Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[FastUno]

After almost 4months of LED lights, I think I see why some would choose to go back. Although most of my corals are doing great & flourishing (and there are quite a variety of them), the larger purple stylo has gotten whiter underneath. It has white polyps underneath where it is completely shaded & cannot get sufficient light, because of the direct spot light effect. I would imagine this would be amplified as the SPS corals grow in size & this is simply unacceptable to those hard core reefers that this matters to the most.

If I look at the purple stylo from above, it looks perfect. It has great color wherever the light directly hits it (2 pictures shown). All the smaller frags are doing fine & will not encounter this until they grow & shade each other.

I don't think the solution would be to add more LED's? I would be worried about adversely affecting all the other corals. Perhaps T5 addition to the LED mix or just switch back to MH/T5's. To those who are very particular, this really DOES matter! For me I would still press along & see if T5 addition helps any.

Notice from above it looks perfect, but underneath one can readily distinguish whitening.

On a positive note, the many varieties of coral are doing great. Even this war coral that is in the very front & bottom. It has grown & is expanding on the floor.

 

[invertinoob]

300g

How high up are you keeping your lights and at what % do you run them at?

 

[mblum]

Wouldnt building a parabellar shape (curve) light solve the shading problem as light will be directed at several angles hitting the coral?

 

[FastUno]

I would imagine that it could. I just like to slap things on though & I would leave that to the DIY LED'rs. I was thinking of 2x T5's sitting on the very top of the tank & angled top to back, so that it hits the corals from the front side & top.


I am glad I made videos along the way. I just went back to my original test video & there was some whiting (on the purple stylo) then too, under the T5's & MH's, but nowhere near as much as now. The coral has definitely grown since then & with the growth came more white underneath.

You can easily discern the growth of the other corals though. My biggest issue is over stocked & everything is stinging everything else. I am planning on getting rid of some low level corals to make more room.

My LED test 1st vid at 4+ months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O7Qq982YRY


LED's first on almost 4 months ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUWcReFQf2s


My latest video & test of Samsung Galaxy S5 video. Song is from Sia (Chandelier) & the music video is a bit crazy & so my video reflects the mood of the actual music video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIdF5ENdAFU

 

[Uncle Salty 05]

Meh. (just kidding, looks great!)

 

[ridetheducati]

How high up are you keeping your lights and at what % do you run them at?

Six units mounted 12" above water surface. 100% Blue and 50% Whites.

 

[ridetheducati]

Six units mounted 12" above water surface. 100% Blue and 50% Whites.

Important to note that my LED array is custom.

 

[bdsage]

Important to note that my LED array is custom.

can you give a run down of your layout...?

 

[Khemul]

Wouldnt building a parabellar shape (curve) light solve the shading problem as light will be directed at several angles hitting the coral?

It would probably require a bit of a shift in thinking when it comes to LED design and lay out. The thinking that led us to the current design was that LEDs were the ultimate in light/reflector in one (since the point of reflectors is to focus the light into a tighter angle). Which is sort of true, but people didn't consider that one can take things too far. It would be possible though. It may be a marketing nightmare, since most people are happy with the current designs (remember, this forum, and ones like it, are populated by the geeky-minority of the reef world), so telling them that a whole new design is better would require quite a campaign.

 

[ridetheducati]

can you give a run down of your layout...?

55 total LEDs
34 - 450nm
4 - 420nm
13 - 4500k
4 - 7500k

 

[JPMagyar]

So tonight I was sitting in front of my tank and just pondering . . .

First off my corals are AWESOME!!!! Radium metal halide is the "Cat's Meow" when it comes to growing colorful coral, but the more interesting aspect I was considering was the fish response. All my fish came front and center to have a look at the geeky guy staring in at them. That is when it hit me . . . I am the cleaner dude . . . their world is beautiful when I keep it clean, but if I slack off for even a day or two then their world becomes a polluted mess. That is one heavy responsibility . . .

and, for those dudes talking Moonlight and LEDs in a thread dedicated to metal halide . . . y'all are a joke . . . I will be posting pictures on this thread in the future and I defy any LED owner especially RidetheEd to try and post comparable pictures. How about it ride . . . let's duel tanks????? LED vs MH? Let's let the public decide over the next 3 years.

