Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

I am using 5 AI sol blue units over each of my 225 gallon tanks. I have only had one coral "brown out" and it actually came in brown, an Abrotoinoides from LA. My clams are fine, my SPS are fine, my polyps and mushrooms are fine. I have corals that have lightened in color and I have some that have gotten more intense.

My Pocillopras and Seraitoporas have thrived, some started as 1" frags 18 months ago are full colonies 6" across, colors very good.

Strangely, I have one tank that Monti's do great in and one that they don't. It certainly is not a lighting issue as both are set the same. It's more likely an Alk issue due to me letting it dip in the one tank.

I have some corals that have not grown much while others appear to grow like weeds.

Given the savings from LED's in electrical consumption and heat related issues, I am satisfied with what I have.
 
vegasmike said:
i am using 5 ai sol blue units over each of my 225 gallon tanks. I have only had one coral "brown out" and it actually came in brown, an abrotoinoides from la. My clams are fine, my sps are fine, my polyps and mushrooms are fine. I have corals that have lightened in color and i have some that have gotten more intense.

My pocillopras and seraitoporas have thrived, some started as 1" frags 18 months ago are full colonies 6" across, colors very good.

Strangely, i have one tank that monti's do great in and one that they don't. It certainly is not a lighting issue as both are set the same. It's more likely an alk issue due to me letting it dip in the one tank.

I have some corals that have not grown much while others appear to grow like weeds.

Given the savings from led's in electrical consumption and heat related issues, i am satisfied with what i have.
Click to expand...

x2^^^
 
I dont know about halides but im def considering swapping from leds back to t-5 corals have done well under leds but grow has decreased 10 fold
 
Imagine you are a nube, like me, who just spent a week of his life reading everything I could on LED over everything else, than spent another week reading the DYI LED thread, now a thread on who's dumping the LED and going back to MH/T5. What a rollercoaster ride this is! Can't wait till the ride is over so I can pick out a system, will it ever be over? Think not!
 
straycat said:
Imagine you are a nube, like me, who just spent a week of his life reading everything I could on LED over everything else, than spent another week reading the DYI LED thread, now a thread on who's dumping the LED and going back to MH/T5. What a rollercoaster ride this is! Can't wait till the ride is over so I can pick out a system, will it ever be over? Think not!
Click to expand...

Imagine you are someone who has a nice looking reef and your t5 lights are just fine. You then see these cool new lights called ai sols and their website looks amazing, and thunderstorms....wow. You research and find mostly happy people. You figure with your experience you shouldn't have the same trouble as the select few others, they probably don't know what their doing. You spend $1300 and can't wait to install them. During the install you notice one bad led puck. Finally get them on and everything looks great. A few week's later most coral growth seems to have stopped or slowed dramatically, and the color brown seems to have arrived on many SPS. Then months down the road you decide this is crazy, and you go re-buy t5's again (since you sold your old fixture). Everything slowly recovers and all is good again. Then you sell your 3 ai sols for $500 in lfs credit. Eventually you decide to upgrade again and this time to mh, 250 watt radiums. My tanks never been happier. Imagine, well don't imagine, it's what happened to me.
 
Had one of the first 200 Illumina's over my Elos 160, it was a 5ft unit and I loved the look, the quietness and and the reduced heat. The fixture was just fantastic to look at
Unfortunately all my SPS hated it - many died - and I sold it for a huge loss.
I stuck a 4ft 6 bulb over the same tank and within 4 weeks many pieces (that didnt die) eventually my 5ft 8 bulb ATI powermodule arrived and have been enjoying beautiful colours ever since.

Then bought an Illumina 260 2ft for over my frag tank because it was new and cool and was the answer to my prayers. Its been up for 6 months and colours are so so at best, some good, some bad. Well that light is still up but when I get 10 minutes to myself it will be coming down and the piece of crap TEK light 4 bulb 24" will go back up (because it works)

Tank three. ELOS system 70 50 gal cube had 2 radions over it
These were the best of all LED's I have tried. I had good growth and decent colour on the majority of my pieces. Some just do not like it and will not colour up. These lights have been up since January 21st 2012 so they have been up long enough to acclimate.
Well the Radions came down yesterday and up when the Geisman 24" single 250w and 4 ATI blue plus - because it works !

