I can tell you're upset, who wouldn't be, LEDs are expensive and if you don't get results then it will feel like wasted money. But......people have had great success with them so what's the difference between the ones who had no success and the ones who did?
I think you hit the nail on the head with the first one, the Hydra52/26 and Radions have a great deal of adjustment options, and to the naked eye we cant see some of it, so people don't know how to set them up correctly. I'll admit I have no idea which colours need to be higher or which should be lower, I run mine through my Apex at 14k and am getting good growth, maybe I just got lucky.
The other difference seems to be water parameters, there'sdinformation on threads out there how corals work on a corrolation of light and parameter levels, I remember reading about situations where lighting had been changed and SPS growth/colour declined, then Alk levels were dropped and colours/growth returned. I don't know the exact ins and outs of this but, I run an ULNS with Alk below 8 constantly and obviously LED lighting, I'm getting growth and colours. I have SPS frags that are ice blue, pink, toxic green, some grown under MH, some under LED, in the 6 weeks I've had them they all still have the bright colours and all are encrusting rocks. Which would suggest LEDs work to me, but there's so many different variables that it's difficult to pinpoint why.
