Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[power boat jim]

Am I the only one that at this point gets the feeling that unless LED fixtures herald in the second coming of Christ and simultaneously spit out 100 dollar bills while growing corals like weeds....some people are not going to be happy.

Maybe, but Im becoming convinced some of the haters might be seeing impaired.

 

[HurricaneSystem]

lol power boat jim,

I think everyone's experiences are priceless, really. I am not against LED by any stretch. Like I said, I love them. It is just terribly easy to set up a MH and turn the power switch and know that you have something that works.

I just purchased one of the new Apollo UV 6000 fixtures. Why? I just want to try it out on another tank I have and see how it does.

I also think that the PAR war is where we all might go wrong on LED fixtures. They put out a lot of light, more so than we notice. I think using a PAR meter is great, but I am not convinced the PAR meter is accurate on these LED's. I think it is low if anything. I might even go so far as to add about 15% to whatever number you get on the meter.

That is the strange thing though, it is just a different kind of light than MH. I stick my arm under my 400W MH and it feels like an oven, seriously. So it is extremely intense of course.

Hey, for those of you who have tanks under LED's and they are doing great, fantastic. Keep it up. I just haven't found an LED fixture yet that will work on my setup. If I do, I will be sure and report the findings and let the mods close my threads for the 600th time, rofl........

At any rate, I am going to do a VIDEO of the PAR from my 400W MH and this new Apollo fixture I am getting. I want to do it throughout the water column. One reason I am doing this is so that I can adjust accordingly and see what percentage that it comes out to. Heck, at 30%, the fixture might be putting out close to what the halide is. Who knows, but we will find out soon enough.

 

[FishboyDave]

As a "led hater"myself I just made the switch to the dark side (or bright side) not because of looks or growth rates or just to try something new out, I did it strictly on a financial stand point. While I do love the hobby I just justify spending $4,800 a year just on lighting and cooling my tanks. My new LEDs use 1/5 the power and that's not including the chillers or the ac cooling the heat the mhs produce in the room.

That being said I will always be a mh fan but unless power rates lower like crazy I won't be switching.

 

[AQD_ottawa]

Hurricanesystem - I think the reason you have not yet found an LED that works for your tank, as has been said to you by multiple RC members is that you are just stressing your tank out, only 14 days ago you bought a mitras, gave it 4 days then changed to MH, prior to that radion and Ai.

My most friendliest opinion is that you will never see anything to your liking because you are tying to get in an instant fix to whatever you feel your tank is lacking, however nature dont work like that. As said many times before stick to one fixture for 6 months then make a decision.

Two weeks ago it was Mitras last week it was back to MH, this week it is Apollo. I have never seen anyone burn though so many lights in such a short period and then ask why their corals look stressed. You are going through them, well like a Hurricane

I am not having a go, or a pop dont get me wrong, I am just simply confused what you are trying to prove to yourself or the tank.

You say you want to see how the apollo does, how long for? Other lamps you gave less than a week, there is absolute no chance on earth your tank will ever show any positive results in that time, you are simply heading for more stress. Will you then blame the apollo lamp?

My only conclusion is you are trying to breathe some life into your Speciosa as per your thread here, but as eveyone said you are just stressing it
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2342551

In my own little fun test here with the half dead frags, I have not said i will report back in a week, i have said a month and even thats way too soon, I dont expect any result worth publishing before january, and thats no fault of the lamp, thats just nature.

I say to you with complete sincerity, if you want to see results or make a valid conclusion on any lamp you buy, give it at least 6 months. But I wish you well with your apollo and look forward to seeing how long that one lasts on the tank

 

[power boat jim]

Hurricane,
as someone who has had a lot of success with LEDs the above advice of giving it six months minimum is spot on. Now after 2 years I cant dump enough additives in the tank to keep the alk above 7 and I am throwing away frags due to to overgrowth.

 

[rsaha]

Until LEDs are plug and play, they will be never be "there" for the hobby as a whole. That's just the cold hard truth.

