It's time, let's see those SPS tanks using LEDs 1 year or longer

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here is the middle part of the reef,three islands.
P9050121.jpg
 
jkf1983 said:
Look into DIY ... I was going to get the AIs too until I saw how much cheaper it was to DIY and you can add a LOT more leds per heat sink. Reefledlights.com
My build thread is below too.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2064428
Click to expand...

Actually I think the AIs don't get the respect I deserve. I picked mine up from Bill, and saw the comparison to the DIY fixtures he had over his tanks. I'm still very happy with my purchase.
 
John probably made the same fixture as the AI sol from Bill and the fixtures looks great now,they have really made some great leaps towards becoming them more prominant fixture. Love your build jkf,love those cool fans you had over the heatsink,where did you get that propeller lol.
 
Tony B (UK) said:
Avoid buying leds for sps tanks, I don't think they've evolved enough yet for sps. Imho they're not quite good enough and the price is too high for what is effectively an inferior lighting choice.

Give it a few more years and both these problems should improve or maybe even be fixed :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

Do you have experience with LEDS to back up your opinion? I have experience to prove that 1 watt led s provide enough lighting for all kinds of sps. I have 2 eco-ray's 60 over my 120g reef for about a year now and im satisfied with the results and they aren't to expensive considering you never have to replace the bulbs.
 
Here is something for all of the naysayers. I have been running a DIY LED system for 2 years now on an exclusively SPS Acro/montipora tank with phenominal results. I don't care who says that corals can't thrive under LEDs, I have physical proof they can and do. By virtue of the age of my fixture, I don't even have the latest high output emitters. Just the standard CREE's, non dimmable, no bells and whistles.

The last three nights my Acroporas have been spawning in addition to maintaining great color and obviously growth. Check this out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guKmMckH00k
 
Softhammer said:
I don't care who says that corals can't thrive under LEDs, I have physical proof they can and do. . . .

The last three nights my Acroporas have been spawning in addition to maintaining great color and obviously growth. Check this out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guKmMckH00k
Click to expand...


That is absolutely awesome! :beer: Are you running a controller that simulates moon cycles, or do you have any guesses about what triggered the spawning in your system? You obviously are doing great!


As to LEDs for SPS, I don't think the question these days is whether they work. I think the question is do they work for ALL corals, and are they truly cost effective at this time. I tried two major brand LED fixtures over a part of my frag system and found that several corals including my Tyree PM and pink stylo did not fair well and lost color whereas my Cali Tort and blue zoos went "bananas" and never looked better. Also, given a cost that is several times that of off the shelf T5 units can one ever recover the initial investment? And what about replacing the LEDs when they wear out after 3 to 5 years. So far each manufacturer has a different answer and some have no answer at all, meaning the aquarist needs to buy a whole new fixture.


The tanks on this thread are all beautiful so no one can question whether LEDs "work". The question is what benefit does the aquarist get given the price and selection available today when compared to a T5 setup. Clearly for the nano tank where heat is a primary concern LEDs have a distinct advantage, but for the larger systems like mine, I'm not sure prices and performance are quite there yet. They sure do look cool though :cool:


Joe
 
Not a year, but running them for about 10 months. Started with 12 cool white and 12 royal blue over my 29gal biocube. Just recently swapped some out. I am now at 10 royal blue, 4 blue, 2 warm white, 2 neutral white, and 6 cool white. This provides a better coloration imo. I think you need to chose the best option. MH, T5, and led all have their place. I chose led because a halide would require I use a chiller because my tank is so small. If you live in a cold environment and energy costs are low (they are not where I live) than halides are just fine if not the best option. Here is the growth of a sunset montipora. The original frag came from a T5 lit tank, and you can see how quickly the color changed in my tank. Keep in mind my phosphates are not ideal and nitrates are around 10 at any given time...


2011-01-03 18.25.57 by mteske1, on Flickr

P1000543 by mteske1, on Flickr

P1010045 by mteske1, on Flickr

P1010336 by mteske1, on Flickr
fragged part of the bottom off in this last one...

