Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

This has been a great read, but still hasn't solved my problem. I am running t5's on a 220g and am thinking about going to led so I can get teh shimmer and also have moonlights. I dont want to spend a fortune and not be happy. I had a friend bring over a photon unit and it looked great and adjustable and the ability to dim from sunrise to sunset is also a nice feature. I just don't want to put this on the tank and kill my corals. Does anybody have any experience changing from t5 to leds and how they went about it. Thanks for the help and I am sorry I couldn't add anything to this thread
 
Thedeadhorse.gif
 
scolley said:
Don't know that that exists yet. Give it a year or two.

I should chime in here and say that a few years ago I switched to DIY LEDs from Radium MH, supplemented by actinic PCs. My initial build of Royal Blue and Cool While looked terrible. So much so, it bears repeating... terrible.

But since then I've modified it to a mix of Blue, Royal Blue, Cool White, Neutral White, Deep Red, and two Violets; 405 nm and 430 nm. And the tank looks awesome. That too bears repeating... awesome.

The coral color is killer. SPS have great PE, and grow well. But some LPS... not so much. My acans have pretty much all died, slowly dwindling to nothing. A few exceptions adapted, though any red in an acan that is still around is now orange. And my blastos also have not fared very well. And of my two frogspawns, one shriveled to nothing. The other slowly adapted, but still is not thriving. Yet some other LPS do fine. My Duncan could not be happier or growing faster. Same with my Button coral and trumpets. So it's a mixed bag for LPS. Some do well, some not.

But if you get the right combination, the color can be spectacular - much better than any MH I have ever seen. And SPS love it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply!
 
flyingclay,
You can change out your T5 bulbs and kill your corals. No difference in my opinion. I have had better success so far with LPS, Zoos, and other various corals then with halides. Only because the spread of the Reefbreeders is better!
If you do your homework and start gradual you will not kill your corals..........
 
unitedbga said:
I had a similar experience. Most of my acans died with leds and were growing great under T5.
Click to expand...
I had similar experiance swithcing my frag tank over but realized in the nick of time that the acans needed far less light under LED than they did under Flourecsent. My acans are growing again but I think they are still getting too much light and I need to move them further down in the tank. LPS seem to be slower and more finicky when it comes to adapting to LED lighting.
Brian Crook said:
Well, this thread has officially brought me back to the drawing board for choosing lights for my new build...

Some people say LED's are great. Others say LED's will kill your corals and take your lunch money.

I have used MH in my last build, and I really liked it (other than the heat and power). I'm not too worried about killing corals and stuff as I understand acclimation and intensity. What I'm more concerned about is how the tank will LOOK under LED lights. I live way out in the country in a small town of 700 people so it's very difficult for me to see any of this gear in real life before making a decision.

I loved the way everything looked under the bright point-source light of MH, but am really concerned about this 'disco-effect' harsh colouration that seems apparent in many (but not all) the photos I see of LED light...

So which is it - is LED the holy grail of aquarium lighting or what?
Click to expand...
LED really comes down to the optics as Scolley stated. Disco can be eliminated with the correct implementation of LEDs and the spectrum and look can indeed, in my experience as well be better than MH or Flourescent lights. (power savings and less heat not considered).
scolley said:
Don't know that that exists yet. Give it a year or two.

I should chime in here and say that a few years ago I switched to DIY LEDs from Radium MH, supplemented by actinic PCs. My initial build of Royal Blue and Cool While looked terrible. So much so, it bears repeating... terrible.

But since then I've modified it to a mix of Blue, Royal Blue, Cool White, Neutral White, Deep Red, and two Violets; 405 nm and 430 nm. And the tank looks awesome. That too bears repeating... awesome.

The coral color is killer. SPS have great PE, and grow well. But some LPS... not so much. My acans have pretty much all died, slowly dwindling to nothing. A few exceptions adapted, though any red in an acan that is still around is now orange. And my blastos also have not fared very well. And of my two frogspawns, one shriveled to nothing. The other slowly adapted, but still is not thriving. Yet some other LPS do fine. My Duncan could not be happier or growing faster. Same with my Button coral and trumpets. So it's a mixed bag for LPS. Some do well, some not.

But if you get the right combination, the color can be spectacular - much better than any MH I have ever seen. And SPS love it.
Click to expand...
Some LPS in my experience thus far seem less able to adapt to LED lighting, or at least seem to require far less light than they did under other light sources. I believe it has to do with the different spectum intensities although I've not been able to confirm exactly which ones they seem slower to adapt to.
flyingclay said:
This has been a great read, but still hasn't solved my problem. I am running t5's on a 220g and am thinking about going to led so I can get teh shimmer and also have moonlights. I dont want to spend a fortune and not be happy. I had a friend bring over a photon unit and it looked great and adjustable and the ability to dim from sunrise to sunset is also a nice feature. I just don't want to put this on the tank and kill my corals. Does anybody have any experience changing from t5 to leds and how they went about it. Thanks for the help and I am sorry I couldn't add anything to this thread
Click to expand...
Just swich over slowly and patiently. on a tank that big replace part of your T5 with LED and slowly acclimate, then switch out the rest. Slow acclimation is the key to switching over, it can take several months to fully acclimate to the new lights for some corals.
 
