Any LED users on BIG tanks?

[Nanook]

I've got a couple tanks that I am leaning towards the LED investment, but not sure the technology is there yet and it is still very expensive. I have a couple large tanks, one is 96x30x30 and uses 4 250 watt metal halides and 4 110 watt VHO.

The other tank is a 60x60x30 cube and uses 4 400 watt metal halides and 4 110 watt VHO. The electricity, cooling and bulb replacement costs are definitely high and electricity is going up. I would need to piecemeal the lighting fixtures together over time due to budget and I don't want to start buying lights and then 6 months later something way better comes along. Just wanting a conversation on LED and large tanks really...

 

[BDean]

I've got a 210 with LEDs (6ft) and my freind has a 9 ft 300 with the same LEDs. We bought a DIY kit, and so far I love them they are 100% then halides in my opinion.

 

[CUZ]

tagging along, next tank is 96lx30Hx40D
really wanting to go led but before spending that kind of cash a person really needs to be sure which route is the best way to go....

 

[SPotter]

I know some guys in my local club that are using the new Apollo reef solarblast ultra fixtures. They are dimmable qnd now have uv leds. one of the guys sold his radion and switched over. each fixture covers a 31" area and go for $399. they the Chinese fixtures but look like them. they have a video on thet site doing a par test. at 24" they were getting numbers in the 500 range. so they increased the spread for wider coverage and at 40" from the surface still had par readings in the 160 range. definitely worth a look.

Steve

 

[pgaudreau]

I have 265 Gallon, 7 feet by 24 deep by 30 tall and using 4 radeons. Extremely please with the light and the lack of heat. I dont even have to use a chiller

 

[Rploaded]

I will be using 5 x reef tech LEDs over my 120x33x38. I have no doubt in LEDs ability to grow corals..... Make the switch you won't regret it. If your looking to save some money the DIY kits are pretty nice.

 

[kentrob11]

Nookie- I've been beating this one to death as well...Chadfarmer has the Apollo's over his tank and seems to like them....They seem to be the best bang for the buck at the moment!

 

[SPotter]

Apollo told me i would need 3 on my 72x3628 but might have a little drop off. I am thinking I could try three and then flank them with 60" T5 purple's if I have too.

 

[Dustin1300]

Tagging along. I'm going to do some testing on my 140 gallon frag/grow out tank which should be up soon and I've been considering Apollo fixture on 1/4, Radion on 1/4, and IceCap MH/T5 fixture I currently have on the other half. Once I'm confident in the fixtures I'll be building out my DT and will likely use LED if all testing goes well.

The Radions are nice but the more and more I consider it they have too many features I really don't need if I like the colors of the Apollo fixture. I'm having DT delivered today (96X48X30) and if I'm going by the 2'X2' coverage rule on the LED fixtures I'd need 8, possibly 10-12 on the Radion because EcoTech also recommends a fixture per 40 gallons on deeper tanks such as mine.

Excluding this factor and saying I'd need 8 fixtures to cover the DT the Apollo would set me back $3,292 which includes the hanging kit and Apex VDM module pricing. The Radion on the other hand would be $6359.84 w/ hanging kits. (I'd likely need to add more Radion Fixtures as there rule says 15 if you go by 40 gallon rule!)

 

[edandsandy]

tagging along... we are considering LEDs as well... we need to replace all our T5's and we are considering LEDs.... we are still running our (4) 400w MH using 20k Radiums
Our tank is 96x36x24 mainly SPS.

 

[albano]

upgraded to a 8' 450g DT in June '10...got a good deal (on RC) on some 6' Solaris I5 LED units. Since the tank is 40" front to back, I used 2 units, supplemented with eight 4' T5s.
Been very happy with LEDs and have had very good growth...even SPS on sandbed, which is 35" below the lights. (most SPS were frags/very sm. colonies 2 yrs ago)
Did not use chiller past 2 summers, first time in past 7 years.
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[bullitr]

Check Peter's Nineballs tank

There is few people here with LEDs I am one of them
Unfortunate my tank is not as amazing as most tank that I've seen under LEDs mostly because mine is not dimmable and heavy bioload

Since my whole lightning system cost less than 1k
You get what you pay for .
Coverage is very good but par is too much 250+ on the sand bed

 

[Dustin1300]

Lawrence,

That tank looks amazing. What type of lighting are you running on it?

 

[bullitr]

Thanks Dustin
My acropora is brown from too much light but slowly coming back.
It's a cheap 3 watts bridgelux from china non dimmable ( got them from eBay for 180 ) I will try to modify the unit by changing a couple of bulbs to my liking and drivers to make it dimmable. it will still be a lot cheaper than One AI since the coverage on this is pretty good About 36x30 (It has 55* 3 watts per unit) if I go with AI I wil need at least 8 .

Right I am playing with DIY from Hong Kong to practice soldering and with color blending.

 

[7Reef]

I have a mish mosh of DIY leds on my 84x30x30. The left side has a 24"x15" consisting of 60 3 watt chinese leds, $3 each. The right is 20"x15" with 60 3 watt chinese leds, $1 each. Both have a mix of 2 blues to 1 white. The center of the tank has 2 50 watt pendants, 1 white and 1 blue. the white it towards the front and blue towards the back. These are chinese leds on heatsinks with fans. No lenses on any of them. I eventually plan to use the pendants over the whole tank.

 

[slovan]

I have been running AI LEDs for about a year now on two separate systems (120g display and 46g frag). The 120g was supplemented with T5s and the 46g was strictly LED. My 120 display was originally a MH+T5 fixture but I gutted out the MH and replaced them with the LEDs. I didn't really notice any growth differences and color was a mixed bag on my SPS. Some didn't do as well under LEDs while some flourished and looked so much better. Regardless of what you go with, there will be some give and take. I don't think there is one system that trumps all. That being said, I have decided to go with a combination of MH and LEDs on my new system (300g). I am trying this out to see if I can get good coloration out of all the corals since they will get a mixture of both types of lighting. IMO, I don't think LEDs are quite there yet but at least its heading that direction.

Here's the Giesemann spectra fixture I retrofitted with the AIs.

Here's the lighting on my new 300g.

 

[Bennytheblenny]

I run 6 Reeftech LEDs on my 900 gallon tank and have had great results.

 

[Garage1217]

Custom build on my 225G. Older build running older 120 cree XR-E leds. Running D3 royal blue and around a 4500K white. Color rendering is actually stunning. Reds and oranges are perfect IMO.

Also built a motorized lift for it and a bunch of other goodies.

Some early pics. As with any lighting, showing what it looks like in person is next to impossible. Would never go back to halides to note, I have been running led prior to this for a few years now.

Some pics of my new SPS acquisitions for this tank under the leds. Corals are a little ticked as I just turned on the lights to grab some pics / the reason for no polyp extension.

 

[Vince]

I am running 6 apollo leds on my 400 gallon 96x36x27. I am getting very good results. I switched from 400 watt halides and VHOs. It took about 2 months for sps to get used to the light. I had some bleaching and browning but have now recovered . The LPS and softies did very well from the get go.

 

[Phishguy]

im currently deciding myself what leds for my 210g. Im toying with the idea just getting the 120w ebay units because of price and then upgrade to something newer and better next year. I have been looking at rapidled for diy with crees and eshine in either the 48x3w X3 or 24x3w X6. I dont know which makes the most sense right now. I hope this thread keeps getting bigger to help me decide