Converting My Gigantea from MH to LED lighting

[this is me]

This gigantea has been in the tank for 2 months now. When I first got it, it was a little bleached(like most from the store). But it has recovered very nicely over the past two months. It was pretty much directly under a 250W DE MH.

In the meantime, I was on a waiting list for 4 of the ELos estripes LED(21W per tube). The LEDs finally arrived yesterday and they look awesome! There's no way I'm going back to MH. It's a little less light than the 250W MH but not that much considering I'm dropping my power consumption from 250W to 84W. The LED tubes also have a better spread in light than the MH. There's no hot spot with the Estripe.
I don't have a PAR meter but my camera is showing only a 1/20s of a difference between the 250W MH and the 84W LED.
The above image is taken at f/5 1/100s ISO640
The images below is taken at f/5 1/80s ISO640 with the LEDs

 

[this is me]

These are taken under flash to show the coloration of the tentacles.

 

[jonnybravo22]

just beautiful nick! absolutely gorgeous purple!

and by the way thanks for sharing the settings on these photos. gives us amateurs something to emulate.

glad you like your new lights.

 

[this is me]

Here a video showing the amount of flow this gig is getting.

<object width="640" height="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/pkJkIUWNIb4?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/pkJkIUWNIb4?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="480"></embed></object>

 

[Conrad25]

Wow I thought I had some good flow, but yours is just getting pelted with it. Your nem is looking great! Looks like you have a keeper! Also LEDS look good, do they have optics on them at all?

Take it easy,

Conrad

 

[this is me]

Wow I thought I had some good flow, but yours is just getting pelted with it. Your nem is looking great! Looks like you have a keeper! Also LEDS look good, do they have optics on them at all?

Take it easy,

Conrad

Hey Conrad,
The Estripes does not have an individual optics on the LED. It has a lens tube covering the strip. I'm not sure what's the spec on this lens but it's probably something very wide.
I actually gutted my Planet fixture and snucked the aquatop into the fixture because I love the Planet fixture.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1960774

I've dropped the fixture down to just 2" above the water and I like much more. The tank is so bright now. Brighter than with the 250W MH I was running 8" above the water. And the spread is a lot better.

 

[Conrad25]

Yeah I see what you mean about the fixture being so appealing. Looks like a great and clean setup. Some day I will be in a rimless tank. But my issues is I am going bigger, so they get hard to come by when you want them 8 foot long lol

 

[this is me]

Quick update. A month under new LED light. Three months in the tank.

 

[trueblackpercula]

Looks like a very healthy Gigantea and the black perculas are to die for......you can send me pictures anytime as perculas are the best....

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

very nice.
One MP40 is providing all the flow, correct? What mode?

 

[this is me]

Gary,
Yup, the mp40 is doing most oh the work. It's cranked up 85-90%.
I have Eheim 1620 for return.

 

[hypnoj]

man.. that is a ton of flow.. Your clowns are like "***, surf's up!"

 

[this is me]

very nice.
One MP40 is providing all the flow, correct? What mode?

Sorry, didn't see your last part o the question. I run it on reefcrest mode at 85-90% power.

 

[nemoboy1]

Your Nem looks like it's doing great under LED... You have better luck than I do with LED/nem. My buddy sold me his led setup And warn me not to use it for nems cause his bleached under it... Ofcourse I didn't listen so I test one rbta and surely enough it was bleached... Then Put a nicely H. Crispa under and it took awhile but it started to bleach also.

Now they are back under t5 and doing great.

 

[hypnoj]

Your Nem looks like it's doing great under LED... You have better luck than I do with LED/nem. My buddy sold me his led setup And warn me not to use it for nems cause his bleached under it... Ofcourse I didn't listen so I test one rbta and surely enough it was bleached... Then Put a nicely H. Crispa under and it took awhile but it started to bleach also.

Now they are back under t5 and doing great.

What wattage LED's were u using? Which fixture? I'm about to set up an anemone tank under LED's and want to make sure I do it right. I'll be using Evil's PAR 38 bulbs with cree's.

 

[nemoboy1]

Forgot what these are been awhile... I belIeve they were comparable to Cree.Good luck

Corals did great under it but nems were a different story

 

[liver]

how are your sps doing with the single vortech? everyone seems set on two powerheads in different parts of the tank but I don't see why a vortech set on one of the ecosmart modes couldn't generate enough random flow even if it is just starting from the one side. certainly looks like you have flow in there!

 

[this is me]

I haven't cared for my sps too much. The MP40 is actually too much flow for some of them. Because my anemone are the top priority in my tank, the SPS has to be mounted where the anemone is not. And the few places I can mount them are where they get direct flow from the MP40 running close to 90%. The flesh some part of the colony is actually ripped off by the flow.

I was thinking about 2xMP10 but thought a single MP40 would be better in terms of wider flow. It also look a little less in the tank compare to two MP10.

 

[this is me]

Another quick update.
The gig continues to do well. Tentacles are really long. Sometime up to 3" long.

I also picked another one up from a local reefer over the weekend. The deal was too good for me to miss out. And to find one that's healthy and has been in a tank for more than 8 months is rare. It's larger than the first one I have but the tentacles are much shorter. I don't think the gig was receiving enough flow in his tank.
It is huge!

 

[frctlimg]

Very nice. Way to tease with red haddoni too.