Any serious SPS collectors use LED?

[Big E]

See post #67.

Thanks for filling in the rest of the story.

Your comments are so true about coverage............something all these LED manufacturers grossly overstate.

 

[larcat]

I dunno man. I have 3 radion pros with wide angle lenses over what is effectively a (fancy) 40b. I *still* notice some shadowing that IMHO wouldn't be there with a bigass reflector and a halide, or a bigass T5 fixture.

Quite honestly, I probably have so many units over my tank that I do not notice any material shadowing. With five units over a 6' tank, I am pretty covered.
All that really says is that start-up cost was less of a consideration for me that other factors.

What I would really like to see is a panel that was primarily LED with a couple T5's integrated into it rather than a cluster approach.

And Larcat, you are in this hobby. You ARE NUTS. We all are.

 

[jda]

MH are highly inefficient light producers. Most of the energy is converted into heat, not light.

Unless your fixture is using Cree LEDs, then they are probably less efficient in radiated watts than a MH... something like a Radion Pro is about on the same level as MH for efficiency. Don't think that because MH put out IR that they somehow sacrifice output in the 350-700 range... they put out IR too... which I really love since heating is BY FAR my #1 cost in Colorado.

Anybody see Sanjay's speech at MACNA. If not, I can summarize from memory so I will probably screw this up some - there is no real efficiency in using LED unless you can 1). do with less light (most people do) or 2). get away with not having to run a chiller all the time. His observations was that he needed 3 panels to replace a single MH, which many have said for years on this board, and that those three panels will use more watts than a MH would. Of course, if you can get away with using one panel, then that might be better but that also means that you should not have probably been using a MH in the first place, or maybe a 70 or 150W MH. He would not even touch on color in the speech, but he had some words offline.

Since this post was about serious SPS collectors, take a look at the few who do use LED. 320 reef was one... look at his fixture count... three per 2x2 area (or so it looks). There are plenty more. Anybody who has used MH and LED on a serious SPS tank could hardly never make the argument that one panel is enough... maybe two, but more likely three. If they do, I wonder if they ever experienced SPS in another fashion to know what they are missing. By the time that you get into two or three, you are already over the wattage that a single MH uses.

 

[larcat]

The new ATI LED fixtures *may* have the right idea -- Moving the LEDs to the edges of the fixture and, importantly, using reflectors instead of lenses.

Quite honestly, I probably have so many units over my tank that I do not notice any material shadowing. With five units over a 6' tank, I am pretty covered.
All that really says is that start-up cost was less of a consideration for me that other factors.

What I would really like to see is a panel that was primarily LED with a couple T5's integrated into it rather than a cluster approach.

And Larcat, you are in this hobby. You ARE NUTS. We all are.

 

[VegasMike]

Nanighan - I have only ever sold one such setup, so I do remember you. You must be talking about the 450 gallon system I set up just before selling you the 150. Talk about lighting, I think I had 8 250 watt pendants on that tank at the time. I changed that out to 4 400 watt units with huge reflectors. I was not happy with that either, so I added 4 2' VHO's in between each of those. I still never got the colors I wanted.

Given the separate AC in that room, the dehumidistat/exhaust fan set-up and that lighting, my electrical bill was staggering. I never knew just how much until I dismantled the tank before I moved to Charlotte. I sold it a few months before the move and my electrical bill went down about $200/month and that was with selling the tank in May and moving in August.

Looks like you are in NYC now. I am now in Charlotte. I was very happy to get away from LV.

 

[VegasMike]

jda - I think you are correct assuming you could run the fixtures at 100%, but I do not know of any that do. That answers the question though as to why you need multiple units to cover the same area and cover the the shadowing effect. For me, I have great colors starting to pop, especially blues, purples and greens. Reds on a couple Montis appear to be getting there as well, time will tell. My priority was more about heat avoidance than initial cost.

The power output of lighting taken just for that is probably similar to MH, but the heat issue is no comparison. But, that is my opinion and driver.

I am happy with my tanks right now and where they appear to be headed.

On a more experimental note, I have Live Aquaria send my a Spathulata by mistake about 4 weeks ago that came in very brown. It is starting to slowly show signs of getting the red back that I had seen on their site. Time will tell. I also got a very expensive piece of the Microclados that color shifted initially, but is starting to regain it's green/pink coloration. Patience is key here as it is will all things reef.

 

[Wazzel]

Something else to think about in the great light debate is how you want your tank to look. If you want the radium look I would suggest not going LED, especially AI or Ecotec. To get that blue look you have to drop out lots of non-blue channels and you loose lots of power. Which could be one reason people feel the need to 2-3 panels per 2x2. If you like white tanks with a hint on blue (think 10k with actincs in MH/T-5) LEDs can make that happen while using most of the power of the unit.

Since I like the 10k/actinic look LEDs were viable for me. If you like the radium look please go MH, you will be disappointed if you try that with LED.

 

[jda]

Put a kill-a-watt on your Radion, or whatever, even at 60% and see what you are pulling at the wall. When I had a Radion 3, it was pulling over 2.25 amps (247 watts) at 80-85%... I forget. The cheap chineese fixtures were pulling 1.9 amps at 80% and 2.1 at 100%. Your fixture might be using more than you think. The ramp up/down makes the math tricky, but a good meter will keep track for a whole day. I would love to see some numbers posted.

 

[Wazzel]

Put a kill-a-watt on your Radion, or whatever, even at 60% and see what you are pulling at the wall. When I had a Radion 3, it was pulling over 2.25 amps (247 watts) at 80-85%... I forget. The cheap chineese fixtures were pulling 1.9 amps at 80% and 2.1 at 100%. Your fixture might be using more than you think. The ramp up/down makes the math tricky, but a good meter will keep track for a whole day. I would love to see some numbers posted.

