Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[jda]

I get best growth and color rendition under 6500k. Illumination is not good. 20K has better illumination, but growth is slower and rendered color is not as good, IMO.

I use 14K Phoenix and 20k Radium (they are really like a 14k, more than a 20k), because this is a good compromise to do both. I also use these because I do not need to supplement them at all, which saves in fixtures, bulbs and electricity.

I do grow clams and acros in my frag tank under 6500K bulbs (6.5k - did I do that right?). I just want the clams to live through the first three months (the tough part) and the frags to grow as fast as possible in here.

I don't care about potential. I come from a baseball background (players with every potential trait and skill getting passed by those who can execute) and then was a 10x SE in the valley (grads and PhD candidates from top-5 engineering schools full of potential that did not last three months). Potential can suck it as far as I am concerned - I have seen lives wasted banking on potential when nobody would nut-up and tell people the truth about what they were. I digress... Once somebody actually turns that potential into something, then I all ears - this is why I pay attention to LED tech so that I am ready if it comes. I am NOT going to be the one who turns that potential into something - I know this for sure.

The academic in me loves potential. I am a graduate of a good Engineering School and loved my time there talking about all kinds of "potential" projects like solar, perpetual energy, etc. However, that side of me is depressed by the side that needs results... probably 75/25. Results send my kids to college, built my retirement, built my past and future and grow my corals. Most people on boards are looking for results, not academia, so I like to point out the differences.

Then, the business person in me realizes that all of the potential in the world will never get developed if there is not big-time money to be made, or an absolute love and commitment - you need either, but both works best. When I was at Google, we shut down a project because they thought that it would only be worth 5 billion a year in 2-3 years and that was not good enough of a gain for them - nobody loved this project. LED innovation for reefing will need to come out of love and respect since a big pile of cash is probably not there. When you take the established companies, they are working out of love and commitment to their employees, community, lifestyle, etc and will keep going as long as they can make the numbers work and make just enough profit for everybody to get by - it is a different paradigm when starting fresh.

...so I am interested, but I do not care about potential. If somebody figures it out, I will pay them for their work and use it. Until then, I just pay attention so that I can find the parallels in development in the next new thing a few decades from now... either in success or failure.

 

[oreo57]

So why is 6500k "the best"?
IR and UV are probably equal in the other MH's spectrum..

See where this is going.......

BETTER 6500k diodes:

 

[shred5]

Oreo - you are almost there...

The last part is to realize that there is no efficiency once you can capture the whole spectrum. MH does have waste from 2 to 5% (on what we tested) on IR above what anybody could argue is useful at 850nm... there is no getting this back. Other than this, the replace the same radiated watts with the same spectrum is a wash. There is also some ballast loss in some ballasts just like power supply loss.

A good spectrometer in preferably an integrating sphere can easily tell you this. Lots of Engineering Schools have these that you can probably use if you ask. I asked twice and got access at two different schools to use theirs.

The only efficiences in LED are perceived by either cutting spectrum, or using an inappropriate tool like a LUX meter that does not tell the whole story. Twice the lux at a wattage from a diode made to only deliver spectrum in the LUX meter range 450 to 650nm, is not the same as output from 350 to 850nm from a full-spectrum light source. It is a simpleton measurement made for general lighting that was/is used to trick people in this hobby when all of the nuance about the measurement is not given.

The best benefit with LED, IMO, is that it made people realize that they did not need as much light as they thought. People went from 400w halides and T5/VHOs and replaced them with 190w panels, but this was more of a referendum on not needing 400w halides, than the new lights. Some of those same people are back to 150w halides now with even less wattage and better results. There was a bit of a "how big is my Johnson" paradigm in the 1990s and early 2000s with getting as high of wattage MH as you could get... kinda stupid.

Again, I will state that if you had any appreciable experience with both, there is no way that you could state that LED is "more than capable." This might be true on the internet or in theory, but even the best LED aficionados will tell you, if you want to listen, that they are living with inadequacies to the coral for benefit in other area. You are not going to be able to get here without experience.