RC is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the hobby. The hobbyists on here are okay with being beta testers and funding the research for these companies. We are okay with inept software at the beginning. We are okay trying to dial every little thing in to make our tanks perfect in our eyes.

The rest of the hobby isn't okay with any of that. They want to plug the light in and leave it alone. They don't want to buy $1200 lights and a $400 PAR meter to make sure that the over priced lights don't fry their tank. They don't want to spend 2+ hours messing around with Wi-Fi and other needless things on their aquarium lights.

I fall somewhere in between all of that. LEDs made this hobby a lot more complex and time consuming than I wanted. It made for a lot of second guessing and questioning for me. It took the fun out of it all.

I've helped a few companies with their lights and tested them over my own tanks. I've also spent good money on some top LED systems only to be frustrated and sell them off.

So until LEDs have an accepted middle ground amongst companies, they will never be fully "there" for the hobby as a whole.

This is me to a T. I would love to be able to fire up a couple high end LED fixtures and be sure a) I was not going to have to work hard to get things right and perhaps more importantly b) know I was spending my money on something that was proven, stable and not going to be yesterday's news in a year because the world is changing so fast. I'm not saying anything for or against LEDs here. I'm just saying I've been following this thread and I am Joe T Reefer and not up for the challenge or risk of wiping out my SPS. I have been running T5 and this fall have switched back to MH/T5 for the cooler months because I miss the shimmer. I want to love LED - just need it to be easy...

This is my tank under T5 - about a year ago - need to update my pics...

 

[AQD_ottawa]

Ok what would convince the non believers that a good LED is as good as MH, what exactly are you looking for that has not been shown here? Growth has been shown, colour has been shown, the need to not require a chiller in most cases, lack of bulb replacement, amazing dimming, and on and on and on.

So maybe my fellow towny above has hit the nail on the head, maybe to the non believer the real issue is understanding the complexity of programming an LED to give the right results, OK maybe there is a marketing idea coming to me here, a preset LED, bit like a preset MH bulb? Only thing you do is program your dimming curves. Maybe add some rolling clouds.

Maybe the above comment is the key to this whole debate?

I no longer see an argument in switching back to T5 or MH because the LED lamp did not grow corals or produce colours or worse kill corals, that argument simply falls into the catagory of badly designed choice of lamp and takes me back to a previous long post

So if an LED with a credible track record was sold with a preset that was proven to work, would you buy it?

 

[AQD_ottawa]

This is my tank under T5 - about a year ago - need to update my pics...

Stunning tank, no question T5 produce beautiful systems.

 

[rsaha]

Ok what would convince the non believers that a good LED is as good as MH, what exactly are you looking for that has not been shown here? Growth has been shown, colour has been shown, the need to not require a chiller in most cases, lack of bulb replacement, amazing dimming, and on and on and on.

So maybe my fellow towny above has hit the nail on the head, maybe to the non believer the real issue is understanding the complexity of programming an LED to give the right results, OK maybe there is a marketing idea coming to me here, a preset LED, bit like a preset MH bulb? Only thing you do is program your dimming curves. Maybe add some rolling clouds.

Maybe the above comment is the key to this whole debate?

I no longer see an argument in switching back to T5 or MH because the LED lamp did not grow corals or produce colours or worse kill corals, that argument simply falls into the catagory of badly designed choice of lamp and takes me back to a previous long post

So if an LED with a credible track record was sold with a preset that was proven to work, would you buy it?

Yes - I would say that's exactly what stops people (the non-haters anyway). LEDs can grow SPS but there is the expectation that long difficult acclimation periods and risk of wiping out tanks are expected. Not appealing. Quirky software that works on this OS but not that one not really appreciated either but if you could offer something like 250W XM10K, Phoenix 14K and Radium 20K HQI (maybe a few more bulbs as long as there was somebody figuring it out) were preset and representative (and safe from an intensity perspective) then I would get serious about considering LEDS. If you had bulb x and 100 percent, 120 percent, 150 percent, 400W equivalent that would be a huge plus - imagine selling it as "yes here's your Phoenix you love but you can just keep turning it up". Annual (or near to it) obsolescence (due to the rate of innovation) would be the other issue to be addressed but just making it easy would be huge.

