ridetheducati
20 and Over Club
99.765341% of RC posts are supported by exhaustive scientific testing procedures. Truly a living study. :lol:
Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides
- Thread starter Goldcoastreefs
- Start date
Aqualund
New member
+1
And if fact, there have been studies (funded, unbiased, scientific studies, run by experts in their field) to show the effects of LED lighting over corals, and the overwhelming majority of them... I'd say 99.765341% of them, show no detrimental effects of running leds over corals...all corals.
It's only in the anecdotal stories that issues arise. And here, the plethora of variables make it impossible to verify what the causes of the negative effects are.
TMS
New member
Just want to throw this out there. I have heard a lot of rave reviews of the Kessil 360w and to me I am sure its a great light but at 360w are we not starting to lose the point of LED. It is supposed to be more efficient yet people are putting 360w over tanks that would be fine on a 250w mh, why not just go the extra 40w for a 400w mh. I don't know just doesn't make sense to go with something that is untested vs the 400w mh which will grow even the most demanding corals.
power boat jim
Well-known member
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
:facepalm:
Kessil 360w is the Wide version of the 360. That number does NOT indicate the amount of power used.
A little research would have easily solved that question. Literally, 2 seconds on any reef supply website would tell you that...
SMH
power boat jim
Well-known member
MY bad I even did visit kessils website before I posted. I saw it was dimmable and didnt read the specs any farther. Thats what I get for ASSUMING someone knew what they were talking about in the first place.
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
Yes, the first poster needed the research.
I only quoted yours so that anyone following could easily figure it all out.
Tangaroa
New member
+1Exactly.
Here's a little evidence that LEDs won't necessarily kill all your corals. This is a quick top-down shot I took of my tank last night with my phone. In this shot the colors are a bit off. Most are a bit more dramatic than they should be. But some don't look as good. Proper white balance, good photography, and color accuracy is not the point I'd like to make though.
This tank is 2 years old. All of the corals in it have been in that tank for most of that time. A few have been acquired within the last year, but not many. And a few were even moved from my prior tank over two years ago. And I have never had them under anything but LEDs. They are ALL much larger than when first put in the tank, and the new grow is the same color as the old growth.
If you have trouble with SPS under LEDs, the fact that the light is coming from LEDs is not the problem in and of itself. They may be too bright, or too dim, they may be the wrong color, or you may have a problem not associated with light. But IMO this shows clearly that the simple fact of being under LEDs is not necessarily bad for corals.
I believe that sometimes it's a very good thing.
power boat jim
Well-known member
Nice tank scolley, you even have a few breaking the surface there at low tide.
Thank you sir.
Good eye on catching that tip poking up! I had to shut off the return to get the surface smooth enough to snap a shot.
TropTrea
New member
I think there is lot more to LED lighting than meets the eye. Unfortunatly many individuals are not aware of the difference as well some of the manufacturers. There are fair, good, very good and some fantastic LED systems out there.
Light at specific wave lenght hitting a coral will do the same thing regardless if it comes from a T-5, MH, or LED source. LED's give the option of putting specific wave lenghts of light on your corals and reducing other specific wave lenghts of light on your corals. If you know what your doing this is a good thing as you can give them the specific wave lenghts they utilize the most and avoid giving them the wave lenghts that are useless to them or even detrimental to them.
I muself have played around with LED's for over 3 years now with three frag tanks on the same water column. I have tried different LED combinations recommended to me initialy by different "experts" here hand have had very mixed results. The only reason the results were mixed was because of the selection of wave lenghts between one fixture and another.
If your looking for both growth and florescent coloring I will say you can use LED's properly and get both of these better than any other light source for roughly 1/2 the total wattage used with the newest LED's on the market. However if reflective colors are more important for you than growth or florescense then you will end up sacrificing something to get the other. But it can still be done with LED's if you sacrifice some of the electrical savings.
I original started with 3 frag tanks one had a fairly different LED combination than the other and the third had a proven good T-5 light combination. Initialy one LED tanks looked and growth was slightly better than the T-5 but the other was lacking. Each of the 40 breeder tanks had 24 3 watt LED's on it and I started tweeking the one with loorer growth. But changing out 4 LED's out of the 24 the growth started to exceed that of the ofther two tanks. After a year a pulled my T-5 fixture and used a slightly different commbination for the new LED fixture and it exceeded the other two tanks. Since then I have done some added tweeking and slowly improved all three of these tanks.
Looking for a more perfect solution though I switched one tank to a combination of 2 39 watt T-5's and 16 3 watt LED's. This tank started to show an improvement over everything else in just about 3 weeks. Since then I have done simular combinations on several of my larger tanks and for other individuals as well.
Thi issue I found that made me go with the combination is the specific wave lenght that LED's are available in and there narrow band width. the blue spoectrum from 410 nm to about 480 nm is where 90% of the growth of corals from. There are specific LED's available at 410 nm, 455nm, and 470 nm which give good results in that area. however if you evaluate the spectrum you find light is low in the ranges of 425 to 445 nm. LED's are not readily available on the consumer market from the quality manufacturers in this range. Therefore I decided to suplement the LED's with a Blue or atinic T-5 Bulb which is strong in these wave lenghts.
The results were phenominal for me with the combination. Compared to my other LED's growth was 20 to 35 precent better, and compared to my old T-5's with 234 watts the growth was nearly double. And this is only with 48 Watts of LED's and 78 Watts of T-5's for 126 Watts or 55% of the power used by the T-5's.
