Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[Wazzel]

So am I reading this correct, "If I have the proper spectrum on an LED unit, I can run it full blast overtop one of my corals in 24 inches of water with no concern of frying it?"
I think that is one major flaw with LED's we don't have any consistent information. Everywhere I turn there are horrors stories of LED failures.

Corey

I do, but I took many months to get there from half power. Because of all the options in lights and differences in tanks it is much harder to get a handle on how they should be run. I am the only person I know that runs the lights hard and has success.

 

[power boat jim]

I do, but I took many months to get there from half power. Because of all the options in lights and differences in tanks it is much harder to get a handle on how they should be run. I am the only person I know that runs the lights hard and has success.

I wont dare go past 40% on mine. I use them in the morning and evening,MH run about 6hrs mid day.

 

[USC-fan]

Which one did they used to make that you would be happy with? Was there one? I have 30 or 40 in my stash and I can take a look. DE does suck more than SE, that is for sure. The hard thing about DE in larger reflectors is that the glass is super important.

Sunlight Supply Lumen Max Elite HQI.
Dimensions: 14.5" L x 14.5” W x 5.3” H

Yeah SE would be easier but they stop making the SE version of the 14k. Even in SE reflectors there are not much left out there.


I had my mind made up on MH de 14k set up w/ t5s but i dunno now. I was very shocked at the lack of product lefts in MH.

 

[biecacka]

I know you can't just blast them 100%! Wazzel, I was hoping you would chime in because I know you run yours @100% but it took awhile to get there, under no circumstance would I recommend putting new leds on a tank and cranking them up at full blast. But I also don't know everything..

corey

 

[lpsouth1978]

Thanks for answering my question btw.
Though you also didn't state height from led to your par measurements..

LED's age as well.....

Maybe this will answer your questions about the height.

We tested PAR tonight for both the LED's and the new MH. Here are the results:

LED side -

Top (3" below water surface) ~540
Middle (13" below surface) ~325
Bottom (27" below surface) ~230

MH side -

Top (3" below water surface) ~800
Middle (13" below surface) ~520
Bottom (27" below surface) ~360

Both sets of measurements were taken with the lights about 5" above the surface of the water.

This verifies that the MH is more intense than the LED's. We also like the look of the light from the MH better. We will give it a month or two and see whether things improve or not.

 

[biecacka]

I also like the look of halide compared to most LED's but I wonder if it is because of poor spectrum. Thank you for the numbers! What size watt halide were you using, and any clue on why there is a drop in PAR numbers? Earlier you said you have 300 on the sand and 600 on the top, not that those numbers beat the halide in question. But, if the test was done awhile ago, it shows that there has been a substantial drop in PAR from the LED's.

Corey

 

[oreo57]

I also like the look of halide compared to most LED's but I wonder if it is because of poor spectrum. Thank you for the numbers! What size watt halide were you using, and any clue on why there is a drop in PAR numbers? Earlier you said you have 300 on the sand and 600 on the top, not that those numbers beat the halide in question. But, if the test was done awhile ago, it shows that there has been a substantial drop in PAR from the LED's.

Corey

he can check this too.

The light output of the six Phoenix bulbs shows an initial decline over the first three to four months and then levels off at about 75% of their initial output.

Should find PAR is now 600

 

[oreo57]

Maybe this will answer your questions about the height.

We tested PAR tonight for both the LED's and the new MH. Here are the results:

LED side -

Top (3" below water surface) ~540
Middle (13" below surface) ~325
Bottom (27" below surface) ~230

MH side -

Top (3" below water surface) ~800
Middle (13" below surface) ~520
Bottom (27" below surface) ~360

so what is the watt estimate of each side?

 

[karimwassef]

I only run my DIY LEDs at <100% to simulate sunrise or sunset. The rest is 100%. I just size my LEDs to what I expect I need.

 

[markalot]

I do, but I took many months to get there from half power. Because of all the options in lights and differences in tanks it is much harder to get a handle on how they should be run. I am the only person I know that runs the lights hard and has success.

Hi Mark,

in regards to running them that bright, how much do you feed daily?

 

[Wazzel]

Hi Mark,

in regards to running them that bright, how much do you feed daily?

Just 1 cube of this that and the other.

 

[Wazzel]

I wont dare go past 40% on mine. I use them in the morning and evening,MH run about 6hrs mid day.

It ended up taking me somewhere around 6 months to get to full power. This is from memory and has been two years so I could be off, but the general process was.... I set a 50% reduction for 3 month initially and every time I added a coral I started over. As we all know it takes months to stock a tank, so my initial acclimation to the high power I run took atleast 6 months if not more because of all the restarts before being finished.

