Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

The week 1 results are in. I just weighed the frags for my little test and the results are not too surprising. Both frags have grown in the week that they have been in the tank, however, the MH frag grew more. The colors still look virtually the same, but we will see if that continues with time. The weights are:

LED frag -
2/20/16 - 11.2g
2/27/16 - 12.0g
Total Growth = 0.8g

MH frag -
2/20/16 - 13.5g
2/27/16 - 14.8g
Total Growth = 1.3g

After 1 week the MH is out front as the best grower (for my tank). Also, we have noticed color returning to our purple bonzai and red hot chili pepper, that long ago turned tan under the LED's. If we continue to see results like these, we will likely be switching everything over to MH/T5 or MH/LED in the next month or so.
 
lpsouth1978 said:
The week 1 results are in. I just weighed the frags for my little test and the results are not too surprising. Both frags have grown in the week that they have been in the tank, however, the MH frag grew more. The colors still look virtually the same, but we will see if that continues with time. The weights are:

LED frag -
2/20/16 - 11.2g
2/27/16 - 12.0g
Total Growth = 0.8g

MH frag -
2/20/16 - 13.5g
2/27/16 - 14.8g
Total Growth = 1.3g

After 1 week the MH is out front as the best grower (for my tank). Also, we have noticed color returning to our purple bonzai and red hot chili pepper, that long ago turned tan under the LED's. If we continue to see results like these, we will likely be switching everything over to MH/T5 or MH/LED in the next month or so.
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to do this. Great info!
 
lpsouth1978 said:
The week 1 results are in. I just weighed the frags for my little test and the results are not too surprising. Both frags have grown in the week that they have been in the tank, however, the MH frag grew more. The colors still look virtually the same, but we will see if that continues with time. The weights are:

LED frag -
2/20/16 - 11.2g
2/27/16 - 12.0g
Total Growth = 0.8g

MH frag -
2/20/16 - 13.5g
2/27/16 - 14.8g
Total Growth = 1.3g

After 1 week the MH is out front as the best grower (for my tank). Also, we have noticed color returning to our purple bonzai and red hot chili pepper, that long ago turned tan under the LED's. If we continue to see results like these, we will likely be switching everything over to MH/T5 or MH/LED in the next month or so.
Click to expand...

awesome you are doing this.....beyond "hobby" stuff!!!
 
Growth is virtually identical if you go by percentage, with MH still having a slight edge

8.9% increase vs 9.2% increase, LED vs MH respectively.

You have slightly higher par on the MH side too so I'm not surprised on that. I'll have to look back though as I'm curious as to what your LED fixture consists of. Wondering if you were ever full spectrum or mainly RB and whites?
 
Aqualund said:
Looks great...but to be fair, seriataporas grow like weeds, and the fact that yours only got that big after a year is another indication of reduced growth rates.

I have the same coral under a T5/combo that started the same size and it is now twice the size of yours in six months.

The mother colony I had of this coral I had under LED's only for two years and it would grow slowly, then RTN every 6 months for something and I'd keep trimming back and keeping the good parts. I moved it to my coral farm under t5's and I have a colony the size of a serving platter that just keeps growing with no losses.

To me it seems like very strong evidence. But I understand that its not for others.

Also, these spawning corals under hydras...Im pretty sure I saw that video too, and I think they used the LED's as supplementation, but not the primary light source. I could be wrong though. can you provide a link to this video?
Click to expand...


It was actually fragged a few times. Perspective might not do I justice but it's at the size of a large cantaloupe which started as a 2" frag 12 months ago. It's never seen any loss either.
 
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
Click to expand...

I did some digging back through his olds posts. Just trying to keep things all here together as I'm interested in this too.

Visually speaking he said there is a return of color to some pieces. I haven't seen full LED spec's on what he's using, but I did see green/red/uv in his mix, but couldn't find which ones.
 
dread240 said:
Growth is virtually identical if you go by percentage, with MH still having a slight edge

8.9% increase vs 9.2% increase, LED vs MH respectively.

You have slightly higher par on the MH side too so I'm not surprised on that. I'll have to look back though as I'm curious as to what your LED fixture consists of. Wondering if you were ever full spectrum or mainly RB and whites?
Click to expand...


So mh is 0.3% better than Led at growing coral. I think this post proves that water quality trumps lighting on growth.
 