The more recent PR damage to LEDs are the people who do not believe the BS anymore. This has worn thin on them. They don't have to understand why... they can see it in their own homes.

Well that is the thing. The whole reason people like Jason fox are pushing this 100 percent blue spectrum is because led can not do what halides or even t-5 can do. The new people in the hobby are falling for the marketing and it is a reason to sell brown or washed out coral but they fluoresce well under leds. Led just can not get the true colors on some coral so they focus on fluorescence. i know we discussed this before but Walt Disney coral looks washed out pale coral under 14k lighting for example but under royal blue leds wow.. Nothing wrong with fluorescence but focusing on just that? I mean just blue lighting does not look good or right to me.

Again it does not bother me if people like blue lighting or Jason Fox likes it, not my reef. If I sold coral I would sell too both crowds, it is the smart thing to do as a retailer.. In away they are experts at marketing getting a whole hobby to change what they like. I really should not say the whole hobby because like you said in anther thread it is the reason these corals drop so fast in price.

 

[jda]

I do see where this is going... people all end up back to sunlight sooner or later... then have to modify a bit for aesthetics. I have been here for a few decades.

Why is 6500 the best? Color is subjective, so let's put this aside...although the vast majority are on the same side on this one. As for growth and health, I do not know. Nobody does. Anybody who thinks that they do is fooling themselves. There are some good ideas and some initial studies with some data points, but this is not yet even information and still far from knowledge.

The easiest and probably most true answer is that the coral spent all kinds of unknown time adapting and evolving to be as efficient as possible in this environment under sunlight. 6500k is as close to this as we have, so that is why it is the best.

True science observes nature and seeks to prove that nature/dogma is not right. This pseudo-science that is reef lighting does the opposite having to prove that adding back in things that are found in nature. Only the hubris of man uses charts and graphs and studies to try and understand what is right in front of our faces... sunlight is the gold-standard. Rather than prove that UV or IR is necessary, we should be providing it until it is proven that it is not.

I just read last month that a new organ in the human body was discovered. Imagine all of the hurt feelings from people who thought that they knew how a body worked.

BTW - there is more UV in every 6500k bulb that I have used... they get a lot hotter as a result. 10k are hot too. True 20k bulbs are not as much of a heat concern as lower temps because of the less UV.

This is late to the party, but I also want to add in health to color rendition and illumination. People did not have issues with alk or parameter swings under tubes or bulbs, but do under LED. Lights have a big role in health where it seems that any light can "grow" coral under idea water conditions, but especially acropora under LED are far more prone to die when something happens in the tank. Believe it or not, acropora were easier to grow a decade ago when people only used the higher quality light.

 

[Tripod1404]

I do see where this is going... people all end up back to sunlight sooner or later... then have to modify a bit for aesthetics. I have been here for a few decades.

Why is 6500 the best? Color is subjective, so let's put this aside...although the vast majority are on the same side on this one. As for growth and health, I do not know. Nobody does. Anybody who thinks that they do is fooling themselves. There are some good ideas and some initial studies with some data points, but this is not yet even information and still far from knowledge.

The easiest and probably most true answer is that the coral spent all kinds of unknown time adapting and evolving to be as efficient as possible in this environment under sunlight. 6500k is as close to this as we have, so that is why it is the best.

True science observes nature and seeks to prove that nature/dogma is not right. This pseudo-science that is reef lighting does the opposite having to prove that adding back in things that are found in nature. Only the hubris of man uses charts and graphs and studies to try and understand what is right in front of our faces... sunlight is the gold-standard. Rather than prove that UV or IR is necessary, we should be providing it until it is proven that it is not.

I just read last month that a new organ in the human body was discovered. Imagine all of the hurt feelings from people who thought that they knew how a body worked.

BTW - there is more UV in every 6500k bulb that I have used... they get a lot hotter as a result. 10k are hot too. True 20k bulbs are not as much of a heat concern as lower temps because of the less UV.

