can anyone answer my led question?

[One fish]

Hello All, I am looking to buy a led fixture. The few that I am looking all state different wattage, one is 120w and then the other is like 155w and then I see some that are in the 200s... what does this mean?
AND more importantly, the one I am looking at has 55 bulbs but are only half 12,000-14,000 white and actinic blue the other half. While the other fixture is "full spectrum" and includes a few red, and green, maybe a violet. Will the full spectrum be better? what is the difference?
ANY comments will be appreciated! (unless its the randoms that say "ohhh you don't know anything about leds you better just get out of the hobby now..."):ape: Can anyone help me!?

 

[DrBoxedWine]

So I don't know a ton on this... But can you control the color on the full spectrum ones? My Hydras have 8 colors that I can control all of them independently, and you can basically make any color/tone that you like.

And you probably want to look more at lumens than watts. Watts is just the power draw from the wall (back when people used almost exclusively incandescent bulbs, this was a reliable, consistent way for people to tell how much light would be given off). Now that we have LEDs, cfl, and other types as well, watts can be misleading. The Hydras are only 90w each, but I doubt the cheap knockoff lights that draw 150w are actually more than 50% more powerful. Really getting a solid answer from looking at the numbers I found to be tough. I would recommend just reading a lot of reviews on the lights you're considering and seeing what people have to say about them. YouTube can have good reviews too.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

This is all my understanding at least... I'm not an expert

 

[whosurcaddie]

Which fixtures are you looking at and yes full spectrum is a better choice.

 

[Sk8r]

Your lights determine whether you can keep corals at all and if so, which ones you can keep. Full spectrum means like sunlight.
As an example, I keep stony lps coral under a 10,000k light. I could use anything from 10,000 k to 13,000 k for what I keep. A light should be 'reef capable' if you ever want corals, and the blues are used for simulating morning and twilight on the reef. My system, metal halide light, burns 2 'actinic blues' to balance the yellowish white of the metal halide 10000k so it collectively looks like sunlight and gives colors to the reef other than sickly yellow and brown. (which is what you get with 10000k mh alone). The blues are timed to come on an hour before the mh, and to stay on 1 hour after, so that my tank has a twilight and a dawn. I'm sorry I'm not well-informed on LEDs. We have a forum on lighting. You should ask there.

 

[DrBoxedWine]

You could also go to a fish store and mess around with their store units to get a feel

 

[JPMagyar]

The first question you need to answer is what kind of aquarium do you want? Just fish, fish and some soft corals like mushrooms or leather corals, or fish and stony corals?

Lumens are misleading because blue LEDs have low lumens but high PAR. PAR is a measure of how good the lights are at growing coral.

If you want to grow coral, I would recommend an ATI fixture. The problem with LED for a beginner is you will struggle to get the right amount and type of light and may end being frustrated. ATI fixtures are "plug and play" while LEDs require a lot of learning if you want to use them to grow coral.

Full spectrum is not as important as the even spread of light. The Tank of the Month that had all LEDs only used two types of LED, white and blue but it had something like 90 LEDs spread out over the whole area above the tank.

Anyways I'm on my iPhone waiting for my daughter to come out from work so I'll stop there but I would urge you to keep asking a lot of questions.

 

[JPMagyar]

If you do have your heart set on LEDs, but aren't as worried about fancy effects then I would suggest looking at Evergrow LEDs

Here's a tank that uses them . . .

 

[Teenreefer15]

for this size tank I would get anywhere from 200-300 watts depending on what your keeping. A better way to measure though is par ratings from the manufacturers of these fixtures. I would also recommend 16-20k with a full spectrum.

 

[Jandawil]

Not sure of your tank dimentions, but hit the sponsor forums here on RC and check out the Ocean Revive fixtures...specifically the T247 fixture. Killer sale now. I just bought 2. Their service is very good and they are very active on be forums here to answer questions. One fixture is good for a 2X2 area down to 24" depth. Great fixture IMO for the money and ally of reefers here love them.

 

[JPMagyar]

for this size tank I would get anywhere from 200-300 watts depending on what your keeping. A better way to measure though is par ratings from the manufacturers of these fixtures. I would also recommend 16-20k with a full spectrum.

So what proof do you have to show that full spectrum makes a lick of difference in growing corals?

Not sure of your tank dimentions, but hit the sponsor forums here on RC and check out the Ocean Revive fixtures...specifically the T247 fixture. Killer sale now. I just bought 2. Their service is very good and they are very active on be forums here to answer questions. One fixture is good for a 2X2 area down to 24" depth. Great fixture IMO for the money and ally of reefers here love them.

How about some pics of RC tanks that are using these successfully?



Just want to make sure the OP realizes that on the internet you get a LOT of advice but sometimes it's tough to figure who has experience and is on your side and who might be pushing information because a) it's what they use or b) they have a vested interest.