Cyberdude said:
So mh is 0.3% better than Led at growing coral. I think this post proves that water quality trumps lighting on growth.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say just that, but for the piece he's running this experiment on I don't see any noticeable growth changes. That's with a much higher par reading on the MH side too.

I hate to try and make MORE work for you, but the pieces with coloration coming back, I wonder if you could use some of your led's to supplement the other 2/3rd of the tank to get it to equal par levels. You definitely have more intense lighting from the MH right now, part of me wonders if you needed more intensity to begin with on those other corals that didn't color up like you expected. As you're sitting right now, you have roughly 50% more intensity in par readings on your MH side compared to the LED side. That's fairly significant and just one more variable in a test that we're trying to remove as many variables as possible.
 
karimwassef said:
Guys... It's one week of data...
Click to expand...

I'm just trying to get as much useable info from this as possible. I'd throw any growth readings or anything like that out the window so far lol, but if we could get rid of even more variables at this point I think it'd be perfect.

Imagine same tank, same par levels, same flow, coral comparison. The only difference would be this user's spectrum compared to a metal halides spectrum, that's it.
 
It would be cool if led manufactures offer pur / par calculators based on waterline heights and coral depth. I'd bet you would see a lot more success. Quicker.
 
It would be cool. Because he has almost 300 more par on the mh side. It would be nice of the builders of LEDs to provide us with some insight. I still think having all the controllability is a downside to a degree. We can change them to our likening and maybe not what's best for the coral. I think that is one area where kessil really made a stand and separated themselves from the pack.

Corey
 
Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

Lol. Well I asked AI for a formula if there is one to calculate par/pur based on intensity, water depth and height of said leds.

It should be somewhat applicable to most people.
 
Aqualund said:
Absolutely certain LED's cannot recreate the sub 450nm spectral plot of T5's or MH. They can get some specific frequencies, but only a few, and specific.
Click to expand...

Well technically they probably can but w a violet based LED and the right phosphors. (speculation)
Problem is likely they won't because having too little "blue" was never an LED "problem"..

Probably all of the phosphor research/commercialization was to make LED's less blue/more white..
OR, as to hort, ect more red..or for archet. higher CRI.
http://www.yujiintl.com/phosphors/#listing

Putting a blue phosphor (ala T5/MH ) in an LED is commercially non-productive..IF even feasible.
Blue phosphors use UV to florescence blue..
One can easily imagine taking a UV LED and adding equiv. RGB phosphors to create a "like" light. commercially not on anyones radar..

http://www.yujiintl.com/custom-led-spectrum
Well... looks to be way more possible than I thought.. ;)

yug.jpg
 
Last edited:
oreo57 said:
Well technically they probably can but w a violet based LED and the right phosphors. (speculation)
Problem is likely they won't because having too little "blue" was never an LED "problem"..

Probably all of the phosphor research/commercialization was to make LED's less blue/more white..
OR, as to hort, ect more red..or for archet. higher CRI.
http://www.yujiintl.com/phosphors/#listing

Putting a blue phosphor (ala T5/MH ) in an LED is commercially non-productive..IF even feasible.
Blue phosphors use UV to florescence blue..
One can easily imagine taking a UV LED and adding equiv. RGB phosphors to create a "like" light. commercially not on anyones radar..

http://www.yujiintl.com/custom-led-spectrum
Click to expand...


Well yeah, I should've clarified that LED's available to the average hobbyist cannot cover this range appropriately to call it equivalent to MH or T5 :)

But this page...this page gets me really excited.

http://www.yujiintl.com/custom-led-spectrum

Have you contacted them to get an idea of pricing oreo?
 
Aqualund said:
Well yeah, I should've clarified that LED's available to the average hobbyist cannot cover this range appropriately to call it equivalent to MH or T5 :)

But this page...this page gets me really excited.

http://www.yujiintl.com/custom-led-spectrum

Have you contacted them to get an idea of pricing oreo?
Click to expand...

Me too.. ;)
Not for custom phosphors. I had to get some pricing for some custom high CRI violet based strips using constant current... Tooling setup charge was enormous..for small lot stuff.. a few grand worth of diodes in a "one of" run..
They do have an office in california and the people there were quite helpful..
Just email them. Response time was quite good.
 
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