Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[TropTrea]

This guy has Pacific Sun fixtures & is one year into them. Looks like good colors & decent growth, although I know you SPS perfectionists would say otherwise?

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2390903

Not knowing which of there fixtures you have this may or may apply. But with there six plus channels of dimming I believe a lot of the difference between success and failure is how the channels are set up.

Personally I feel two channels of adjustment are all that is needed. You either want to increase the red or the blue end of the spectrum So you can have one channel covering the LED's from 400nm to the cool whites, and the other channel covering the neutral whites to 660 nm.

I also believe that the red spectrum is the least understood for reef lighting. A little red lighting will help things a lot but there is a narrow line between enough red light and excessive red light that can be harmful,

 

[ssdawood]

I'm considering throwing my Pacific Sun fixture in the trash. I've had it for about 4 months and although it makes the fish look nicer than my T5s and I like the shimmer, I killed most of my coral with it and what is alive is brown. There just doesn't seem to be any way to set this thing up properly unless you spend a year trying different settings every few weeks.

Dont throw it, I will take it off your hands. Some days I miss my pac sun :wavehand:

 

[ssdawood]

Not knowing which of there fixtures you have this may or may apply. But with there six plus channels of dimming I believe a lot of the difference between success and failure is how the channels are set up.

Personally I feel two channels of adjustment are all that is needed. You either want to increase the red or the blue end of the spectrum So you can have one channel covering the LED's from 400nm to the cool whites, and the other channel covering the neutral whites to 660 nm.

I also believe that the red spectrum is the least understood for reef lighting. A little red lighting will help things a lot but there is a narrow line between enough red light and excessive red light that can be harmful,

Giving the user so much control is the problem. There are a million ways to get different spectrum in pac sun. Also people keep playing with spectrum every week. Corals like stability. With light that give so much control its hard not to play.

Nine channels of color and four t5s and you have endless possiblities.:bounce1:

 

[nynick]

Giving the user so much control is the problem. There are a million ways to get different spectrum in pac sun. Also people keep playing with spectrum every week. Corals like stability. With light that give so much control its hard not to play.

Nine channels of color and four t5s and you have endless possiblities.:bounce1:

Amen, I just have 2 channels and am as far from being a techie that you can possibly get and even I almost managed to kill a stupid bubble tip before I stopped "perfecting it". Bubble tips are pretty hardy so I can imagine what it can do to some of the more sensitive sps.

It has since grown back to it's former glory so yes, it was me, not the lights.

 

[Fredfish]

Giving the user so much control is the problem...

You don't have to play, but maybe its like driving past an accident without slowing down to look: hard to do.

From a manufacturing point of view, I would think it is a good thing to have enough control to be able to create enough presets to satisfy a wide range of spectrum preferences. My approach to using such a light would be to get it working with the preset that is closest to my preferred look. Once the light is dialed in and corals are happy, then play [by making changes in small increments] if you desire.

 

[FastUno]

I hear you about too much control & the intro of too many variables. When choosing lights, personally I like to go with what just works. All my lighting decisions have been from successful tanks & where I can see produced results with more than one person.

This time the choice revolved around saving money & so I went with manual dimming control of lights. I tried to manually & gradually dim the lights up/down at times vs just throwing them on & I see no difference.

Here is an updated video:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ffJGOYrWlgg?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[TropTrea]

You don't have to play, but maybe its like driving past an accident without slowing down to look: hard to do.

From a manufacturing point of view, I would think it is a good thing to have enough control to be able to create enough presets to satisfy a wide range of spectrum preferences. My approach to using such a light would be to get it working with the preset that is closest to my preferred look. Once the light is dialed in and corals are happy, then play [by making changes in small increments] if you desire.

Actualy if I were to build a light for somone else what I would do is fix the blue end of the spectrum to be as benificial to the most corals as possible. Then on a sepeate driber have the fuller spectrum neutral whit LED's as adjustable. Then he is assured enough light to grow the corals but can adjust the overall color temp to what pleases him the most. From past experience I found people like a blue to full ration of between 2.5 to 1 and 4 to 1 when I used neutral whites for the lspectrum. With cool whites they prefer rations between 1 to1 and 3 to 1.

 

[Fredfish]

Actualy if I were to build a light for somone else what I would do is fix the blue end of the spectrum to be as benificial to the most corals as possible...