P1010906 by mteske1, on Flickr

fts

P1010876 by mteske1, on Flickr

Thanks,
Mike
 
JPMagyar said:
That is absolutely awesome! :beer: Are you running a controller that simulates moon cycles, or do you have any guesses about what triggered the spawning in your system? You obviously are doing great!


As to LEDs for SPS, I don't think the question these days is whether they work. I think the question is do they work for ALL corals, and are they truly cost effective at this time. I tried two major brand LED fixtures over a part of my frag system and found that several corals including my Tyree PM and pink stylo did not fair well and lost color whereas my Cali Tort and blue zoos went "bananas" and never looked better. Also, given a cost that is several times that of off the shelf T5 units can one ever recover the initial investment? And what about replacing the LEDs when they wear out after 3 to 5 years. So far each manufacturer has a different answer and some have no answer at all, meaning the aquarist needs to buy a whole new fixture.


The tanks on this thread are all beautiful so no one can question whether LEDs "work". The question is what benefit does the aquarist get given the price and selection available today when compared to a T5 setup. Clearly for the nano tank where heat is a primary concern LEDs have a distinct advantage, but for the larger systems like mine, I'm not sure prices and performance are quite there yet. They sure do look cool though :cool:


Joe
Click to expand...

Joe, no one will probably believe me but honestly all I use is a 5 dollar lamp timer. The only contollable aspect is a Tunze multicontroller moonlight but that doesn't keep a moon phase as power gets shut off to it and it restarts every time I feed the corals. Now as for recouping the cost, for me it paid itself off in less than a year. (1200 something dollars) For me though its a rather unique situation as I live in a high rise condo with crap air conditioning. The pay back was probably 30% LED, 70% not having my chiller turn on. As for livestock, I have tons of SPS, a Pink chalice, christmas Favia,and pectinia paeonia. The chalice does fine anywhere in the tank but the other two LPS like shade. The only other thing is, I cannot keep any Pocilloporids alive no matter how long I acclimate them! Frustrating that a 5 buck coral gets cooked but fortunately I havent lost an Acropora with these, even managed to take some browned half dead colonies and turned them into softball sized beauties!
 
Hi reefers ) ,

I only have led lighting over my tank for 3 month's , I swithed from 96 Watt T-5 to an 60 Watt dimmable XP-g /XP-e fixture on my 20 G DIY nano.
The plan was to test this one fixture over my nano (for a couple of houres) , and was plannig four of these fixtures in total on my bigger tank (working on it ...) if i was satisfyed with them.
after one minute i knew that my T5 fixture was replaced by the new LED's :D .
I had good growth and color on my SPS with the T-5's but the looks and the shimmering on the bottom and the option to adjust color and intensity as disired was very atracting .
And since then the LED's are hanging over my nano , SPS all do fine and i have super growth on frags that are on the bottom of the tank (who before wouldn't grow that much) .
This with the XP-e royal bleu channel at 100% (30 watt) and the XP-g channel only at 75 % (+/- 22 watt i think...).
More is to much light in my opinion ...

here some shots under LED lighting :

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And the only FTS i currently have , was underexposed ....

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greetingzz tntneon :)
 
Finally got some time to take some pictures. Posted these in my update thread over the weekend, but got buried within 30 min...
It will be two years in December. No bulb failures to date. Running Q4 emitters. 72 total, 1:1 cw/rb ratio. No new corals added since documentation began 2 years ago. I could use some more fancy "LE" corals, but don't want to risk introducing parasites, so I'm stuck with what I have...

2d98z6d.jpg


teal frags in center are from the colony above. Color difference can be attributed specifically to location (frags are at the bottom of the tank).
2qn7h41.jpg


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11rd7ig.jpg
 
Wow some great pics with led fixtures being main source of lighting I'm still stuck on t5's but might b giving leds a try
 
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