hundreds of $$ for a mount system, you could tape the phone to a sturdy stick. Use it like a mono pod.
Turn the iPhone 90 degrees so the pic is 'landscape' not 'portrait'. Beware there is only one correct way to turn 90 degrees. Turn the wrong way and everything will be upside down. :lol2:
Don't ever pan (move camera from side to side). This causes really crappie compression when uploaded to the web. Move from place to place with a simple cut. If your video app will allow a 'pause' just pause move camera/phone and start shooting again. If you can't pause, you'll need to edit.
Clean the lens just before you start shooting.
If your phone is new enough to support higher resolutions, go for 720. I can't tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on YouTube at full screen. 480 is not nearly as good.
Add some cool background music. If you could deliver some popcorn too, that would be great! :dance:
northbay-reefer
New member
Right now I see about 3 Kessils to a 24x24 ar Cesar and the tank still look dark compare to one halide
My understanding is that LEDs look darker to the eye, but that it is deceptive. They still pack quite a punch. It's one of the reasons many people fry corals with LEDs. They turn them up until it looks like the halide, which is way too high. The main disadvantage, as far as I know, is that the spectrum choices are limited. The new AI Vega is supposed to have something like 10 different LED colors in it. There is a YouTube video with some marketing spew about the fixture. I'd love to see it over a tank. I don't see how all this different color LEDs, spaced so far apart, are going to blend.
coralfarmer
Aquarist
Hey mike on the right side of the pic that Jakarta slimer looks like a mangrove sticking out of the water. Isn't that weird that one branch just grew tothe top and the other one is growing all those branches on side. You even got the trigger in the pic.
coralfarmer
Aquarist
John thanks for the tips I took notes so my next video is going to rock!
The a150w fixture on the 240 at Caesar's are the Ocean Blues, the middle of all three of the saltwater color blends that Kessil sells for the a150w. The Sky Blue looks much closer to a halide. Ultimately though, halides look brighter because they're putting in a lot more higher wavelength light than the Kessils. I've seen tanks with 1x a150w over a 24" square area growing SPS just fine. The issue is water depth for that fixture. The a150w really isn't a great fixture for anything deeper than 20" or so. That's when you bring more fixtures or change beam angle.
While I understand that halides are great lights and do a fantastic job of growing corals, I don't think LEDs are any less capable. I've seen the LEDs in my tank grow SPS of all colors and maintain rich, deep coloration. I did have trouble with one deep blue Tort, but it turns out that was because I was over-lighting the tank and fried the little guy.
I'm sure you've probably seen this, but Vivid is running their 800 show tank If you want to see a good example of an LED color mix that "looks" more like halide, check out the first tank shot of the Vivid LED/Halide experiment tank:
http://www.vividaquariums.com/images/12-2-11ReefAquarium.jpg
What's important to note is that the main argument against LEDs has been the lack of spectrum and lower PAR. The problem with PAR is that it vastly underestimates blue light sources, which LEDs are typically strongest in (long story short on this is that for a heavy blue LED mix the PAR numbers are probably measured as 10-20% lower than they actually are). Even still the PAR numbers under the LED side of the tank at Vivid are very good:
http://www.vividaquariums.com/images/1-27-12-parnumbers.png
Vivid also notes that they mounted the LEDs 5" higher than Ecotech recommends.
GiantBen- Agreed regarding spectrum issues. The problem with spectrum arguments against LEDs is that spectrum emitted is entirely dependent on the fixture you buy or build. You can spike LED spectrums wherever you want if you build your own fixture. If you're a big believer in UV light, add UV LEDS. If you want that halide bump in the 600nm wavelength range that halide gets, add red amber or orange LEDs. I think the spectrum issues are really more based on the fact that there is still a lot of experimenting to be done with the technology, not necessarily because the tech isn't capable, if you smell what I'm steppin' in.
I agree. I think LEDs can output pretty much whatever spectrum you want, it's just getting a fixture that can blend this. I think of it as a bulb creating a infinitly fine blend of the spectrum range the bulb outputs. LEDs are far more discreet in that each LED puts out a narrow spectrum of light. You can get as many of these different narrow spectrums as you want (AI Vega), but they require being physically spaced, which this causes blending issues (AI Vega?). I'm sure someone will figure it out, I'd love to see a Vega in person, but probably won't get the chance. Conceptually, it feels like the farther the fixture is from the tank, the betterthe blanding would be. That also makes the light waker though, which may not be a problem. Many people cook corals with LEDs or run them at 50% anyway.
coralfarmer
Aquarist
There's 5 Kessils on the on side of the 240. We had 4 and added another just to show the different colors of there lights and to show how they blend. I had great growth and color on all the SPS on that side this is what was there Acropora exquisita, Acropora efflorescens,GreenAcropora divaricata, a couple deep water speciesA. caroliniana, A. suharsonoi. A.hyacinthus,A.valida Until an incident with the salinity they were all thriving. I gave a detailed list of species to give an idea of the variety of colors that were under the lights. The only one I had a problem with color was the A. Valida and I think that was more about placement than anything else.
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