Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

power boat jim said:
Ok, after listening to you guys for what seems like forever on this thread, I have gone and hung one 400 w MH over the center of the tank replacing 2 of my leds.Im running a 14 month old 20k coralife bulb. Cant say the tank looks any better. I have in the box a new 20k radium but it doesnt match the two ends of the tank where the leds are still running.

I dont know which bulb would be better in the long run. So here is the question how long do you guys think it will take to improve colors if it is at all possible. I did put the corals that were not doing as well under the leds under the MH. It includes the red planet, two dragons, a milie and a prostrata (I think that what it is.) I just hope I dont regret this by trashing a bunch of decent corals with the change.
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I'd give the radium a shot....it might look different, but its just to test out and see what happens :)

It'll be interesting to see, but I'd be surprised if you dindt see result within a months time.
 
Geeee, just trying to learn from the masters who have more experience with LED's & MH systems. I have seen horrific corals, all white & bleached under the same lights at my LFS & I am shocked.


I really don't understand how well these corals are doing in this tank. It defies what I know about those particular model LED's.


What I found to be great tanks with LED's, you guys are pointing out great detail that I would have not normally picked up on. I am beginning to see more & more where you are coming from. Where else am I going to get this type of feedback from if not here? Seems like if you are looking for the best then MH or MH/T5 is the way to go & if you are willing to compromise then LED is the alternative as it stands now.
 
James77 said:
I'd give the radium a shot....it might look different, but its just to test out and see what happens :)

It'll be interesting to see, but I'd be surprised if you dindt see result within a months time.
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Ok I will switch it out and put up with the kind of strange looking tank for a while.

Jack, I already did that. I will give it a month and see what happens. Let me know if you guy have any other suggestions. It really better help some since I really hate the way it looks right now. The things I do for science:)
 
Watch them, you may need to adjust it more, you will be throwing some spectrum at them that they haven't seen in a while. You may see changes sooner than a month if they were struggling before. If it were me I would also feed a little heavier as well for a little while.
 
Aqualund said:
you'll have a bad time with the 14k bulb...I would replace it with the 20k...and then just make sure your par isn't insane under the MH. There's no telling how quickly they will respond in either direction...but please take pictures and post your results!
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I will try and get some pics when my son gets home next week, he has the stuff to do it I cant. Sirreal63 will probably end up making them visable in some way to the rest of Reef Central.

The leds have far more par then the MH. The leds were over 1400 and the mh were 900-1000 near the surface.
 
They have more par in a much more narrow range, the corals are adjusted to your current spectrum but you will be putting some back at them they may not be used to, it may be worth it to be cautious.
 
I know I said I wasn't going to post here again, but I said I would tell you the outcome and I am a man of my word.
Proline Aquatics in BC (distributor for Vertx) has agreed to have me send my light back to them (at their expense) and either get it working perfectly or send me a new fixture.
Jen, the warranty person for Proline has gone above and beyond in her efforts to help me. Their customer service is exceptional.
We have been working on resolving my issues for over a month now and Jen was there for me every step of the way.
That being said, I still want to go back to MH.
If anybody wants an excellent LED fixture at a reasonably negotiable price please PM me and we can work something out.
 
stancfii said:
I'm sure most of you have seen tdb320reef's thread. He has/had LEDs and added Radiums into the mix for color. I think he ended up dimming his white LEDs to about 10%.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=22125178&postcount=124
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I probably wont make any adjustment to my leds until i find out if the MH really changes anything for the better. If changes do go for the better I will have alot of work reconfiguring the canopy for the SOLs and MH lights as well as changing led color intensity to make the tank look natural.
 
I've only had LEDs for 3 months and am ready to throw them in the trash. My corals under T5s never had much color, but at least they grew a little and were alive. Now they are all almost dead because apparently you can't set the fixture at 40% like the manufacturer tells you to, when you're using their on tank mounting option.

Now I have a tank of dead / dying corals.

Is a chiller always necessary when running MH lighting? I just spent $1,400 on my LED fixture so I'm hesitant to spend another pile of cash on MH, but it seems to be the way to go.
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
I've only had LEDs for 3 months and am ready to throw them in the trash. My corals under T5s never had much color, but at least they grew a little and were alive. Now they are all almost dead because apparently you can't set the fixture at 40% like the manufacturer tells you to, when you're using their on tank mounting option.

Now I have a tank of dead / dying corals.

Is a chiller always necessary when running MH lighting? I just spent $1,400 on my LED fixture so I'm hesitant to spend another pile of cash on MH, but it seems to be the way to go.
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If you have tried two proven light sources and have not been successful with either it might not be the lights. Using the leds alone should make for a very nice result. Using T5s yield very nice results. Using the two together should yield outstanding results.
 
power boat jim said:
Its an old pfo light with a spider reflector.
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Jim,
Down the line, if you like the halide and decide to stay with it, first thing to look at are your reflectors. Spider light reflectors are very inefficient. Lots of light is lost compared with LumenBright, LumenMax or some of the Hamilton reflectors.

And the Radium is the way to go regarding the two bulbs you have to try out.
Dave
 
AcroporAddict said:
Jim,
Down the line, if you like the halide and decide to stay with it, first thing to look at are your reflectors. Spider light reflectors are very inefficient. Lots of light is lost compared with LumenBright, LumenMax or some of the Hamilton reflectors.

And the Radium is the way to go regarding the two bulbs you have to try out.
Dave
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Thanks the input Dave, I know those are not the best reflectors but I think for the sake of the "study" they will be fine. Even if the tank does better with the radium, I will keep the LEDs since they offer far to much to simply discount. I will simply make a nice efficient hybrid system.
 
Jim,
looking forward to what you find out! So far I love my led's and would never go back. I have seen your tank and it's really nice! I am betting you are going to stick with the led's..................
I have seen led tanks that look just as good as any metal halide set up.
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
I've only had LEDs for 3 months and am ready to throw them in the trash. My corals under T5s never had much color, but at least they grew a little and were alive. Now they are all almost dead because apparently you can't set the fixture at 40% like the manufacturer tells you to, when you're using their on tank mounting option.

Now I have a tank of dead / dying corals.

Is a chiller always necessary when running MH lighting? I just spent $1,400 on my LED fixture so I'm hesitant to spend another pile of cash on MH, but it seems to be the way to go.
Click to expand...

No.
If MHs are done correctly they will add no heat.
What size tank do you have?
 
meshwheel said:
Jim,
looking forward to what you find out! So far I love my led's and would never go back. I have seen your tank and it's really nice! I am betting you are going to stick with the led's..................
I have seen led tanks that look just as good as any metal halide set up.
Click to expand...

Trust me the LEDS are staying no matter what. Im not unhappy with the overall performance of LEDs. Its just a question of seeing if I can get some the corals that are not responding to LEDs to grow. It will cost me nothing but some time and effort to do it. I think it will be intresting.
 
I've had my 3 AI Sols for almost 1 1/2 yrs (2 white & 1 blue module) I have a true mixed reef and everything is happy & everything grows. I think a lot of people like to blame their lighting because its easy when the culprit is something else. Also, I've had exactly zero issues, I plugged them in, programmed the appropriate lighting schedule and they just run ....
 
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