I prefer to be a laggard - been at this hobby off and on since the late 80s (i once owned a really nice trickle filter. Every time I've tried something at the leading edge I've been burned so perhaps I'm not representative of the masses but I bet I'm representative of some of those who've been at it for a while.

 

[HurricaneSystem]

I have typed many replies to your post Michael, but not posted any because it wouldn't benefit the thread.

I am going to tell you one last time. Stop stalking my threads and being so insecure about your product. You really don't want to do that again. Trust me.

 

[FlyPenFly]

It took a while for people to believe the world is round and quite a lot of people don't believe in evolution. Anything new is distrusted until one day it's the standard because an amazing new technology has come along which will now be the distrusted new thing.

Some people just don't want to believe that a new thing or way of doing things can be better than what has worked for them so far and some people embrace it. It's hard to believe with all the incredible tanks that have been growing on LEDs at numerous Tanks of the Month across several sites and LEDs being used on an industrial scale at coral farms, people still doubt the technology.

 

[Allentown]

From my experience I think the true proof is in the results. Go around the web and look at the tank of the month threads, don't look at what the lighting is if possible. See what truly looks amazing, and note those tanks. Then look at what lighting was used. Thats how I made my choice away from LEDs to T5s. I struggled for a long time, thinking about dropping over 2 grand on Mitras, six months after dropping $1500+ on Ecoxotic cannons and Par 38 spotlights.

There is a lot of emotion tied up in a purchase this large, and everyone wants to defend what they chose, especially when they buy something new. That was why I looked at tanks and let the tanks tell me what lighting they preferred.

I've had the 8 bulb ATI sunpower for almost a year and couldn't be happier - and the prices on the bulbs are dropping. I just saw the blue plus 39 watt bulbs are down to 16 bucks so I stocked up. Change out every nine months cost will be about $145. If you count the roughly $850 for the fixture and first set of bulbs I bought as a package, then add the cost for each changeout, it will take about 7 years to equal the cost I would have incurred buying the Mitras. If anyone here is still using a first generation Mitras setup in 7 years I would be very surprised....

That wouldn't be the case for me. The MH / T5 combo with led moon lights I considered was well north of $1,100 not counting bulbs for even the first years replacements. I don't have much more than that in my LEDs.

 

[Allentown]

LEDs being used on an industrial scale at coral farms, people still doubt the technology.

This is what made the decision for me (and what I modeled my choice and combination after).

 

[AQD_ottawa]

I have typed many replies to your post Michael, but not posted any because it wouldn't benefit the thread.

I am going to tell you one last time. Stop stalking my threads and being so insecure about your product. You really don't want to do that again. Trust me.

Again :deadhorse: Nobody is stalking you and nobody is feeling insecure about anything, anyone doing a thread search on your profile will see exactly where your issues lie, nothing to do with ANY lamp you have tried you simply have not given any lamp its worth in time, so no review you can do will ever be taken with any weight. When you purchased the Mitras i told you specifically give it 6 months, you replied of course you will its the best thing since MH, you lasted 4 days, posted that you were not seeing any colour out of the corals and switched to MH.

You can go ahead and write as many negative (even positive reviews) as you like, but who can take them seriously? less than a month with various LED's you dont get the results you want so you blame the light and move on.

You need to really start listening to the masses that keep telling you (not just me) STOP!!!! Give the chosen equipment time and more importantly give your tank time, until then anything you write or review will never ever be taken seriously. And trust me from the PM's I have gotten I am really not the only one trying to get this message through to you.

There are multiple users on RC new to reefing, new to LED they could quite easily read your reviews and take them as an educated experience, this is 100% the opposite, and dangerous.

