Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[ridetheducati]

While this community continues to kick the can up and down the street discussing minutia I will spend a few moments enjoying my view. A skilled hobbyist can adapt and adjust to any of the mainstream lighting solutions. I challenge any hobbyist to adopt a lighting solution they are least familiar and maintain a thriving reef, you may learn something.

 

[Fredfish]

Very nice! Originally purchased from the LED optimized coral store perhaps?

 

[alton]

TheSOLs are stock and are running 40/70/72 and have been for a while. They are bout three years old now. I can also say that two local fish store owners ask me for frags every now and then for their personal tanks. I take that as a compliment since they certainly have a bunch they could choose from.

Wow that is awesome still using the original 6 AI Sol Blues and nothing else. Everyone in my club when they had a chance sold off and upgraded to the latest greatest, the should of stuck with what they had.

 

[d2mini]

Oh, it's pic time? Woot!


All grown under LED.

Not too shabby, eh? But ya know what? Still wasn't good enough for me.
While many coral did well, others did not. Or they were the wrong color or had odd growth.
After the switch, the coral that weren't doing well started to thrive.
The other part is the personal preference and the fact that I just prefer the way my tank looks with MH/T5 lighting. Much brighter, less shadowing, beefier coral (coral THICKENED), more natural coloring... all of which trumps electricity and bulbs for me. The fact that your light has the ability to grow coral is just one part of it. Lots of other reasons to make your choice one way or the other. The newbies seem to love the "black light" blinding fluorescent colors. Like all those photoshopped pics from online vendors. Not my cup of tea but some people love that stuff.

BTW, that pic was taken two-three weeks after the switch. I already saw improved growth and better coloring.

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

The MH photons aren't great. Everyone knows that the natural sun photons are far superior!

Unfortunately hydrogen fusion reactors haven't hit the market yet.

 

[ridetheducati]

Oh, it's pic time? Woot!

Not too shabby, eh? But ya know what? Still wasn't good enough for me.
While many coral did well, others did not. Or they were the wrong color or had odd growth.
After the switch, the coral that weren't doing well started to thrive.
The other part is the personal preference and the fact that I just prefer the way my tank looks with MH/T5 lighting. Much brighter, less shadowing, beefier coral (coral THICKENED), more natural coloring... all of which trumps electricity and bulbs for me. The fact that your light has the ability to grow coral is just one part of it. Lots of other reasons to make your choice one way or the other. The newbies seem to love the "black light" blinding fluorescent colors. Like all those photoshopped pics from online vendors. Not my cup of tea but some people love that stuff.

BTW, that pic was taken two-three weeks after the switch. I already saw improved growth and better coloring.

Totally agree. The hobby is 100% personal preference.

I have said it a thousand times, Metal Halides are the undisputed heavy weight champion of reef lighting and LEDs are challenging the champ. Guess what, you got to knock out the champ to be the champ. OTOH, some fight managers do not like managing an ornery and overweight champ.

I probably have 15 years experience with MH and I am currently in the middle of a 2 year LED experiment, started a new system under LED. Have I identified LED short comings, absolutely. Is it significant enough to abandon the experiment, no. For me, MH heat and humidity were the primary reasons for considering the LED experiment.

 

[Mikefromaz]

Bpb.... Sooner or later LED makers if they are smart will have to include suggested settings for various corals and/or similar info for depth. What i did with my tank as a starting point was try to mimic the color of my 50/50 PC fixture. Then for a week i increased the output 5% a day until the zoos seemed to object. Finally i dialed up a 12 hour photo period based on an algorithm supplied by another reefer. As i mentionef in my post above, my tank has turned into something of a coral factory. The hidden ingredient is patience.....and careful observation. Supplements are a must have opinion.

 

[Fredfish]

Bpb.... Sooner or later LED makers if they are smart will have...

The high end fixtures already do that. The problem seems to be nobody quite knows what the best spectrum mix is. Every manufacturer has a slightly different take on what spectrum to use and in what mix to use it.

All this flexibility is probably a good thing in the long run in that you can fine tune an LED light much more than any other lighting type, but in the short run Its causing confusion and frustration.