 

[Wazzel]

I know you can't just blast them 100%! Wazzel, I was hoping you would chime in because I know you run yours @100% but it took awhile to get there, under no circumstance would I recommend putting new leds on a tank and cranking them up at full blast. But I also don't know everything..

corey

Agreed. I tend to suggest people error on the side of caution and take longer than it seems you need to acclimate. Good changes generally do not happen in days or weeks, it is more like weeks to months. Often you just have to stay the course and wait it through.

 

[d2mini]

Thanks for proving my point. Those are not even made any more. Sunlight supply stop selling MH product to reefing also.

Trying to find a short but wide reflector is impossible. Just trying to find any DE reflector is upsetting.

Both those companes list just one DE reflector. Cayman Sun - 250 Watt HQI Reflector and Lumen Bright Mini Metal Halide DE Pendant.

On marine deport, aquacave and bulkreef supply only list a single DE reflector. I cannot even find the Lumen bright DE reflector for sell through google.

So we have a single DE reflector that will not work for me because its too much of a spotlight. I wanted to run Phoenix 14k. Did they start making the single end version again? Really love the color of the 14k with HQi m80 ballast.

Now you see the problem?

Usually the DE bulbs are used in fixtures. And the reflectors are always tiny. For better spread/less spotlight get a larger reflector with a mogul bulb.
That said, you can also check out ReefBrite. I'm running the Pheonix 14k in their MH fixture with led strips attached to both sides. This is over my 25g lagoon. It's a rectangle reflector rather than square.

 

[biecacka]

I wish my LEDs had an acclimation mode.
I have the big lumenarc reflectors that I used with my halide set up. 22/22/14 I think are the dimensions. The thing put out a ton of spread.

Corey

 

[RobbyG]

This thread is hilarious!
I remember many years ago another thread with a title like "Are you going back to MH after trying T5's". Wow people chimed in saying how T5's sucked and they were killing all my corals etc etc. Then that generation of reefers learned and adapted and soon T5's where the in thing. Let me give you guys some advice, I have been at this since about 1984 and I am also an Electronic Engineer.

1) Light is Light and a Photon of Light at a specific wavelength from any source is the same.

2) Any comparisons made about PAR like I saw on the previous page is useless unless your comparing the same amount of PAR and then seeing how much power is consumed. At the end of the day it's not about PAR but efficiency. If you want more PAR to match his MH then you need more LEDS. When you have matching PAR then the only test left is how much power each system is consuming to give you that PAR. And of course heat may be an issue for some.

3) The reason people are having so much trouble with LED fixtures is that they are extremely flexible devices that not only let you mix various wavelengths of light, but also at different intensities. Most people have no clue as to what setting to use so they use setting that produce the same PAR as their old system and also look good to them. The Looking good part may not be good for the coral and the PAR readings only tell you part of the equation, Unless you have a few thousand dollars worth of spectrum equipment you have no idea if that PAR value has the same concentrations of each of the wavelengths as your old MH bulb had.

4) Another Laugh factor is peoples statements about LED life spans etc. The question is Life Span of what brand of LED? I am not talking about Radion or Aquatronica or some cheap Chinese companies lights. I am talking about what brand of LED components are they using in their systems. I would doubt that a cheap Chinese LED will last longer than 4 years, on the other Hand something using "Cree" LEDs on a proper heat-sink will last a full 10 years before they need replacing. Half life of 5 years is no problem with most fixtures because most of them never need to be run past 50% if you have sized them right for your system.

Anyway folks I don't mean to sound like some sort of know it all, but this light debate goes on whenever a new system is becoming popular and when the dust settles the old one's sales are seriously diminished and people start growing coral just fine under the new systems. Also the die hard MH users will always use MH because it works for them and they wont switch unless something happens to their tank and they need to start over again. Look I don't blame them, if you can afford the extra electricity and the annual bulb changes then stick to MH or whatever works for you.

IMHO the only thing wrong with LEDs is that the owners are typically setting them to make everything look like eye candy without thinking of what all that exaggerated blue and actinic look is doing to the coral.

Rant Off :lolspin:
Robbyg

 

[jda]

They typical MH user won't switch because they generally have more experience, know what they are looking at and have yet to ever see a tank under LED that would not look better under MH. Anybody who say that an SPS tank looks just as good, or better, under LED than it does under MH lacks the breath and depth of experience to know better. Period. If other things are a factor, like heat, dimming, thunderstorms, etc., then cool, but nobody who know should/would ever say that they make the coral look better.