I did a basic electrical comparison when I did my hardware one. With estimated run times and what not there was a minor savings using LED, but IMO not enough to make it the deciding factor. It is even less of a factor now since I used 8 hr 250 watt MH & 12 hr 24 watt T-5 vs 12 hr AI Hydra 52 (135 watt published). I actually run my hydras over 14 hours from the start of my sun up ramp until the end of my sundown ramp. Basically 2300 watt hours for MH/T-5 vs 1900 watt hours for my LED. IF I had gone MH/T-5 I may have even run the MH less than 8.

 

[MisterP]

I agree that LEDS will get better as we progress but I don't think we are there yet.

Jda nails everything I am saying home with respect to actual power usage.

And even though I am misinformed so say some. I hear a lot of what I am saying being repeated and even the folks using LED like myself finding that to get really good coverage like T5 or a big Lumenbright reflector you can't achieve it with a couple of panels on a 6 ft tank as some have said.

People talk about efficiency and while LEDS do put out very little heat....Watts are Watts. 170w LED is the same as 170w T5 as 170 w MH.

 

[VegasMike]

Yes, but to ignore heat and it's associated costs is also not telling the entire story.

Even if the two light units themselves consumed the exact same wattage, the cost of the additional added heat to the environment (both to the tank and its' surroundings) and what it takes to deal with such heat cannot be completely ignored.

It has been said that "watts are watts", but what watts. It is not as simple as comparing only the light units themselves.

 

[jda]

For me, the heat is a HUGE advantage. No humidity here and my heaters get a huge break when the halides are on - heating is BY FAR my #1 cost. I totally get that not everybody needs heat. However, when I lived in the midwest with 100+ degree summers and 90% humidity, my chiller would still only run 10-15 days a year a few times for 5-10 minutes.

Please don't include supplemental T5 in a MH to LED comparison. Either can be used without and they are more of a "choice" instead of a requirement. For most good MH setups, the T5 can barely be seen with the halides on - you can easily just get a better bulb, save the electricity and just use the T5 for dusk/dawn.

BTW - I don't think that LED is going to get any better. More mix of diodes... sure. Different configurations... probably. More diodes... yup. ...but still more of the same. Until somebody makes a chip with a wide range spectrum, you are still piecemeal. If Phillips (IIRC) is right and the only efficiency in LED is the limited spectrum, then wide range chips are not coming anytime soon... and if they are, then there won't be any savings in perceived electricity. I think that LED is more of the same in the future. I guess that one improvement might be to have a 360 degree output diode so that you could reflect it, but it would need to be VERY powerful.

 

[Wazzel]

Why not include the T-5? If it is part of your lighting system even if dust and dawn it is a cost of lighting your tank.

When I ran MH just about every body that did had VHO actincs. Has that changed much in the past few years?

 

[jda]

I love VHO Super Actinics, but 14K Phoenix and 20K Radium don't need any supplement and most don't use any anymore. I would venture to quess that the typical user anymore doesn't even know what a VHO Super Actinic looks like, or else more people would use them.

10K needed some supplement, but not many use them anymore. FWIW - I am going back to 10K Hammy on M80 with VHO Super Actinics. Upping my electrical bill, but I can handle the 8 cents a day.

 

[Wazzel]

It is all about what you like. If MH would have been my choice I was going to go 10K with actinic. I had XM10k and VHO super actinic on my last tank.

 

[chema]

For me, the heat is a HUGE advantage.

Come to the south of Europe from May to October and you'll find out what a huge advantage heat is. Not to speak of the noise produced by those machines. I wouldn't stand one of them in my living room.

 

[MisterP]

Yes, but to ignore heat and it's associated costs is also not telling the entire story.

Even if the two light units themselves consumed the exact same wattage, the cost of the additional added heat to the environment (both to the tank and its' surroundings) and what it takes to deal with such heat cannot be completely ignored.

It has been said that "watts are watts", but what watts. It is not as simple as comparing only the light units themselves.

I never ignored heat look at my analysis on the first page that includes chillers.

 

[VegasMike]

Masterp - You said that "Jda nails everything I am saying home with respect to actual power usage". That is what I am referring to about not telling the entire story.

Say what you will, people need to take everything into account and decide for themselves what their priorities are.

Can you have a nice SPS tank with LED's. My OPINION is yes.

And, my opinion about your analysis is that it is flawed as well. Not every variable has or can be factored in such as how much more work your home mechanical might or might not do to handle the extra heat that MH throw off. Everyone's case is different. I don't want to even deal with that issue, so I chose to take that option out of the equation.

 

[jda]

Since this thread is about serious collecting, here is my current stock list if anybody wants to judge if I am serous, or not. It has taken me years and years to collect these. To each their own...

RR: wolverine, avengers, flaming yellow orchid, MC matrix
WT: tina's pink orgasm, double doozy, margarita acro
Tyree Old School: purple monster, ultimate stag (GC), MOP, Red Dragon, Mr Pacman, Pink Lemonade, 20K, $500 efflo, USC Blue Diamond
General: GARF bonsai, becker tort, myagi tort, leng sy cap
Gonzo: blueberry diesel (one of my favorites and a must-have IMO), bio freeze, rasp lemonade, yellow matrix
ORA: pearlberry, hawkins, OG blue tort, newer blue tort
RMF: flaming candle, Matt V hornet
JFox: shocktart
AA: Christmas mirabilis (one of my favorites)

No montis (except for Leng Sy), birdsnest or poci - I have to cut them out too fast and I hate it when they spawn.

For baseline reference, anybody else care to post their along with their lighting opinions? I think that it might help the OP and others.

 

[VegasMike]

jda - Had the same experience with Birdnest and Poci, just grew too fast and spawned too much, had the stuff everywhere, and that was with LED's.