SO to sum it all up I think I should have bought myself a new motorcycle or a couple of trips instead of spending money on all the LED stuff I have tried.

LED's are for RB punch, for that they cannot be beaten. Added to T5 or MH they do a great job. As a stand alone fixture to achieve the very best colour in $500.00 frags :) and SPS colonies there is no better product than MH/VHO or T5 MH combinations

Just my 2 cents take it for what its worth. I really, really wish LED's would do what I want them to do. Their benefits are proven, now if we could just get the colours popping on my SPS Id be happy.
 
Flagswipe said:
Had one of the first 200 Illumina's over my Elos 160, it was a 5ft unit and I loved the look, the quietness and and the reduced heat. The fixture was just fantastic to look at
Unfortunately all my SPS hated it - many died - and I sold it for a huge loss.
I stuck a 4ft 6 bulb over the same tank and within 4 weeks many pieces (that didnt die) eventually my 5ft 8 bulb ATI powermodule arrived and have been enjoying beautiful colours ever since.

Then bought an Illumina 260 2ft for over my frag tank because it was new and cool and was the answer to my prayers. Its been up for 6 months and colours are so so at best, some good, some bad. Well that light is still up but when I get 10 minutes to myself it will be coming down and the piece of crap TEK light 4 bulb 24" will go back up (because it works)

Tank three. ELOS system 70 50 gal cube had 2 radions over it
These were the best of all LED's I have tried. I had good growth and decent colour on the majority of my pieces. Some just do not like it and will not colour up. These lights have been up since January 21st 2012 so they have been up long enough to acclimate.
Well the Radions came down yesterday and up when the Geisman 24" single 250w and 4 ATI blue plus - because it works !

SO to sum it all up I think I should have bought myself a new motorcycle or a couple of trips instead of spending money on all the LED stuff I have tried.

LED's are for RB punch, for that they cannot be beaten. Added to T5 or MH they do a great job. As a stand alone fixture to achieve the very best colour in $500.00 frags :) and SPS colonies there is no better product than MH/VHO or T5 MH combinations

Just my 2 cents take it for what its worth. I really, really wish LED's would do what I want them to do. Their benefits are proven, now if we could just get the colours popping on my SPS Id be happy.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, all of those led fixtures were pre-destined to fail long term. Companies had no problem charging you thousands of dollars for them though.

With the introduction of fixtures like the Razor, GHL Mitra, Radion Pro, and cheap chinese lights that utilize full spectrum lighting, they are better designed to incorporate the lack of light spectrum that previous units had. The lacking spectrum was filled back in by your T5s when you added them back.

If leds didn't work at all, no tanks would be using them.
 
Flagswipe said:
Had one of the first 200 Illumina's over my Elos 160, it was a 5ft unit and I loved the look, the quietness and and the reduced heat. The fixture was just fantastic to look at
Unfortunately all my SPS hated it - many died - and I sold it for a huge loss.
I stuck a 4ft 6 bulb over the same tank and within 4 weeks many pieces (that didnt die) eventually my 5ft 8 bulb ATI powermodule arrived and have been enjoying beautiful colours ever since.

Then bought an Illumina 260 2ft for over my frag tank because it was new and cool and was the answer to my prayers. Its been up for 6 months and colours are so so at best, some good, some bad. Well that light is still up but when I get 10 minutes to myself it will be coming down and the piece of crap TEK light 4 bulb 24" will go back up (because it works)

Tank three. ELOS system 70 50 gal cube had 2 radions over it
These were the best of all LED's I have tried. I had good growth and decent colour on the majority of my pieces. Some just do not like it and will not colour up. These lights have been up since January 21st 2012 so they have been up long enough to acclimate.
Well the Radions came down yesterday and up when the Geisman 24" single 250w and 4 ATI blue plus - because it works !

SO to sum it all up I think I should have bought myself a new motorcycle or a couple of trips instead of spending money on all the LED stuff I have tried.

LED's are for RB punch, for that they cannot be beaten. Added to T5 or MH they do a great job. As a stand alone fixture to achieve the very best colour in $500.00 frags :) and SPS colonies there is no better product than MH/VHO or T5 MH combinations

Just my 2 cents take it for what its worth. I really, really wish LED's would do what I want them to do. Their benefits are proven, now if we could just get the colours popping on my SPS Id be happy.
Click to expand...