 

[Mikefromaz]

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 dsb's have gotten a bad rap... from people doing it wrong.[/QUOT

Sheesh! Had I only known the "experts" at the time were quite sure three(3) inches was enough to create both an aerobic as well as an anerobic zone. That being said my 80gal. was a constant source of LPS and other corals for over ten years to the LFS. I never lost a fish or coral during that period. My current reef is using two inches of oolite ALSO enough to be considered a DSB.

 

[albano]

Tank looks great Joe...even without the moonlights!

 

[Mikefromaz]

After almost 4months of LED lights, I think I see why some would choose to go back. Although most of my corals are doing great & flourishing (and there are quite a variety of them), the larger purple stylo has gotten whiter underneath. It has white polyps underneath where it is completely shaded & cannot get sufficient light, because of the direct spot light effect. I would imagine this would be amplified as the SPS corals grow in size & this is simply unacceptable to those hard core reefers that this matters to the most.

If I look at the purple stylo from above, it looks perfect. It has great color wherever the light directly hits it (2 pictures shown). All the smaller frags are doing fine & will not encounter this until they grow & shade each other.

I don't think the solution would be to add more LED's? I would be worried about adversely affecting all the other corals. Perhaps T5 addition to the LED mix or just switch back to MH/T5's. To those who are very particular, thisj really DOES matter! For me I would still press along & see if T5 addition helps any.

Fast uno.... There is something you might want to consider. The white bleached tips on your ccorals just might be from too much light or too sudden an inctease. The tips of your critters take the most direct light with the vertical portions receiving less. It seems to me that if there is too little light the reverse would be true. The TIPS closest to the light would be colorful while the vertical sections would appear washed out.

Notice from above it looks perfect, but underneath one can readily distinguish whitening.

On a positive note, the many varieties of coral are doing great. Even this war coral that is in the very front & bottom. It has grown & is expanding on the floor.

 

[powder_blue]

So tonight I was sitting in front of my tank and just pondering . . .

First off my corals are AWESOME!!!! Radium metal halide is the "Cat's Meow" when it comes to growing colorful coral, but the more interesting aspect I was considering was the fish response. All my fish came front and center to have a look at the geeky guy staring in at them. That is when it hit me . . . I am the cleaner dude . . . their world is beautiful when I keep it clean, but if I slack off for even a day or two then their world becomes a polluted mess. That is one heavy responsibility . . .

and, for those dudes talking Moonlight and LEDs in a thread dedicated to metal halide . . . y'all are a joke . . . I will be posting pictures on this thread in the future and I defy any LED owner especially RidetheEd to try and post comparable pictures. How about it ride . . . let's duel tanks????? LED vs MH? Let's let the public decide over the next 3 years.

That is one of the most beautiful tanks I've ever seen. What an amazing aquascape! :beer:

 

[FastUno]

I think the white tips are the result of new growth. Check out this dude who just went back to MH & has similar tips.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2144250&page=81

It is the underneath that has really lightened up, where it is shaded the most.

 

[d2mini]

Yes, the white tips are new growth and normal.
Got that pic you wanted. Will post in a bit.

 

[MHG]

But if I had a 300 gal tank I would more than likely go with mh or t5. :beer:

I agree. Way cheaper to build...

 

[d2mini]

Here ya go.
A before/after. The "before" pic was taken one or two weeks after the switch.
You can see how the color is coming back underneath. I don't know if it has stopped yet or if it will continue.
I also think the overall growth pattern has improved.

 

[Albert184445]

So tonight I was sitting in front of my tank and just pondering . . .

First off my corals are AWESOME!!!! Radium metal halide is the "Cat's Meow" when it comes to growing colorful coral, but the more interesting aspect I was considering was the fish response. All my fish came front and center to have a look at the geeky guy staring in at them. That is when it hit me . . . I am the cleaner dude . . . their world is beautiful when I keep it clean, but if I slack off for even a day or two then their world becomes a polluted mess. That is one heavy responsibility . . .

and, for those dudes talking Moonlight and LEDs in a thread dedicated to metal halide . . . y'all are a joke . . . I will be posting pictures on this thread in the future and I defy any LED owner especially RidetheEd to try and post comparable pictures. How about it ride . . . let's duel tanks????? LED vs MH? Let's let the public decide over the next 3 years.

I could only imagine the shading issues that LEDs would have with sps that size!