This is late to the party, but I also want to add in health to color rendition and illumination. People did not have issues with alk or parameter swings under tubes or bulbs, but do under LED. Lights have a big role in health where it seems that any light can "grow" coral under idea water conditions, but especially acropora under LED are far more prone to die when something happens in the tank. Believe it or not, acropora were easier to grow a decade ago when people only used the higher quality light.

I absolutely agree with sun being the best light source. Right half of my tank gets afternoon sunlight for ~1-3 hours depending on the season. I originally did not design it that way but about 10 years ago a blue pine tree next to to my house died and the tank stated to get sunlight after that. In summers I filter it trough a thin curtain but in winter, I mostly let sunlight get directly on to the tank. Corals of any kind (mostly light loving corals) on that side of the tank are the happiest and grow maybe 2 times faster than corals on the other side. There are some large colonies that are in between sun and no sun zone, you can easily see the difference based on color, growth pattern and rate based on the side of the colony that gets sunlight and side of the colony that doesn't get it. They also grow towards the window even if its only 1-3 hours versus ~10H of total light period. One nice feature is you can see how the colors of corals (mainly acros) change with season. Almost all get bright florescent green in summer while in winter they change back to purples, blues and yellows as suns intensity drops. Its funny that non of them were green acros when I get them, but I feel like all acros have the capacity to become green with enough light.

This tank had MH, T5s and LEDs (now T5 led combo) over the years, nothing come even close to the sun. I seriously think about building my next tank in a sun room. My only concern is heat and cold in the summer and winter as my sun room is not really heated or cooled aside from leaving the door to it from the house open. And I fear algae can take over the tank very rapidly if I run into some nutrient problems. I am also concerned about the intensity of the summer midday sun. All the people I talked about this said it can bleach corals, especially the ones that are not naturally found in the shallows or corals that were grown under artificial lights for extended periods of time. I would probably need to put some shading cloth or panels at certain angles to filter out the midday sun. The problem is, sun moves with seasons.

Also I dont agree acropora were easier to grow a decade ago. Imo very few acro were being imported and we were basically only getting the hardiest species/varieties as other were either not collected or died during the transport. Unwillingly, we basically generated and artificial selection system that only allowed hardy species to make it to our tanks. Few rare and less hardy species that made it were astronomically expensive. My friends in Australia had great acros (like smoothskin acros that blew my mind), since they could probably transport them more easily, but what I could find in US those days were slimiers and/or miliporas. Now with better collection and transport practices, we got more acros, some of them do very poorly in captivity.

 

[jda]

Most of all of the non-trendy corals that people covet have been around for more than a decade. ...shortcake, GARF Bonsai, Red Planet, Pearlberry, Cali Tort, Miyagi/Becker torts, OBT, Purple Monster, Palmers Blue Mille, 20k & 30K Lokani, Banana Lokani, Atlantis Ruby Red Granulosa or anything from Atlantis, anything from Westside Reefs (including the deepwaters like Longhorn), Leng Sy, etc. The corals were just as good. ORA had outstanding milles and acros in the early 2000s before the hurricane. I can still get $100+ for a chunky frag of most of these and they all come from the "golden age" of named acropora of 1998 to about 2007.

Efflo, solis & tables were also much easier to keep and find when people did not use LEDs. I miss seeing these around, but small tanks also helped with their semi-demise since they can get pretty big. These are almost a no-go in a small cube with LED.

I am in a high-sun area. Light tubes are in my future to work alongside my MH, but I will need a different home before I can make this work out.

 

[oreo57]

Rather than prove that UV or IR is necessary, we should be providing it until it is proven that it is not.

ANY successes w/ "old style" LED's proves that..
doesn't have to be the best or most colorful..
Only healthy and growing.
doesn't even depend how "fast"
Sort of a low bar..

One just needs to look around..

most LED's don't even have "real" UV and zero IR to speak of..

