Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

HurricaneSystem said:
Been a long time for me and halides, man they put out A LOT of heat lol. I am happy with the fixture though, so far, lol.

I might make a dumb blanket statement here, but I think it is something to do with the heat waves that the MH puts out as well. It is just like the sun, the natural environment.

LED puts out 0 heat. So in some ways, do you think our corals are a bit confused by LED'S? They see all the light, but feel no heat.

It is something like walking out in the snow, but feeling no cold.

Just a thought.
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This is sarcasm, right? You really are just kidding around, aren't you? :beer:
 
I am a year into LEDs, Radions specifically, from radiums of 8 years. I absolutely would not go back. Yes radiums are safe and will work. Controllable LEDs however make your tank an experience. There is no way my SPS are lacking color or growth.

I travel 4-5 days a week and have the opportunity to see many tanks. Few are truly beautiful, maybe less than 10% but I have seen LED tanks that are amazing.

The difference between MH and LEDS in appearance is MH corals appear brighter and LED corals glow more and over the course of the day change colors. FYI I do not like T5s because it looks like a painting not having the depth of MH or led.

Some of the common denominators for good LED coral growth are light overlap, keep white lights low and an appreciation of how strong good LEDs are.

So I am not thinking of switching back to MHs.
 
stancfii said:
As for color, it all depends on spectrum. With NW/RB, my green hornet zoas are green. Add cyan, the rings turn yellow. Do I like that? Maybe, but others might hate it. I think there are a lot of spectral gaps in LEDs that are not there in traditional lighting, especially in the HV and UV ranges, and that light gets used and reflected back as longer wavelengths in a more visible part of the spectrum to give us what we feel is missing in LEDs. Kind of like DayGlow and highlighters--they need UV to look brighter than real. LEDs are going to have to cover more wavelengths before they give traditionalists a reason to switch over.
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I have a similar effect in my tanks. I have two types of Palys that look like identical bright fluorescent green under NW/RB, but under Biocube PC lighting one looks brown and the other dull/light green. Green Kenya Trees are light green with fluorescent polyps under NW/RB, but pink with red polyps under the Biocube PC lighting (probably debatable on which looks better).

There are definitely spectral gaps. Blue, cyan, violet and red. Neutral whites tend to fix the reds when it comes to corals, but doesn't entirely cover macro algae. A big problem will be figuring out the balance and intensities needed. Right now the approach is very much a shotgun approach, where people just throw every color they can find into the fixture and hope they've accomplished "full spectrum". Which probably works, but it is rather wasteful since ideally every color needs it's own channel for this sort of calibrating to work. Otherwise, even the full spectrum builds today are a whole bunch of guess work and prayer.
 
stancfii said:
For growth, it's all about PAR. Any fixture, LED or otherwise, is Russian Roulette without a PAR meter. ESPECIALLY the DIY led builds. You'd be amazed at how little of a change in current it takes to go from too little to too much with LEDs. Add in all the variations of colors and reflectors or optics and things get even more precarious. T5/MH/VHO have been around long enough and are more evenly distributed lights; it is easier to take a swag and put it on the tank, and you'll be ok. Remember the watts/gallon rule?

As for color, it all depends on spectrum. With NW/RB, my green hornet zoas are green. Add cyan, the rings turn yellow. Do I like that? Maybe, but others might hate it. I think there are a lot of spectral gaps in LEDs that are not there in traditional lighting, especially in the HV and UV ranges, and that light gets used and reflected back as longer wavelengths in a more visible part of the spectrum to give us what we feel is missing in LEDs. Kind of like DayGlow and highlighters--they need UV to look brighter than real. LEDs are going to have to cover more wavelengths before they give traditionalists a reason to switch over.

To me, the Razor was at a price point and controllability level (as well as lack of heat) that made leaving MHs worthwhile, for now. To each his own.
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Im going to disagree with you on this. I can categorically disprove this with regard to at least 5 of my sps specimens I have had in my very healthy tank for two years prior under high par ecoray rb:cw leds. I had the lights adjusted to provide between 400-500 par at the top and about 200 at the bottom, and these particular acropora barely grew in 1.5 years.

Once I made my custom unit with heavy sub-450nm lighting, I have seen more growth in 2 weeks than I did in two years, with less par.

There is no simple explicit equation here, and it depends on the coral completely. Every other coral was growing like mad...so its obvious particular frequencies play a part in growth as well.

The deficiencies you describe in frequencies for leds is not necessarily true. I can recreate the spectral plot for any MH on the market today with the leds that are available today. It's just that the led fixture manufacturers for some reason cant seem to grasp that they cant get away with a 2 or 5 color solution, we need to be looking at a 8-12 color solution for leds to be viable for a variety of needs (color, growth, aesthetics)
 
Aqualund said:
Im going to disagree with you on this. I can categorically disprove this with regard to at least 5 of my sps specimens I have had in my very healthy tank for two years prior under high par ecoray rb:cw leds. I had the lights adjusted to provide between 400-500 par at the top and about 200 at the bottom, and these particular acropora barely grew in 1.5 years.


Once I made my custom unit with heavy sub-450nm lighting, I have seen more growth in 2 weeks than I did in two years, with less par.
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Perhaps PUR may have been the better acronym to use, so it does go a little bit more with spectrum. 500 par is going to get those zooxenthellae pumping much more at 420nm than at 450nm, but 500par can cause photoinhibition in most sps, especially with the pinpoint spectrum of LEDs. Santoki has had no problems in the past few years with just cw/rb, so perhaps the binning and labeling is more of an issue than we think? I've never bought an led that had the bin number stamped on it, I just have to take the seller's word for it. I'm making no assumptions or assertions your way because I don't know what you used, but how do you or I know that our diys didn't work because we were sold poorly binned and poorly performing LEDs?