For the record here is a photo of my tank at it's best . . . and I do not make or sell anything to do with the aquarium trade . . . and I am genuinely interested in helping you come up with a killer tank AND most importantly I have a lot of experience in setting up aquariums.

 

[Teenreefer15]

So what proof do you have to show that full spectrum makes a lick of difference in growing corals?



How about some pics of RC tanks that are using these successfully?



Just want to make sure the OP realizes that on the internet you get a LOT of advice but sometimes it's tough to figure who has experience and is on your side and who might be pushing information because a) it's what they use or b) they have a vested interest.


For the record here is a photo of my tank at it's best . . . and I do not make or sell anything to do with the aquarium trade . . . and I am genuinely interested in helping you come up with a killer tank AND most importantly I have a lot of experience in setting up aquariums.

beautiful setup

 

[whosurcaddie]

Maygar I thought you had halides on your tank.

 

[One fish]

wow... I want to thank everyone for the advise and opinions! It helps a lot. The ones mentioned are somewhat I think the same as what I was looking at (two 16 inch fixtures) Beautiful tanks btw! I would like to get into corals more, I have a few sps and lps at the moment under a metal halide so hopefully whatever fixture I choose will make them happy and I can learn and obtain more! :bounce3:

http://www.amazon.com/Programmable-...qid=1419148203&sr=8-27&keywords=saltwater+led

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-120W-Co...2e9b31e67f89&pid=100009&prg=11353&rk=1&rkt=4&

 

[JPMagyar]

Maygar I thought you had halides on your tank.

Good eye!

That is an older picture when I had Sfiligoi lights. They were 16 T5s with 4 150 watt metal halides. I replaced them with Pac Sun LED hybrids and then I replaced those with my current Giesemann Spectra MH/T5 fixtures.

wow... I want to thank everyone for the advise and opinions! It helps a lot. The ones mentioned are somewhat I think the same as what I was looking at (two 16 inch fixtures) Beautiful tanks btw! I would like to get into corals more, I have a few sps and lps at the moment under a metal halide so hopefully whatever fixture I choose will make them happy and I can learn and obtain more!

http://www.amazon.com/Programmable-...qid=1419148203&sr=8-27&keywords=saltwater+led

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-120W-Co...2e9b31e67f89&pid=100009&prg=11353&rk=1&rkt=4&

Those are both fine choices, but you'll need to buy enough of them to cover every inch of the tank with no gaps in between.

What is it about your metal halide fixture you do not like? Is it a heat issue? How big is your tank? Do you have any pictures?

 

[ThisGuy12]

I use the Evergrow 165w full spectrum fixture off eBay, I removed some of the optics to increase the spread of light and wired in a controller to it. I would highly recommend these lights for the price. The growth in my tank rivals that of those who spent a small fortune on the "name brand" lights.

All my corals and fish love it! Blues are on for 12 hours, full spectrum on for 10 hours daily.

 

[Lagoon monkey]

My advice buy a reputable named panel they are worth every penny. I aman AI SOL and Vega fan myself amd work awesome for my sps i actually have them at 75% power cause 100 is way too strong. I have a 90g with 2 vegas and a sol blue 1500$ for all 3 but worth every penny. Radion makes a nice unit too.Stay away from noname or diy that you yourself did not build. Just my thoughts cheers

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

The arguments for/against either light type will seem to always be present.
After years of having a speculative viewpoint on led's (I refused to buy them for years until they matured) I wouldn't go back now. It's like the vinyl record vs a cd argument. There's always going to be someone debating the quality and validity. But the reality is led's are a multi-billion dollar industry now. I mean really, the entire world is trying to slim down our affect on the Earth so ya, the days of improving metal halides/etc is kinda over. The tech has gone stale, and even the new advances are hybrid fixtures. I believe this to be more of a move to stay in business than anything else.

But to your question on WHICH fixture, that will have to be your decision, it will take a good amount of time to find it. From my experiences though, don't necessarily look at wattage, look at the count and variety of non-white led's on the fixture.(and the ability to control each color/channel) The more individual led's you have color-wise, the better off you'll be. At least this seems to be the biggest thing. Remember white led's are a general "across the board" spectrum, but to achieve the par needed in the lower end of the spectrum you'll need to use less white unless the corals in the tank don't care about being blasted with a lot of 'waste spectrum'. You could probably start reading now and be done in a couple months with all the research and debated threads on the internet.

I will say overall, in my experience since I've been using led's, there seems to be a peculiar gravity towards the concept of 'lower light, for longer periods' involving led's vs blasting corals for 10-12 hours a day with a metal halide. There's less wasted light from lack of reflectors and very direct light sources like led's. Again though, we're getting into theoretical areas, and unfortunately every time you bring things like this up on the forums, someone likes to come in and say vinyl records are best. (I think you sense that given your original remark.. )

 

[JoelA7]

JPMagyar - great looking tank. Going to pm.