Your definition of necessary is colored by your needs that probably 95% of the reefing world.. ..doesn't need.. commercial production.

your dislike of LED's is more subjective than objective barring the commercial aspect.

 

[jda]

Yes, they can grow some coral, which leads me to one of my peeves where people will post "any of them will grow coral!" Which coral? Why just growth and not the other important factors? This irks me a bunch like they are knowingly misleading people who might not be acutely aware enough to dissect the wording. I will not say that they are healthy... too many issues with shipping, parameter swings and other issues that are no problem in other systems to claim that they are healthy. I will only go with alive, not healthy.

Again, this is not proof, just an anecdote. Eating only McDonalds is not really proof that it is all that humans need to thrive... but there is probably no "proof" that McDonalds is not alone enough, either. Surviving with/without something is not proof that you could not do better without/with it. My grandmother smoked until she was 94 with no cancer or health problems - does this prove that smoking does not cause cancer? My apologies... I hate false equivalencies.

No, most LED do not have IR or UV to speak of... which is why a lot of get T5 bulbs added to them as the hobbyist gets a more breath and depth of experience. Has anybody ever seen a post where somebody added T5s to their panels and regretted it? Seriously? I am sure that they exist, but I cannot think of one off the top of my head. I am genuinely curious.

 

[oreo57]

Yes, they can grow some coral,

how about a list of ones LED's don't grow at all..


most t5's have very little UV and only a smidge of IR
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=11627&pictureid=79595

No, most LED do not have IR or UV to speak of... which is why a lot of get T5 bulbs added to them as the hobbyist gets a more breath and depth of experience.

mostly added for spread not spectrum and besides .. you are ADDING "PAR"..and generally a lot of it..

ORPHEK and Phillips..........

https://orphek.com/best-light-spectrum-coral-growth/

Even w/ LED's IR is "theoretical"..

Theory:

Infrared light appears to play a role in the conversion of coral in synthesis and oxidation. However, there is still no proof of this.

However, it is proven in higher algae and tangs.
There is enough literature on the internet for this.
950Nm does not seem to matter due to the water penetration.

But what happens at low tide is uncertain.

https://translate.google.com/transl...tter/licht/infrarot-licht-nutzbar/&edit-text=

UV is "dumped" into a range :

This produces the chlorophyll S2, which forms carotenes and is much stronger in the oxidation than in the near Uv / Uv range of 360-420 Nm.

 

[Tripod1404]

Yes, they can grow some coral, which leads me to one of my peeves where people will post "any of them will grow coral!" Which coral? Why just growth and not the other important factors? This irks me a bunch like they are knowingly misleading people who might not be acutely aware enough to dissect the wording. I will not say that they are healthy... too many issues with shipping, parameter swings and other issues that are no problem in other systems to claim that they are healthy. I will only go with alive, not healthy.

Again, this is not proof, just an anecdote. Eating only McDonalds is not really proof that it is all that humans need to thrive... but there is probably no "proof" that McDonalds is not alone enough, either. Surviving with/without something is not proof that you could not do better without/with it. My grandmother smoked until she was 94 with no cancer or health problems - does this prove that smoking does not cause cancer? My apologies... I hate false equivalencies.

No, most LED do not have IR or UV to speak of... which is why a lot of get T5 bulbs added to them as the hobbyist gets a more breath and depth of experience. Has anybody ever seen a post where somebody added T5s to their panels and regretted it? Seriously? I am sure that they exist, but I cannot think of one off the top of my head. I am genuinely curious.

Lol I regretted adding T5HOs once because, I somehow knocked the bulb of the fixture and it dropped into the tank.

Aside from that I like them. Though I mainly like them for reducing shadowing issues.