 

[Wazzel]

After taking a 6 year break in the hobby I am back and giving LED a shot. My tank has only been up a few weeks and so far I am much happier with the single LED fixture vs the MH/VHO set up I had on my last tank. The flexibility of the light and controller far exceeds anything I could get with the MH/VHO and timers. Not having to deal with the heat is a huge plus, no fans, no chiller and temps that hover around 78.5 all the time. I have a few SPS and LPS and they are growing. Based on what I have seen so far I do not know what would want to make me change back.

 

[stancfii]

I'm curious what the % is of "successful" LED users using well cured traditional live rock vs dry rock to start a tank.

 

[Mikefromaz]

I started my most recent tank (jan) with dry rock. After a half dozen zoo rocks, i couldnt believe the number and diversity of critters. Just a few.....bydroid jellies, stomatella snails, brittle stars ,copepods, bristle worms, and plants that just appeared.

 

[d2mini]

I'm curious what the % is of "successful" LED users using well cured traditional live rock vs dry rock to start a tank.

IMHO, I don't think it matters.
What does matter is that your tank is mature and healthy, especially when it comes to SPS.
And this is why in the case of this conversation, I would have a hard time taking a comment seriously if it was about a tank less than a year old.
It's the tanks that are at least a couple years old with actual COLONIES of coral GROWN under whatever light they're using that are the best test subjects. A tank with a bunch of little frags doesn't really tell us much.
So at this point, it doesn't really matter what rock you started with because by now we'd all be on the same playing field.

FWIW, I started with rock and sand from Tampa Bay Saltwater.

 

[Mikefromaz]

Actually any tank is mature once it supports a reasonable bio load. If one does reasonable husbandry and coral groth is evident then what? My 80gal. reef had a four inch DSB and was on the verge of Old tank syndrome after only a year. Thats why i havent heard much about DSB's lately I suppose. I have had every coral frag double and in some cases triple in size in the past months. My present tank is 5 months old and i have even watched my GSP spawn. If anything i would imagine large colonies after a year or more might be more challenging as they use more resources. If one does water changes on a regular basis, then it is likey even the detritus for those critters who may eat it is stable. It all boils down to a viable biotope, stocking levels and plain old regular maintanence. Except for the initial break in i seriously doubt is a major consideration.

 

[norwall]

One of my LFS has the Radions over a few tanks and they look incredible. My impression was different from what I'm reading from some of you. My first impression is that the colors look like they should, without everything being washed out and having a blue tinge to it like you may get with 20k color temp, etc...I currently use Hamilton 14k or Phoenix without supplement lighting and to my eyes have that typical washed out look with some of the colors

My personal experience: I've seen the best growth with CFL's and when I was using those I had to cull SPS to keep it in check, but didn't like that there was no shimmer, bulb color options limited, etc...

 

[d2mini]

If one does reasonable husbandry and coral groth is evident then what? My 80gal. reef had a four inch DSB and was on the verge of Old tank syndrome after only a year. Thats why i havent heard much about DSB's lately I suppose.

This is getting off topic, but 4" isn't a deep sand bed. It's too much for a regular bed and not enough for a dsb, creating the problems you ended up with. This is one reason why dab's have gotten a bad rap... from people doing it wrong.

 

[MedRed]

My tank was two years old with all SPS started from small frags that were under LEDs from day one. By month one under MH there was a SIGNIFICANT difference. It seems like everything my SPS wanted was in place except for the lighting to really take them to the next level.

 

[nynick]

My tank was two years old with all SPS started from small frags that were under LEDs from day one. By month one under MH there was a SIGNIFICANT difference. It seems like everything my SPS wanted was in place except for the lighting to really take them to the next level.

This is a pointless statement.

 

[MedRed]

This is a pointless statement.

not at all since I have posted the photo evidence over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I thought I'd not do it again.

 

[nynick]

not at all since I have posted the photo evidence over and over and over and over and over and over and over. I thought I'd not do it again.

You do not need to post pics, but information that is a little more elaborate than LED bad / MH good would be helpful.

 

[MedRed]

You do not need to post pics, but information that is a little more elaborate than LED bad / MH good would be helpful.

I've written up dissertations in this thread several times with my LED experience.