Fix it for what size tank? Fix it for what type of corals? For a manufacturer to do that it is going to dramatically increase the number of skus they have to hold for all the different tank sizes and coral mixes. It also increases the manufacturing complexity.

You can put a reefbreeders basic fixture over anything from a 20 gallon to 200 gallon tank by adjusting light levels and the number of units you buy.

It seems to me that manufacturers should be offering a lot more guidance on how to set their lights over a given tank size for a given set of corals so people don't fry their corals when they start out with LEDs.

 

[matt.fhm]

Reefbrite is coming out with a single pendant halide and reefbrite combo

 

[Khemul]

Fix it for what size tank? Fix it for what type of corals? For a manufacturer to do that it is going to dramatically increase the number of skus they have to hold for all the different tank sizes and coral mixes. It also increases the manufacturing complexity.

You can put a reefbreeders basic fixture over anything from a 20 gallon to 200 gallon tank by adjusting light levels and the number of units you buy.

It seems to me that manufacturers should be offering a lot more guidance on how to set their lights over a given tank size for a given set of corals so people don't fry their corals when they start out with LEDs.

There is a balanced point where a light would work universally. We know this, because this is how lighting has worked for the last few generations. T5, MH, T8, PC, T12. They all have basic setups that work universally, then the advanced user can customize from there.

LEDs currently work backwards of the lighting norm. They offer that customization for the advanced user, but don't really have a universal balance. There are a bunch of default settings that get close, and a bunch that aren't even close, but none that quite hit that sweet spot. That is what the industry really needs. But, the industry is driven by marketing, not practicality, so it'll probably be a while. X channels of customization sells much better then trying to convince the casual hobbyist that spectrum matters. The average casual hobbyist (the type that actually pushes the market, since they vastly outnumber us) probably doesn't even know they should care about spectrum to begin with.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Well I got my Illumina back with the 3 multi-color modules added, and full functionality.
I was telling my wife while taking down my MH fixture, "This had better dazzle me". Well, I am dazzled.
So far it looks awesome. Time will tell how my corals will react to it, but I am thrilled with how my tank looks now.

 

[Tangaroa]

Well I got my Illumina back with the 3 multi-color modules added, and full functionality.
I was telling my wife while taking down my MH fixture, "This had better dazzle me". Well, I am dazzled.
So far it looks awesome. Time will tell how my corals will react to it, but I am thrilled with how my tank looks now.

Excellent. :dance:

Hopefully things will be on the up from here!

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Tangaroa, seeing your tank was the inspiration for me to stick with LEDs.
I am even going to steal your framework idea to stop light spill into the room.
:wave:

 

[meshwheel]

Salty,
Glad to hear your happy with them. Just make sure no saltwater gets to them. I really love my leds! The ONE(1) plug thing still makes me smile!!!

 

[grigsy]

Glad you are happy with it.

To me, I have been much happier using metal halides than LEDs. Much better coral growth.

To each his own.

 

[theaquareef]

I think ill stick to halides for a little longer. I love the customization of led but my opinion is the tanks and inhabitants almost look fake to my eyes with the excess blueish purple colors. Halides just suit me more I think. Led is a strong competitor

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Salty,
Glad to hear your happy with them. Just make sure no saltwater gets to them. I really love my leds! The ONE(1) plug thing still makes me smile!!!

Yeah, it still amazes me that the Austrian engineers that designed the Illumina didn't think to use an airtight seal on the splitter.
Given the humidity under the stand of a reef tank, corrosion is not a matter of if but when.

 

[nynick]

I think ill stick to halides for a little longer. I love the customization of led but my opinion is the tanks and inhabitants almost look fake to my eyes with the excess blueish purple colors. Halides just suit me more I think. Led is a strong competitor

The fake purple color isn't on all led setups and is exaggerated in many photos.

...but yeah, if you have a MH setup that isn't causing you problems what would be the point in changing?

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Lower electric bills number one, and much more sleek looking.
My LED fixture is barely noticeable, whereas my MH system was big and bulky.

 

[d2mini]

Lower electric bills number one, and much more sleek looking.
My LED fixture is barely noticeable, whereas my MH system was big and bulky.

If you are paying the same kind of dough you are paying for your led fixture, there are some really nice, sleek looking mh/t5 fixtures out there like Giesemann fixtures for example. Of course they may not work for your tank depending on shape and size but at least there is some nice options available.