 

[oreo57]

This is just for "fun"
Atlantik V4 "mini"...
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/atlantik-compact-v4-led-light-fixture-orphek.html

LED Specifications:

42 high-efficiency 5w Dual-Chip LEDs that span between 380nm and 850nm

20000K - 4x
5000K - 4x
380nm - 2x
410nm - 2x
420nm - 2x
430nm - 2x
440nm - 2x
460nm - 10x
470nm - 4x
500nm - 2x
525nm - 2x
590nm - 2x
850nm - 2x
W-R - 2x

 

[Big_ Macc]

Hi all. Just my 2 cents. Im an EE. I did some research online and built a set of LED fixtures using the no name "3W" LEDs off ebay. Based on the light spectrum over a tropical reef at the equator, I picked 465nm, 450nm, 410nm, and 10k wavelengths. Ive got 5 of each staggered on an rough extruded aluminum scaffold that I got from Home depot, one 18inch length for each side of a 55gallon. I control them with an arduino mega 2560 sending four individual pwm signals to CAT4100 series LED drivers from ON semiconductor. I limit the max current to 700mA, and the PWM to between 3% and 90%. I wrote code for the arduino that simulates the diurnal cycle of the sun and translated it to PWM duty cycle so the the LEDs automatically cycle throughout the day with max intensity at noon. I added a moonlight cycle as well using a real time clock. Sorry for the run on description, but to make a long story short, Ive had it running for about 8 months and have had great results. Corals adapt to their environment, if you choose the key wavelengths, 410, 450, 460nm, they can adapt and be happy. My corals are all frags and have at least doubled in size since I started using the LEDs.

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[oreo57]

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

 

[Tripod1404]

Corals adapt to their environment, if you choose the key wavelengths, 410, 450, 460nm, they can adapt and be happy.

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I kinda agree with this. I am very skeptical that light in red and infrared spectrum is essential for corals or even provide any major benefits. That idea is mainly based on "Emerson effect". It basically shows that light around 700nm stimulates photosynthesis by activating photosystem I. The issue is, Emerson effect is studied mainly on land plants that are subjected to red and infrared in their natural envoriments.

Under water, light with waveleghts above 650nm do not penetrate more than 10 meters and this is for midday at tropics. On average coral reefs are found at depths 30-40 meters, so with the exception of corals that are found at extreme shallows, they all basically grow at light below 550nm. So what zoox use for photosynthesis for the majority of corals is mainly between 460nm to 350nm.

Image below shows the light penetration. Light blue is surface, blue is 5 meters and dark blue is 15 meters.

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature

https://www.advancedaquarist.com/20...ider&utm_medium=slider&utm_campaign=clickthru

 

[Big_ Macc]

Haha! Those are the same charts I used!

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[oreo57]

I kinda agree with this. I am very skeptical that light in red and infrared spectrum is essential for corals or even provide any major benefits.

Ultraviolet and red wavelengths are gradually removed from the spectrum resulting in a blue-green underwater light field at greater depths

Think most people stop a bit short on wavelength..should go up to at least 500nm.
I also believe that the higher intensity light you give the more you need "not blue" light..

corals behave completely different than land plants where the lack of blue (or more correctly more red) implies "shade" and different systems or different equilibriums are reached.

W/ corals red implies high light and as blue increases implies less light..relatively speaking.




Oh and currently deep water corals are receiving, in some cases, a broader spectrum due to the blue to green/yellow/red shift of fluorescent pigments..

The trend that fluorescence in mesophotic corals tends to be red-shifted compared to the shallow water representatives further points to a distinct biological function in corals from deeper habitats. Alternative functions of FPs, which have been discussed, include modulation of the activity of regulatory photosensors analogous to phytochromes and cryptochromes of higher plants [56], links to visual ecology of the reef fishes [57,58] and PAR enhancement [12]. Future experimental studies are required to confirm the function of fluorescence in mesophotic corals.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0128697

 

[jestronix]

