Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[d2mini]

Interesting observation. Over the last couple months have removed 3 of the six AIs I had been running. I still have two 5 foot full spectrum led strips on the front and back of the tank with the sols running lenghtwise down the tank center. Coverage is provided on as many angles as possible with this configuration. Intensity however, has been cut nearly in half during most of the day.

Coral color has become more intense under this regime. I am now seeing multiple colors on some corals as before they had only one color. I dont know if it is entirely due to light as I have managed to get everything stable for the last couple months waterwise. This is the first time in the 3 plus years since I installed the LEDs that corals have developed multi-colors though.

Very nice, Jim. Keep us updated.

 

[power boat jim]

Very nice, Jim. Keep us updated.

I will do my best, I might be able to get some pics up as we got our son a DSLR camera. He doesnt know it yet though. If things keep going as well as they over the last month or so I can finally say the tank looks as good as it could/should.

Who would have thought removing nearly half the light would wake the tank up like this.

 

[Fredfish]

...

Who would have thought removing nearly half the light would wake the tank up like this.

It shows how little we really know about coral colour and lighing

 

[markalot]

It might be positioning of the clusters as well. My bank of Maxspect LED pucks sits slightly in front of my SPS instead of directly over top. Happy accident.

I'm not convinced that's all there is to it though, but I'm not at the point in the hobby where I can point to my SPS and say 'look at those colors!'

 

[phillrodrigo]

I had gotten into it with some people many pages back (or maybe it was a different thread) on this and maybe you did a better job of explaining it but this is exactly what I was talking about when trying to say there is a difference between how a coral looks under led vs the actual color of the coral. I couldn't seem to get my point across. People are always blown away by that black light fluorescence of LED but I don't like that really blue look, so when running a more white spectrum many of my sps looked brown. Because they were brown. But after switching back to MH, these brown coral colored up and look great.

And not just coral. I have also gotten comments about how great the colors of my fish look. They have natural, bright, accurate colors.

This is something I have been wondering about. I have a reef breeders photon 48 on a 75. My acros look okay when the lights are on but in the morning before I go to work they have almost no color to them. Are you saying that halides they look kind of the same when the lights are off. Of course they won't be exactly the same. My sps may have a hue of there color but mostly brown or white.

 

[bdevillier]

I will do my best, I might be able to get some pics up as we got our son a DSLR camera. He doesnt know it yet though. If things keep going as well as they over the last month or so I can finally say the tank looks as good as it could/should.

Who would have thought removing nearly half the light would wake the tank up like this.

I have a co worker who has a large 300+ gallon tank with 5 hyrda 52's and he has been having color and PE issues. he recently reduced his lighting intensity to what he called "visually dim" compared to previous light settings but stated his corals have since been much more happy and the coloring is starting to change.

me on the other hand, I just removed a 6x39w ati t5 in preparation for a LED/t5 fixture. but while i'm waiting for the fixture I am using a 2x150w with 2 96w pc (that im not a fan of) and since I have put the halides up I have noticed both an huge increase in PE, but also colors coming back from pieces that I thought were gone for good (due to a bacteria bloom that lasted a long time after my recent tank upgrade). I will probably be running the halides for at least another month so it will be interesting to see how things change. I may not want to switch the light out other than ditch the PCs for t5s and get better DE bulbs.

 

[power boat jim]

I have a co worker who has a large 300+ gallon tank with 5 hyrda 52's and he has been having color and PE issues. he recently reduced his lighting intensity to what he called "visually dim" compared to previous light settings but stated his corals have since been much more happy and the coloring is starting to change.

me on the other hand, I just removed a 6x39w ati t5 in preparation for a LED/t5 fixture. but while i'm waiting for the fixture I am using a 2x150w with 2 96w pc (that im not a fan of) and since I have put the halides up I have noticed both an huge increase in PE, but also colors coming back from pieces that I thought were gone for good (due to a bacteria bloom that lasted a long time after my recent tank upgrade). I will probably be running the halides for at least another month so it will be interesting to see how things change. I may not want to switch the light out other than ditch the PCs for t5s and get better DE bulbs.

My tank too looks much dimmer with just 3 sols running. When the other LED strips come on it looks much brighter. The corals seem to like the dimmer look much better though.

 

[markalot]

Dim with LED is my biggest issue. It's the lack of a green peak to add visual brightness without bringing in a broad spectrum. Look at the green peaks in MH and T5 specs. That's for our eyes.

 

[socalmonty]

After looking at pictures of my tank from 2011 and comparing them to my tank now, I just switched back to my old 2x400W MH/VHO fixture (my tank is 60Lx18Dx30T) after three years with high-end LEDs. Maybe it was all due to my inability to dial in the 8-channel LEDs correctly but I'm tired of trying. There's very little coralline left in my tank and the live rock used to be covered with it. All my ricordia are gone and so are most of my zoas and palys. Everything just looks dull. I know how good it can look with MHs so I'm just going to grin and bear the Edison bills and the bulb replacements.

 

[markalot]

Since my last post just above I pulled the trigger.

I'm going with t5's, ATI sunpower 60", now on order. I can't complain about the Maxspect Razors, the coral from viewing the top down was fantastic, but I prefer more reflected light that looks brighter to my eyes.