Every one of those fixtures lacked a VERY essential piece to the puzzle - spectrum. None of them included light below the 440nm range.

Cheap garbage LEDs will not work. Super expensive and poorly designed LEDs won't work either.

Research is key to LEDs. We are just barely cracking the box IMO.
 
bhazard451 said:
Unfortunately, all of those led fixtures were pre-destined to fail long term. Companies had no problem charging you thousands of dollars for them though.

With the introduction of fixtures like the Razor, GHL Mitra, Radion Pro, and cheap chinese lights that utilize full spectrum lighting, they are better designed to incorporate the lack of light spectrum that previous units had. The lacking spectrum was filled back in by your T5s when you added them back.

If leds didn't work at all, no tanks would be using them.
Click to expand...

To be fair...the Razor and GHL Mitra haven't been out long enough to show that the problem has been solved, the Radion Pro isn't even out and the updated Chinese black boxes have the same problem, not enough time to show a major improvement. While I do believe all of them are an improvement, it is too early to call them a success. The Sol Blue was also touted as the solution to the failings of the original Sol, but time showed that to not be the case.

LED's do work, that has been known for many years, but as of yet they have not been shown to be a direct replacement for color and growth. This day will come, but it is premature to call yet.
 
sirreal63 said:
To be fair...the Razor and GHL Mitra haven't been out long enough to show that the problem has been solved, the Radion Pro isn't even out and the updated Chinese black boxes have the same problem, not enough time to show a major improvement. While I do believe all of them are an improvement, it is too early to call them a success. The Sol Blue was also touted as the solution to the failings of the original Sol, but time showed that to not be the case.

LED's do work, that has been known for many years, but as of yet they have not been shown to be a direct replacement for color and growth. This day will come, but it is premature to call yet.
Click to expand...

Each coral is affected differently too. At the same height and intensity, one of my Acros thrives with almost 800 par directly on it. My ORA Plum Crazy started cooking at that spot, and didn't recover until I moved it lower. This is with a very high power 180w DIY light over a nano however.
 
That is true of any light source, some corals are better able to handle par and others not, I cooked my Ponape under 10k's after coming from 20k's, the par difference wasn't great, but the spectrum difference was.

My point is that we cannot call any of the improved spectrum fixtures a success yet, at least as far as keeping the coral color and growth we are accustomed to.
 
I was hoping to go LEDs on my new setup but after reading this I think I am going to purchase a chiller and go Metal Halide.
 
B1N4RY said:
I was hoping to go LEDs on my new setup but after reading this I think I am going to purchase a chiller and go Metal Halide.
Click to expand...

I would actually recommend the opposite. Since you are starting a new setup, if you were ever thinking about going with leds, now is the time to start the tank with it so your tank "grows" with leds. This way, the lighting type isn't changed in the future while your coral get used to a different light source.

If you were currently running a MH setup with great success though, I would recommend sticking with it for the time being until the full spectrum fixtures have more known long term results.
 
After reading all these and other posts since giving up on my ai sols, and tinkering around with my sols and panorama pros, I've come to the conclusion that the problem with leds may not be spectrum but coverage. With leds you generally have a choice, optics or no optics. With my sols I believe that with the optics, there was enough par (for SPS), but not enough even coverage (I noticed spotlighting) . Units with wide or no optics have better coverage but less par. I'm starting to believe that higher watt led pods like the kessil with wide or no optics are going to be the answer. I do like the kessil design, and they seem to be growing plants just fine. If other led systems were so great, wouldn't all indoor plant growers use them? I will say that next time I try led, I won't go all in. I'll probably start a small test tank.
 
B1N4RY said:
I was hoping to go LEDs on my new setup but after reading this I think I am going to purchase a chiller and go Metal Halide.
Click to expand...

Do you know if you even require a chiller? Halides do not automatically mean chiller, and most halide users don't need one. I never have, even on hot summer days, and that is without cooling fans(save for the room ceiling fan. On the 100 degree days, I run my large AC to cool the living rooms, and that more than takes care of the tank as well.
 
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