I absolutely agree with sun being the best light source. Right half of my tank gets afternoon sunlight for ~1-3 hours depending on the season. I originally did not design it that way but about 10 years ago a blue pine tree next to to my house died and the tank stated to get sunlight after that. In summers I filter it trough a thin curtain but in winter, I mostly let sunlight get directly on to the tank. Corals of any kind (mostly light loving corals) on that side of the tank are the happiest and grow maybe 2 times faster than corals on the other side. There are some large colonies that are in between sun and no sun zone, you can easily see the difference based on color, growth pattern and rate based on the side of the colony that gets sunlight and side of the colony that doesn't get it. They also grow towards the window even if its only 1-3 hours versus ~10H of total light period. One nice feature is you can see how the colors of corals (mainly acros) change with season. Almost all get bright florescent green in summer while in winter they change back to purples, blues and yellows as suns intensity drops. Its funny that non of them were green acros when I get them, but I feel like all acros have the capacity to become green with enough light.

This tank had MH, T5s and LEDs (now T5 led combo) over the years, nothing come even close to the sun. I seriously think about building my next tank in a sun room. My only concern is heat and cold in the summer and winter as my sun room is not really heated or cooled aside from leaving the door to it from the house open. And I fear algae can take over the tank very rapidly if I run into some nutrient problems. I am also concerned about the intensity of the summer midday sun. All the people I talked about this said it can bleach corals, especially the ones that are not naturally found in the shallows or corals that were grown under artificial lights for extended periods of time. I would probably need to put some shading cloth or panels at certain angles to filter out the midday sun. The problem is, sun moves with seasons.

Also I dont agree acropora were easier to grow a decade ago. Imo very few acro were being imported and we were basically only getting the hardiest species/varieties as other were either not collected or died during the transport. Unwillingly, we basically generated and artificial selection system that only allowed hardy species to make it to our tanks. Few rare and less hardy species that made it were astronomically expensive. My friends in Australia had great acros (like smoothskin acros that blew my mind), since they could probably transport them more easily, but what I could find in US those days were slimiers and/or miliporas. Now with better collection and transport practices, we got more acros, some of them do very poorly in captivity.

I've had two of my tanks under sunlight and the health and growth is insane. It's without doubt the best, but it's so hard to control intensity and well, I ended up with brown sticks. Tidal Gardens uses a green house with sunlight, but ended shading most of the sunlight and running T5, soon they are going no sunlight. I can understand why, it's about the market, they want colour!

So far 10K XM halide,has produced results for me. I'd still like to try plasma!

 

[Bpb]

ORA Has a lot of sun grown corals and their colors are pretty good


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[dz6t]

There are so many talk, speculation, misunderstood science and misinformation plus personal sentiments in this thread.
Coral are highly adaptable, as long as the algae inside the coral is producing food via photosynthesis for the coral, the host coral will grow regardless which spectrum the algae is using for photosynthesis.
No IR? No problem.



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[markalot]

Hi all. Just my 2 cents. Im an EE. I did some research online and built a set of LED fixtures using the no name "3W" LEDs

...

adapt and be happy. My corals are all frags and have at least doubled in size since I started using the LEDs.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

I'll say it since maybe I can cover sole older ground here.

Looks is subjective. The point many Halide (and T5) users are making here is that once these are added, or switched back too, performance AND coloration AND health skyrockets, given good water quality.

The question is why?

The common argument is LED works for me! It's a non sequitur.

Another question, that has not been answered to my satisfaction, is if any LED combination can produce the results I get by adding T5's for a few hours a day. The reality is that if you can take a light that exactly matches one of the MH bulb types WITH equal spread (so not only spectrum but also spread w reflector) the result should be identical.

Unfortunately it may still not be that simple because there IS a difference between a filament light source and a diode. This may or may not make any damn difference at all, but unlike Halide and T5 if you slow time down the LED is blinking while the filament bulbs are not. Does this make a difference? Who knows?

^ note this is something I don't understand since LED is using a DC source, but you can generally see the effect from home bulbs by moving your hands in front of them. Someone clue me in on what this is, or if it applies to reef lighting. Do I have it backwards? LOL.