Aqualund said:
There is no simple explicit equation here, and it depends on the coral completely. Every other coral was growing like mad...so its obvious particular frequencies play a part in growth as well.
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Agreed... In relationship to pur/par:)

Aqualund said:
The deficiencies you describe in frequencies for leds is not necessarily true. I can recreate the spectral plot for any MH on the market today with the leds that are available today. It's just that the led fixture manufacturers for some reason cant seem to grasp that they cant get away with a 2 or 5 color solution, we need to be looking at a 8-12 color solution for leds to be viable for a variety of needs (color, growth, aesthetics)
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You can't. It may look like you can, but I'd bet a real lab grade spectrometer would show significant gaps between most of the colors used. Many 4,000k LEDs (bxra, rebel es, Cree) show spectra in their data sheets that look like they cover almost everything perfectly, but no one uses them as standalone because they don't look good like that. I can, however, take a few RGB&Y diodes and make you see whatever color you want. But just because you see it, doesn't mean it's there. We can use colored lights to make X coral almost any color we want, but unless we hit a pigment that causes fluorescence or reemission of another color with PRECISELY the required wavelength(s), said coral will look rather bland.

Then again, for all I know, we are both wrong and Hurricane is right. Maybe the corals need the radiating warmth of the lights to remind them of the love and comfort they received while still on the mother colony... has anyone tried singing to them?

/:deadhorse:
 
stancfii said:
You can't. It may look like you can, but I'd bet a real lab grade spectrometer would show significant gaps between most of the colors used. Many 4,000k LEDs (bxra, rebel es, Cree) show spectra in their data sheets that look like they cover almost everything perfectly, but no one uses them as standalone because they don't look good like that. I can, however, take a few RGB&Y diodes and make you see whatever color you want. But just because you see it, doesn't mean it's there. We can use colored lights to make X coral almost any color we want, but unless we hit a pigment that causes fluorescence or reemission of another color with PRECISELY the required wavelength(s), said coral will look rather bland.

/:deadhorse:
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Actually, you can get very very close. Eventually I will make a smaller version of my diy's and bring them to school and get a plot to prove this. My argument is that most of the "filled in" areas from a MH spectral plot are merely results of photon interactions which are creating the array of spectrums at low levels and keep the plot continuous, and thats not even accounting for noise and liberal estimates. Simply put the specific gases used in the bulbs have a specific set of allowed energy states for the release of specific light wavelengths, and those are where you see the peaks on the mh bulbs. The remainders that fill in the gaps arent unachievable by the white leds...and i mean this for everything in the 460+ range....the cw's generally follow the same plot, and do have that spread because those wavelengths are a result of a similar process (higher energy wavelengths interacting and releasing lower energy).

Also, if you used even just a simple prism to refract the light from a MH you would see that the light has significant gaps between the colors on the plot as well. We do this regularly in my physical optics class with a wide variety of MH and halogen lamps.

But to recreate the MH plot, I have 10 different color leds, each individually controllable, and I simply adjust them to create whatever plot I want...by matching the peaks...and the cool whites running below max offer the spread of wavelengths to smooth over the peaks.

I am doing this right now. When I get proper pictures and a proper build that looks good finished, I will post these results gladly!

But I guess I should clarify....it is definitely not an EXACT spectral fit...of course. I'm having a hard time creating the "noise" in the 350-430 range...so i dunno if thats bad yet. Seen nothing but good results thus far...

But you're right, maybe I should trade these in and just build a fire over my tank...corals can sense the heat you know?
 
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I remember doing something similar with CDs and looking at the color spectrum under different lights on them in Physics class many years ago, and I agree with your thought process. I made a post inquiring about a "no white led build" a couple months ago, but gave up on it when I saw PacificSun had just announced theirs. You may be onto something with the noise between peaks. I really like that idea.
 
Yeah I saw your post, and it is part of what inspired me to really revisit my acceptance of the then current dogma of leds. I hope if enough of us really examine this question properly, we can come out of it all with a really good standard for lighting...
 
mikeatjac said:
I am a year into LEDs, Radions specifically, from radiums of 8 years. I absolutely would not go back. Yes radiums are safe and will work. Controllable LEDs however make your tank an experience. There is no way my SPS are lacking color or growth.

I travel 4-5 days a week and have the opportunity to see many tanks. Few are truly beautiful, maybe less than 10% but I have seen LED tanks that are amazing.

The difference between MH and LEDS in appearance is MH corals appear brighter and LED corals glow more and over the course of the day change colors. FYI I do not like T5s because it looks like a painting not having the depth of MH or led.

Some of the common denominators for good LED coral growth are light overlap, keep white lights low and an appreciation of how strong good LEDs are.

So I am not thinking of switching back to MHs.
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I haven't seen any that look as good as similar setups under MH. You should take pics when you get the chance. Take some pics of your tank as well.
 
MedRed said:
I haven't seen any that look as good as similar setups under MH. You should take pics when you get the chance. Take some pics of your tank as well.
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Gee there great pictures here on RC.

Here is a top down with my iPhone.

 
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D. Winter said:
I don't have the time to read all 48 pages of this...What is the FINAL answer, LED's or MH?? Thanks!
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If you lack time the answer is MH. Tried, tested with very clear and easy industry standards.

If you have the time to do your research or find someone who did that has similar tank to yours you can find LED setups that are as good in regards to light and has a lot of extra perks.

Don't expect to be able to just throw money at it and have all problems go away. There has been some very expensive and very bad led systems on the market.
 
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