Please please stop spending money on lamps, out of the bucket load you now have pick one stick with it for 6 months and then come back and report, the whole RC community will then take you very seriously. But when someone as good and kind as I to take the time many times to tell you, "stop wasting your money", "stop trying to force nature", that is not stalking you its actually looking out for you.

But of course you are 100% right in your mind so I and everyone else on here with years of thriving tanks will be wrong.

I just hope this time you will listen to the many voices that have posted pretty much the same lines as I have just written to you, but I fear its a lost cause.

More important please dont post threats on RC, nobody is out to get you we all that have taken the time to reply to you have done so with their hearts in the right places trying to help you. RC is not a place to start posting threats.

 

[mikeatjac]

Again :deadhorse: Nobody is stalking you and nobody is feeling insecure about anything, anyone doing a thread search on your profile will see exactly where your issues lie, nothing to do with ANY lamp you have tried you simply have not given any lamp its worth in time, so no review you can do will ever be taken with any weight. When you purchased the Mitras i told you specifically give it 6 months, you replied of course you will its the best thing since MH, you lasted 4 days, posted that you were not seeing any colour out of the corals and switched to MH.

You can go ahead and write as many negative (even positive reviews) as you like, but who can take them seriously? less than a month with various LED's you dont get the results you want so you blame the light an move on.

You need to really start listening to the masses that keep telling you (not just me) STOP!!!! Give the chosen equipment time and more importantly give your tank time, until then anything you write or review will never ever be taken seriously. And trust me from the PM's I have gotten I am really not the only one trying to get this message through to you.

There are multiple users on RC new to reefing, new to LED they could quite easily read your reviews and take them as an educated experience, this is 100% the opposite, and dangerous.

Please please stop spending money on lamps, out of the bucket load you now have pick one stick with it for 6 months and then come back and report, the whole RC community will then take you very seriously. But when someone as good and kind as I take the time many times to tell you, stop wasting your money, stop trying to force nature, that is not stalking you its actually looking out for you.

But of course you are 100% right in your mind so I and everyone else on here with years of thriving tanks will be wrong.

I could not agree more!

 

[evolutionZ]

he thinks the heat from MH is the secret to MH success and led failure. think he is just trolling RC!

 

[Clamagore]

Will LED make your corals "pop" in color and look great for a while, yea. It won't last though and about everything you have will be dead.

I'm a novice and even I can see that you have such a habit of stating your own personal opinions as facts, that there is little a person can learn from your experiences other than as an example of how not to go about things. It doesn't take much research to demonstrate that your most recent claim is outrageously misleading and incorrect.

I will give you credit for getting rid of the Gordon Gecko avatar, though.

 

[ganjero]

I'm a novice and even I can see that you have such a habit of stating your own personal opinions as facts, that there is little a person can learn from your experiences other than as an example of how not to go about things. It doesn't take much research to demonstrate that your most recent claim is outrageously misleading and incorrect.

I will give you credit for getting rid of the Gordon Gecko avatar, though.

He did not get rid of it, he is no longer part of the forums.

 

[albano]

More important please dont post threats on RC, nobody is out to get you we all that have taken the time to reply to you have done so with their hearts in the right places trying to help you. RC is not a place to start posting threats.

It's appears that those threats have extinguished his 'RC lights' ... his status changed to 'Moved On', last night!

 

[Lubeck]

I so want to pull the trigger and go back to halides but I'm on a tight budget and know my electrical bill will sky rocket. I run kessils and I love them but I run an sps tank and the color just isn't there. I run a 110 gal acrylic 60-18-24" with three kessils 350 x2 and 1 360 All wides

I tried to run a scenario with light schedule to justify price of electricity. If I buy 3-250 watt radiums and run them for 6 hours that comes close to the 14 hours I run my kessils. However I'm not running the kessils at 100% power more like 6 hours per day. So I'm not going to get a savings as far as I can see.

Although I could get away with not supplementing the radiums I prob would want to is I could have more viewing time of the tank. I would go with t5 or vho acintics to supplement