I was around when T5 came about and the only argument that ever was a huge factor was with cheap Odyssea, or the like, fixtures... or that there was no T5 substitute for Super Actinic VHO... or that they lacked 6' lengths and that 2 36" bulbs were twice as much as 1 72" bulb. I think that it was pretty evident early on that a quality T5 bulb on a workhorse ballast was pretty awesome. Nobody ever doubted that you could have an awesome SPS tank with T12s and T5s were and easy step for most. If you are thinking about PCs, then that debate did happen, but PCs did really turn out to be turds.

 

[RobbyG]

They typical MH user won't switch because they generally have more experience, know what they are looking at and have yet to ever see a tank under LED that would not look better under MH. Anybody who say that an SPS tank looks just as good, or better, under LED than it does under MH lacks the breath and depth of experience to know better. Period. If other things are a factor, like heat, dimming, thunderstorms, etc., then cool, but nobody who know should/would ever say that they make the coral look better.

I was around when T5 came about and the only argument that ever was a huge factor was with cheap Odyssea, or the like, fixtures... or that there was no T5 substitute for Super Actinic VHO... or that they lacked 6' lengths and that 2 36" bulbs were twice as much as 1 72" bulb. I think that it was pretty evident early on that a quality T5 bulb on a workhorse ballast was pretty awesome. Nobody ever doubted that you could have an awesome SPS tank with T12s and T5s were and easy step for most. If you are thinking about PCs, then that debate did happen, but PCs did really turn out to be turds.

Looks are a very subjective thing. I look at Coral and Fish and what I base their look on is what I see when I go Diving. I do not like an exaggerated look caused by Actinics etc because I am not sure if that's really very good for corals over the long term. I can see your experienced so you know what I mean by long term. Lets face it other people love the eye candy that you can get from other lighting sources so your statement is valid to me but will not be true for a lot of other people.

As for the T5 debate oh yes it was real, I was in the thick of it, I was an early adopter of T5's and at the time there was not a million and one bulb choices like today. I remember several threads comparing the two and most people saying that T5's were no good and that they would never switch etc etc. I am not talking about arguments based on supplemental T5 lighting, I am talking about guys who threw out their MH's and went T5 only and then said T5 was a disaster. It took a long time for T5 only tanks to get the acceptance they have today. As for T12's they were a non starter as an only light system, it was too hard to cram enough bulbs to get enough PAR and the selection of bulbs was always dismal.

As I said Light is Light in each wave length and the source does not matter! The only problem we have now is that the LED lighting settings need to be better understood by the masses and we need a few years for more tanks to mature from A-Z under just LED lights so that the proof is overwhelming enough to put this argument to bed for good.

Right now I am using LEDs and I am seeing a few issues, I have dialed back the settings a bit, checked them with the PAR meter and also visually so now I will let the corals adapt to the lights more slowly. I am fairly confident that in the end they will adapt, their may be a loss or two but that always happens when you do a major change.



Robbyg

 

[karimwassef]

I'm an electrical engineer too and while I agree that photons are photons, the biological response to spectrum intensity distribution is not. The same goes for the directional nature of the light sources- single source vs multiple directional sources.

I know you're trying not to sound like a know it all, but laughing at people isn't exactly supportive of different ideas.

I'm not taking a side because I think the light sources compliment each other, but they're not the same.

In terms of historical stances, I personally think HQI double ended and mogul designs are not equivalent either. There's room enough in the discussion for everyone to disagree

 

[jda]

It has been 6+ years with LED and we only still have the same promises as back on 2009-2010. It always "needs more time," "better understanding by the user," "better blend of colors," "too intense," or whatever have you. Not much has changed over the years. When is enough enough? T5 never took that long to get good.

BTW - I hate the way that coral looks diving, but perhaps I do not go deep enough. 14K phoenix or 20K radium on M80 is what I am looking for - crisp white with a touch of blue.

Since I don't think that there might be more than one or two people on this board that could effectively talk about photons or quantum physics, I never post this, but the statement that light is light and a photon is a photon is quite funny to me. With the infinite differences in each quantum of a photon of light, I doubt that 2 bulbs, diodes or tubes have ever been made that output the same photon exactly. ...so, in essence, it does matter where the light came from.

He is what I do not understand... say that you PWM a LED... does the sine wave drop off to zero when the PWM kicks in? Does the wave look digital if we had good equipment to analyze it? I know that all electricity has cycles, but the plasma/gas in a tube or MH bulb continues to burn which should keep the sine wave very steady.