 

[chill86]

I had one of those cool looking led's and lost all color and growth shortly after. I quickly switched back to a 400w radium mh and still have the leds up there for the blue look at night.

 

[grigsy]

Hardly anybody uses LED panels that are 5 years old - some probably just want to upgrade, but it is still real for some reason. I am not saying that they will be worn out, only that they don't seem to stay on tanks that long. I think that a 3 year CBA is a better estimate of how long they might get used. Also, you will see significant savings in heater cost with the MH, if indeed you need heaters a lot - heating the tank is the biggest cost for me in Colorado.

Agree. Its few and far between that people use their LEDs for 5 years.

Also, heaters.....that is another reason why I switched back to metal halides from Radions. My heater was on all the time so where was my electrical savings from LEDs?

Plus, my coral growth is much better under my halides.

To me - after using both - I prefer using metal halides.

 

[SPS_Addiction]

I switched back to T5's from LED due to poor coverage of LED's, but I think I'm going to give halides a try.

 

[Wazzel]

Almost 8 months on LED and still happy with the performance. It is not magic or better than MH or T-5, but definitely comparable (in certain operating ranges) from what I am seeing. I like the puck concept, but AI could do a better job with the layout of the pucks. The 4 in a row really concentrates the light. A square fixture the size of the long dimension with the pucks in the corners would be great. Especially if they added a puck in the center to make an "X" pattern.

The LED fixture manufactures should look at offering two options for diode configurations. Something along the lines of a high color temp and a low color temp option. IMO those trying to run at higher color temps are going to continue to struggle because of how much power they loose by turning down all the non-blue channels.

If you want a 20k radium like tank, do yourself a favor and stick with Mh. If you like 10-12k tanks LED is a very viable alternative.

 

[MisterP]

Does anyone think if the light manufacturers could come up with some LED clusters that were pre-designed to be 10k, 14k, 20k etc. the lights would be better used? I know that the user can dial in the look they want but lets get a tight scientific range of numbers for each spectrum like a MH bulb offers and make it so that the user could select, as I said, 10k, 14k, etc.

What about reflectors for the clusters as an improvement if any of the LED companies read these threads.

One of my many opinions on LEDs as some of you may know via the SPS thread is LEDs have sub-par coverage for the $$$ and are just to easy to tinker with. Most users constantly change this color chip or that color chip and even though they say full spectrum light there is just to much for the user to screw up.

People need choices but lets get some hard settings if you will for the guy that wants a Radium look or a 10k Reeflux look. Better yet why not copy the spectrum off popular MH bulbs and make that an option to choose?

 

[Wazzel]

I am sure they could if they wanted to make color temp pucks. I think that would be a benefit. Most people know the general color they like their tank to be. Color temp pucks would allow full power operation and probably help with some of the high color temp operating issues.

I think more clusters spread out with less diodes per cluster could accomplish spreading the light without the losses that come with using a reflector.

 

[d2mini]

If you want a 20k radium like tank, do yourself a favor and stick with Mh. If you like 10-12k tanks LED is a very viable alternative.

Really?
All the LED tanks I see are blue as blue can be. I know this can be adjusted so many people like to crank the blues.
MH has some great bulb options in the 10-14k range.
Even the "20k" Radium looks more like a 14k. At least the 250w does.

 

[power boat jim]

Really?
All the LED tanks I see are blue as blue can be. I know this can be adjusted so many people like to crank the blues.
MH has some great bulb options in the 10-14k range.
Even the "20k" Radium looks more like a 14k. At least the 250w does.

Its actually pretty easy to emulate any bulb temp with a newer LED set up. Just put a white sheet of paper under the LEDs and you can adjust the sliders or whatever you use to adjust the colors anywhere from dark purple to bright white.

 

[Wazzel]

Really?
All the LED tanks I see are blue as blue can be. I know this can be adjusted so many people like to crank the blues.
MH has some great bulb options in the 10-14k range.
Even the "20k" Radium looks more like a 14k. At least the 250w does.

From my nonscientific personal observation and what I have been following in the discussions, yes.

When you crank the blues and drop everything else you loose lots of power, which in my opinion makes it difficult to light the tank adequately. I think that is where the need for multiple panels and the shading issues come from.

The August TOTM was LED lit and very white. I run my tank very white, hot and long and I am not getting the shading issues, yet. We will see how that goes as things grow in. My bird's nest is still pink and the core at about tennis ball sized.

Not the best of shots, but take a look.

Mh does have some great bulbs in all the color temp ranges. I don't make my comments in a attempt to detract from the good track record of Mh in the hobby. I am doing my best to give non-biased feed back. I feel I am having positive results with my operating program.

 

[d2mini]

ok, i see what you are saying.

I ran my LED tank in the 12-14k range which looked pretty white.
Still failed IMHO, but rather than intensity, I think it was overall coverage that was the weak point. I've been saying all along that we need twice as many pucks/fixtures/etc than what the manufacturers are recommending for a given tank size. The reason I don't think intensity is the problem, even at whiter temps is that we can still burn coral if turned up too high.