Thanks for the help. I didnt even think about using both the t5's and leds to acclimate I was just thinking of pulling the t5 and adding the leds. This is my nest move. Thanks again
 
That's to bad about your acans dying under LED, mine have tripled in 9mos under LED. I did lots of research though and made sure to acclimate them. I now have better color under my LED fixture then I ever had under 2x250 mh 14k phoenix with actinics. I will never go back to MH or T5 even if I had free Mh and T5 unit. BTW power boat jim, great tank!!
 
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I have to agree. I just got 9 new frags almost a week ago. Every single one of them is doing well. No color loss at all. I have SPS, Zoos and Chalices. All look excellent. Too early to tell, but another week or two longer and I should know if my SPS like the light. So far excellent polyp extension and color.
If I where looking down at the corals, and did not know they where led's it would be hard to tell.
My cheapo reefbreeders is kicken #%$ and taking names!!!!! So far, I love it!
 
Stunning tank shots Jim!
I've had a 120W 16K Razor going since last April. 250W MH 14K Phoenix before that. It's been a slow but steady decline since the switch, but I'm not able to put all the blame on the light unfortunately. So I'm still tweaking, watching & waiting.

- D
 
don_chuwish said:
Stunning tank shots Jim!
I've had a 120W 16K Razor going since last April. 250W MH 14K Phoenix before that. It's been a slow but steady decline since the switch, but I'm not able to put all the blame on the light unfortunately. So I'm still tweaking, watching & waiting.

- D
Click to expand...

Keep the faith it can and has been done by many.
 
At about the peak of the LED rage, my tank was maimed by Hurricane Irene, then knocked out by Sandy. previous build was MH and T5 high light. I am getting back into the hobby after the catastrophe, with a new build and considered LED. I have seen coral grown under the LED lights. No offense to those who swear by them, but the look of SPS is strange and the corals generally look sad with time-turning brown or white...part of our re-build was salvaging a wild 2 gen mariculture millipora from a LFS grown under LED...it was brown or white with little tissue, no polyps visible. Frankly, we could not even tell what it was in the LFS, but because the base looked real healthy, I offered the LFS a rehab try as a pilot test of the tank...I figured if I could salvage that coral, I was back in business. Within 2 weeks ,that sad LFS milli was nice and hairy, and because of the rapidly emerging/growing blue tips, clearly identifiable as a nifty ice-blue millipora. Additionally a really brown digitata frag was added. Under MH T5 polyps out in 1h and turning bright red and blue (superman) within a week. Based on this experieince, I wont be building a new LED array anytime soon Maybe I'll wait a little more...
 
rexdenton said:
At about the peak of the LED rage, my tank was maimed by Hurricane Irene, then knocked out by Sandy. previous build was MH and T5 high light. I am getting back into the hobby after the catastrophe, with a new build and considered LED. I have seen coral grown under the LED lights. No offense to those who swear by them, but the look of SPS is strange and the corals generally look sad with time-turning brown or white...part of our re-build was salvaging a wild 2 gen mariculture millipora from a LFS grown under LED...it was brown or white with little tissue, no polyps visible. Frankly, we could not even tell what it was in the LFS, but because the base looked real healthy, I offered the LFS a rehab try as a pilot test of the tank...I figured if I could salvage that coral, I was back in business. Within 2 weeks ,that sad LFS milli was nice and hairy, and because of the rapidly emerging/growing blue tips, clearly identifiable as a nifty ice-blue millipora. Additionally a really brown digitata frag was added. Under MH T5 polyps out in 1h and turning bright red and blue (superman) within a week. Based on this experieince, I wont be building a new LED array anytime soon Maybe I'll wait a little more...
Click to expand...

And from that scientific study you decided that it was solely the LEDs fault? :deadhorse:
 
Tangaroa said:
And from that scientific study you decided that it was solely the LEDs fault? :deadhorse:
Click to expand...

I was unaware that an anecdotal opinion on Reef Central required a scientific protocol and proof. However, if you are willing to sponsor the study, I'll submit an application along with my lab's capabilities, my scientific qualifications, cost of overhead, and a list of equipment along with my qualifications in environmental health sciences.

(However, I really doubt that you can afford the study...)
 
rexdenton said:
I was unaware that an anecdotal opinion on Reef Central required a scientific protocol and proof. However, if you are willing to sponsor the study, I'll submit an application along with my lab's capabilities, my scientific qualifications, cost of overhead, and a list of equipment along with my qualifications in environmental health sciences.

(However, I really doubt that you can afford the study...)
Click to expand...

I think the point is without knowing any of the other parameters of the LFS tanks, placing the the blame solely on LEDs for a corals poor condition is making a pretty big assumption. It could also be said that the recovery of the coral in your tank is probably not due entirely to the fact you dont run LEDs.
 
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