Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

Led definitely can grow coral, not debating that. Corals also look best under pure blue Led without question.

I just get tired of hearing how cost effective it is in the long run when people havent even owned the fixture for 5+ years. There's nothing wrong with spending big money on a fancy led but making false claims isn't helpful to the community either. IIRC didnt a certain gen of AI's blue pucks just die after 2 years of use? It'lll get there eventually and when it does, I'll be swapping over completely, just not yet:)

I think that is a highly opinionated statement.
 
I think that is a highly opinionated statement.

I guess. The statement i should have made is is "Leds are best at showing off colors unseen in daylight spectrums". Personally I hate the look of pure blue leds but i can appreciate what they do, ie; orange passion or should i say blue tenuis?
 
I am in the process of gearing up for my next tank build (a 300DD) and took the opportunity to take the plunge and buy off the shelf LED fixtures for a change (I normally DIY everything).

On Friday I bought 4 x AP700 and 3 x 80W LET retrofit kits. I will be using 3 of the AP700's and 2 of the LET kits for the 300, and will use the remaining AP700 with the other LET kit on my existing 120H. Since this is all taking place at the same time as a house move, I wanted a simple option for the existing 120H that would be easy to get going. The 120 is still at my old house, and just moving it will be nightmare enough without having to work out lights.

Dennis
 
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Can anyone tell me if on single ended MH bulbs, what's supposed to be the bulb tip orientation? I don't recall from years ago. Up? To the side or aimed towards the bottom?
 
Can anyone tell me if on single ended MH bulbs, what's supposed to be the bulb tip orientation? I don't recall from years ago. Up? To the side or aimed towards the bottom?

I have run then both ways with no problem, but they tend to give a better spread with them run horizontally.
 
I wanted to go back as soon as i first bought leds. I just cant afford to switch right now and the high cost of running fans and halides is preventing me. If anything i will go back to t5 or vho.
 
BRS should have gotten the ATI Led Hybrid instead of the ap700's and retrofit kits. These kits' reflectors dont come even close to the ATI ones, and in my opinion is the reason ATI fixtures are different from all other T5's ou there.

IMO the ATI fixture would be a much more guaranteed success
 
I wanted to go back as soon as i first bought leds. I just cant afford to switch right now and the high cost of running fans and halides is preventing me. If anything i will go back to t5 or vho.

No reason at all to go VHO. T5 is a good option for those that can't afford to really good LEDs - they're affordable, reasonably efficient, and effective.
 
After three years of running LEDs I have decided to finally go back to halides.

Here is what I have found.

On my old 90g corner 2 hydras worked beautifully. The 90g corner had a small footprint and these lights produced very little shadowing. I was thrilled:

http://imgur.com/a/9n4B5

In these pics EVERY SPS you see (not a lot) started smaller than one inch, and grew wonderfully.

I then updated to my 125 standard and purchased a hydra 52 for the middle, and the two older hydras handled the sides. Three lights total. All of my SPS died, now to be fair at the time my alk was acting insane and things were not very stable due to the move. So once I had things stable after the move I tried with more SPS and LPS. I have not been able to keep an SPS coral alive for more than 2 months using these LEDs. I attribute this 100% due to coverage and shadowing after I got water stable. At this point my water has been stable for well over 5 - 6 months, and I can't keep them from slowly but surely dying from the top down. I have made slow changes, fast changes ... all of the things, and I just can't keep SPS alive.

I have decided to go the Cebu sun route with halides and T5s as I do not want to purchase 2-3 more 500$ LEDs and then go through the trouble of getting the spectrum correct again. Such a painful way to go about this.

So what I will say is, unless you have a small tank or the money to really get good coverage out of these LEDs... Then do not bother. If you can afford the coverage and have the patience to make them work ... then they will work well! I mean no hate toward LEDs, I loved these when the tank was smaller and allowed them to function at their max.. I will keep them for my next build which may be a 60g cube for just SPS to try this again.

My water husbandry has always been on point up until this 125, it has given me a lot of problems. After a year and a half I am ready to try something new for lighting if only as a last resort. I wound up going with M58 ballasts due to impatience, and USHIO 14k Bulbs with 2 Super blue ATI, 1 Coral Plus, and 1 Super purple - I hope that makes the tank look "ok" - I plan to upgrade to M80s and Radiums when I can find 3 M80 ballasts at the same time.

I feel bad for leaving team LED - and if it was not for the cost of 3 more Hydras (and upgrading my existing to 52) I would stick with them. Another interesting observation... SPS placed under the 52 would die within weeks. . When placed under the standard Hydras they would grow out some, but eventually shadow themselves at the base ... resulting in death. The standard Hydra so far has given "better" results than the 52, for both SPS and LPS.

Here are some pics of the tank now, apologies as it looks like death.

http://imgur.com/RwF1ufZ

http://imgur.com/LAkpEKh

http://imgur.com/XJWVprc

I tried tilting the lights around, placing them higher, lower, all of it. Shadowing all over, and eventually the SPS would simply starve at points and die out relatively quickly.

Params:

Alk: 146 = 8.1 DKH
P04: 0.0 - (this goes from 0 to .04)
PH: 8.0
Cal: 440
Nitrate: 2-5
Mag: 1400

We'll see what happens. Lights get here Thursday.
 
After three years of running LEDs I have decided to finally go back to halides.

So what I will say is, unless you have a small tank or the money to really get good coverage out of these LEDs... Then do not bother.

My water husbandry has always been on point up until this 125, it has given me a lot of problems.

I feel bad for leaving team LED

We'll see what happens. Lights get here Thursday.


Did you ever measure PAR?
 
Johnseye - no unfortunately. My club has one but the thing is always being used up. I should just bite the bullet and buy one truthfully.

I think my mistake was mostly messing with the spectrum. I have it set to currently "match" a 20k radium.. Right now the tank is very blue, but the Anemones love it, as do most of my LPS. The only coral I really have issues with is SPS.
 
Did you ever measure PAR?

I did, this weekend with my Seneye. Here are the readings I got in our 450. The only weird one was at 24". As with all PAR meters, they jump around allot. These seemed to be the most stable readings. These readings are under Hamilton Cebu Sun 400W MH fixtures with True Actinic T5.

Surface:
PAR: 387 LUX: 14079

6":
PAR: 363 LUX: 12983

12":
PAR: 336 LUX: 10719

18":
PAR: 328 LUX: 11239

24":
PAR: 265 LUX: 9045

30":
PAR: 309 LUX: 10072

34"
PAR: 295 LUX: 9550
 
Johnseye - no unfortunately. My club has one but the thing is always being used up. I should just bite the bullet and buy one truthfully.

I think my mistake was mostly messing with the spectrum. I have it set to currently "match" a 20k radium.. Right now the tank is very blue, but the Anemones love it, as do most of my LPS. The only coral I really have issues with is SPS.
I think a PAR measurement would help a lot to understand why the SPS corals aren't doing well.

With MH you can adjust PAR by height of the fixture but with some LEDs you also have the option of changing the intensity. This has a big impact on the coral, especially SPS.
 
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