Can it get better. Yes I think once the next generation of LED's comes out giving 200LUMNS + per watt it will get better. But I do wich the would market a 440nm and 425 nm LED so the T-5's could go away completly with the same results.
Light at specific wave lenght hitting a coral will do the same thing regardless if it comes from a T-5, MH, or LED source. LED's give the option of putting specific wave lenghts of light on your corals and reducing other specific wave lenghts of light on your corals. If you know what your doing this is a good thing as you can give them the specific wave lenghts they utilize the most and avoid giving them the wave lenghts that are useless to them or even detrimental to them.
I muself have played around with LED's for over 3 years now with three frag tanks on the same water column. I have tried different LED combinations recommended to me initialy by different "experts" here hand have had very mixed results. The only reason the results were mixed was because of the selection of wave lenghts between one fixture and another.
If your looking for both growth and florescent coloring I will say you can use LED's properly and get both of these better than any other light source for roughly 1/2 the total wattage used with the newest LED's on the market. However if reflective colors are more important for you than growth or florescense then you will end up sacrificing something to get the other. But it can still be done with LED's if you sacrifice some of the electrical savings.
I original started with 3 frag tanks one had a fairly different LED combination than the other and the third had a proven good T-5 light combination. Initialy one LED tanks looked and growth was slightly better than the T-5 but the other was lacking. Each of the 40 breeder tanks had 24 3 watt LED's on it and I started tweeking the one with loorer growth. But changing out 4 LED's out of the 24 the growth started to exceed that of the ofther two tanks. After a year a pulled my T-5 fixture and used a slightly different commbination for the new LED fixture and it exceeded the other two tanks. Since then I have done some added tweeking and slowly improved all three of these tanks.
Looking for a more perfect solution though I switched one tank to a combination of 2 39 watt T-5's and 16 3 watt LED's. This tank started to show an improvement over everything else in just about 3 weeks. Since then I have done simular combinations on several of my larger tanks and for other individuals as well.
Thi issue I found that made me go with the combination is the specific wave lenght that LED's are available in and there narrow band width. the blue spoectrum from 410 nm to about 480 nm is where 90% of the growth of corals from. There are specific LED's available at 410 nm, 455nm, and 470 nm which give good results in that area. however if you evaluate the spectrum you find light is low in the ranges of 425 to 445 nm. LED's are not readily available on the consumer market from the quality manufacturers in this range. Therefore I decided to suplement the LED's with a Blue or atinic T-5 Bulb which is strong in these wave lenghts.
The results were phenominal for me with the combination. Compared to my other LED's growth was 20 to 35 precent better, and compared to my old T-5's with 234 watts the growth was nearly double. And this is only with 48 Watts of LED's and 78 Watts of T-5's for 126 Watts or 55% of the power used by the T-5's.
Can it get better. Yes I think once the next generation of LED's comes out giving 200LUMNS + per watt it will get better. But I do wich the would market a 440nm and 425 nm LED so the T-5's could go away completly with the same results.
JPMagyar
New member
Hi Steve,
As always your corals are absolutely stunning . . . (EDIT: I realize I was confusing your tank with someone else's tank.)
Personally I have always been one of the LED naysayers, but I recently ordered 2 Pac Sun fixtures to try out. The key to me is that the Pandora fixtures I ordered come with both LEDs and T5 lamps built in. I agree that LED light in and of itself is never the culprit, but the trouble is that LED lights are so variable in application that most folks struggle to get the right mixture of intensity, duration, and spectrum. Hopefully my experiment with the Pandora fixtures will end in results similar to yours and not the scary coral losses or pale colors that many LED users have experienced.
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Thanks Joe!
As always, being anxious to tease out fact from fiction here, I'm happy to report that this is just LED, and has been only LEDs for years.
What you are probably thinking about is in my first reef (not this one) where I had with PC actinics supplementing my Radium MH. Roughly three years ago I replaced the MH with LEDs, I took out the PC tubes at that same time. Then that reef was replaced with this one two years ago, using the LEDs from the first reef. I upgraded that DIY LED rig about six months ago with more and - IMO - better LEDs.
There are four corals (that I'm aware of) that may trace back to that MH/PC combo. Three cannot be seen in that overhead pic, so they don't count. And the last one might (would have to check) could be the Duncan in the center. Everything that you can see (except maybe the Duncan) is definitely all (and only) LED for years.
ifarmer
New member
With either MH or T5, people have to replace bulbs almost every 8-10 months. This sometimes can be a lot of money if your fixture has 10 or 12 bulbs to replace
With LED, people always want to upgrade to a newer and better LED once the manufacture release a newer model.
crazy hobby
With LED, people always want to upgrade to a newer and better LED once the manufacture release a newer model.
crazy hobby
JPMagyar
New member
Steve,
I edited my post above because I realized I was confusing your tank with another CT Reefers tank. I realize now your tank is and has been always pure LED. Your corals are superb! Question though have you had any success in getting blue and only blue to grow on any SPS. I have seen a couple folks so far, but they have been using an enormous amount of LED fixtures to make it happen. It's the only aspect about which I am worried with my new Pac Sun fixtures. I have some beautiful blue corals and I want to keep them that way and not let them turn purple or green.
Anyways, thanks for sharing and sorry for the confusion. Your tank is awesome!
power boat jim
Well-known member
Blue should not be a problem, the dominent coral color in my tank is blue. My Oregon tort is pure sky blue from the base to the tips.
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