octopus737
New member
My SPS and LPS like them. Softies not so much. My zoas and palys seem not to adjust well to them as well as my old halides. I use a apollo reef dimmable. What does everybody else use?
Coral growth with LEDS. What does everyone think?
- Thread starter octopus737
- Start date
mr86mister
Saltaholic
And the LED discussion begins!! Mwahahahaha
teamdulski
The Saltiest!
I like 1, 3w LED for every 2 gallons personally.
briangsxr1000
New member
I have 2 sol blues over a 57 gallon and I have yet to bring them over 40% on all 3 colors.
bassplaya12
New member
I have 24 (white and blue mix) 3 watt crees over a 20. We haven't even had them to 3/4 power yet. Corals are loving it around 60% blue and 50% white though
mr86mister
Saltaholic
I run the AI Nano over my 6 gallon. LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!! I am growing anything I need too.
The WPG(watts per gallon) rule IMO has become something of the past. Comparing LED to Halides is a big way to show it. A 75w AI SOL at full % has the same light output as a 250w. Optics is thing to look into. Something with a smaller optic range has a higher concentration point which pulls all the light to the same area and increasing the amount of PAR. A 3w LED without an optic will have 3w's of power but in a single point it will give out less light compared to an LED with, lets say, a 60 degree optic.
My 35w light puts out far more light than a tank as small as mine can handle. So I keep everything dialed down to avoid basically frying anything in my aquarium.
Mind you; this is all of course, IME/IMO.
The WPG(watts per gallon) rule IMO has become something of the past. Comparing LED to Halides is a big way to show it. A 75w AI SOL at full % has the same light output as a 250w. Optics is thing to look into. Something with a smaller optic range has a higher concentration point which pulls all the light to the same area and increasing the amount of PAR. A 3w LED without an optic will have 3w's of power but in a single point it will give out less light compared to an LED with, lets say, a 60 degree optic.
My 35w light puts out far more light than a tank as small as mine can handle. So I keep everything dialed down to avoid basically frying anything in my aquarium.
Mind you; this is all of course, IME/IMO.
Henry Colf
New member
I have 2 119 watt fixtures over my 90 gallon. Love em great colors and can grow anything.
I'll throw this out there...
It depends. You can set up 100 3w LEDs over a 10 gallon and run them at 3% each, or you can run 10 at 30%, or you can run 5 at 60%. (These are rough numbers). LEDs aren't like running a 250w metal halide. The ratio of blue to white to red to green makes a HUGE difference. Even using older LEDs compared to the newer XT-E and XM-L LEDs makes a big difference.
Now that I've said that, I'm still finishing my LED build. 54 3w CREE LEDs. 36 royal blue (18 XP-G, 18 XT-E) running at ~700mA. 10 XP-G cool white, 4 XP-G neutral white, and 4 XP-G warm white running at ~1000mA.
It depends. You can set up 100 3w LEDs over a 10 gallon and run them at 3% each, or you can run 10 at 30%, or you can run 5 at 60%. (These are rough numbers). LEDs aren't like running a 250w metal halide. The ratio of blue to white to red to green makes a HUGE difference. Even using older LEDs compared to the newer XT-E and XM-L LEDs makes a big difference.
Now that I've said that, I'm still finishing my LED build. 54 3w CREE LEDs. 36 royal blue (18 XP-G, 18 XT-E) running at ~700mA. 10 XP-G cool white, 4 XP-G neutral white, and 4 XP-G warm white running at ~1000mA.
low riderr
New member
i am happy with mine,although some of my coral are not.i have not lost anything but some did lose there color a little.others though look better than ever. 120 3watt crees diy over 240gal. with the warm weather we have had already i can tell that its going to be easyier to cool the house this summer.
SkiFletch
New member
Oh yeah, I'd be completely SOL if I still had the halides with the tank in a big open room with no central AC in the summer.
In less than 2 years my softies and leathers have grown 5 to 10X and I've just started to remove and frag them to make more room.
Have no zoas, but palys and mushrooms have to be constantly 'weeded out'!
SPS and LPS are growing better than any other lighting that I've used.
I'm running two 6' Solaris I5 units (total 360 LEDs) supplemented by 10 4' T5s (for full coverage on a 96"x40"x27"h 450g DT
GMaquarium
New member
I have trouble understanding this. Personally think that lighting shouldn't be dictated by water volume, its missleading. Prime example, I have two very similar in volume tanks, one is 18" footprint with 72" depth (top to bottom) And another is 8x2' footprint with only 12" depth.
Gallons are same. Do you light them the same?
Perhaps there are guidelines that suggest led per square inches of surface.
teamdulski
The Saltiest!
It's a guideline, not a rule.
windyridge
Fish Mother
I have had fantastic growth with my single AI Sol module over a 92G corner tank. I installed them on December 22nd and have very slowly been increasing them from 25% to where they are now at 85%. So even with less than full intensity my softies, LPS and SPS have shown great growth. The zoas I have did show a slow down in growth rate but the installation of the lights coincided with the addition of Phosban which is more likely the reason for their less than stellar growth rates. My RBTA just split into two more babies and appears to be doing well.
