Led vs halide

M

mitek2

New member
I know there are tons of information on this here, and I am starting to read about it, but I wanted to get your opinions.
I am upgrading to a 120 gallon 48 x 24 x 25. I plan to keep fish and some corals. Mostly softies but I want the option of both.

I currently have a Red Sea max 35g cube with softies and a few hard corals. Everything there is doing great under compact PCs.

When the big tank comes, and I am leaning toward halides because I'm familiar with them, but I'm intrigued by the LEDs. What LEDs give me enough light and penetration to keep softies and hard coral and give me good color?

Thanks!!
Chris
 
Halide's are great, the issue for me is heat. My tank is in my office at work and even with T5's it is just too hot and that is in Southern California 75-85 deg weather. Your in Florida which in Orlando get's insanely hot so if I were you I would go for LEDs.

Their are plenty of great LED fixtures now days, if you wanted the best tho I would go with an ATI Powermodule Hybrid fixture, T5 + LED.

If you wanted all LEDs I think 2 Radion GEN 3 Pros would pretty much grow any soft or hard coral you wanted in that tank that size.
 
Every tank is diff. i run 2 mh's on my 75 gal and my heaters still kick on during the day. If you go led i would go with kessel though, seen them in person and the light they put out is beautiful along with the shimmer that i havent seen with other leds
 
shifty51008 said:
Every tank is diff. i run 2 mh's on my 75 gal and my heaters still kick on during the day. If you go led i would go with kessel though, seen them in person and the light they put out is beautiful along with the shimmer that i havent seen with other leds
Click to expand...

The last tank I saw with Kessils was less than impressive. The tank had INSANE amount of shimmer. The color was good, but the shimmer was WAY too much. I simply could not enjoy looking at the tank, it was way too distracting.

If you have the money, get the Radions or AI Hydra 52's. That being said, my vote is always for DIY. Either way, I would get 3-4 of whichever fixture you choose. You will have the greatest success with LED if you get as much coverage as possible.

Beyond that, MH may be the less expensive options initially.
 
The main challenge you run in to with LEDs is shadowing/coverage, so your choice largely depends on how much you're willing to spend, and if you're willing to supplement with T5s.
 
I have the Maxspect 320 watt, with the 120 deg. lens. It seems to light up the tank just fine. its 4 feet long came with a nice mounting kit. No lightning storms only 2 channels, Im getting what I expected out of it. If money wasn't a factor I might of went with a led t-5 hybrid Giesemann.
 
Coverage is an issue. You will need more than the manufacturers recommended number. Shape of the aquascape, growth, etc all play a role on how many more you will need. A recommendation I would make to a new LED user is to set up the system to accept more units down the road. I use AI hydra 52's. One worked just fine for about a year, then the shading became an issue. Since I started with the arm I had to get the rails to have 2 over my tank. Could have saved myself some money if I would have planned for expansion and started with the rails.
 
Having run with a combination of halides & fluorescents for 20+ years, and resisted the temptation of LEDs for the last few, I finally decided it was time to relocate the reef, downsize a little, and modernise. When I first saw LEDs the ones I did see were pretty crap compared to my halides, but when I started seriously researching late last year a lot had changed and I was pretty impressed with what I saw (except for the tanks that looked like a party I might have gone to in 1975). I was also no longer worried if LEDS would be powerful enough as for the last few years I have been using LEDs on my bike and have occasionally had cars flash their lights at me when I ‘spotlighted’ them during the evening commute.

So far (6 months) my LEDs have been successful (colour and growth) but I used a lot of smaller (30W) fittings and even then used 1.4 times the number the manufacturer recommended, to the point where I could physically fit only 1 more along the tank.

It was a lot more expensive that just moving my MH to the new tank but even then I calculated that break-even would occur within 3 years just taking into account bulb replacement and electricity. Another motivation was aesthetics and since I have been able to accomplish this without loss or coral health I am pleased with that aspect as well.
 
MH do create a lot of heat. I switched 4 tanks from 3 with MH and all 4 had t5. I spent $1300 on 6 led fixtures and between saving on electricity (the fixture uses less, my chiller uses WAY less and my home A/C uses less) and bulbs (fluorescents once a year and MH every 2 years) my fixtures paid for themselves in just under 2 years.

And I like being able to change the look of the tank as the day goes along, a 5 hour sunrise, 3 hour midday and 6 hour sunset. And yes, just before I go to moonlights my tank looks like a 1960's hippy poster under blacklights!
 
A lot of heat on halide lamp, I am happy with LED lights,great spectrum and cool features,I run 2 of AURORA Timer-165w led lights for my 4ft tank,white/blue/moon light channel,add 2 uv 2 red 2 green leds on white channel,remote control and built in LCD screen with 3 channel timer,and very save on the electric bill.

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Great advice. Thanks so much. I read another article that said to measure your gallon x 60% to find out how many bulbs you need. So for a 120 gallon I would need about 72 LED bulbs. I'm guessing two 36 bulb fixtures. Does that sound right?
If I did 72 of the 3 W LED involves, would that be not enough or too much? And what kind of dimmer do you use for LED bulbs.
How many white and how many blue etc. do you want to go with? Is there a standard
 
mitek2 said:
Great advice. Thanks so much. I read another article that said to measure your gallon x 60% to find out how many bulbs you need.
The problem I see with this is that it does not take into account tank dimensions, corals being kept, aquascape, etc.
So for a 120 gallon I would need about 72 LED bulbs. I'm guessing two 36 bulb fixtures. Does that sound right?
this may or may not be enough, but there are more things to consider when selecting LED's. These include the angle of the optics, drivers, color, and of course personal preference.
If I did 72 of the 3 W LED involves, would that be not enough or too much? And what kind of dimmer do you use for LED bulbs.
the type of dimmer will be dependent on the drivers used to power the LED's. There are controllers that will do dimming for either PWM or 0-10V dimming. This will depend on the drivers that were used in the build (not all drivers are dimmable).
How many white and how many blue etc. do you want to go with? Is there a standard
Not really a standard here. I like to do 2 Blue/Royal Blue for every white. I also recommend 1 red and 1 green/cyan for every 18-24" square.
Click to expand...

For reference, I actually used 9 different spectrums on my last build.

- Blue
- Royal Blue
- Cool White
- Warm White
- Neutral White
- 660nm Red
- Cyan
- 420nm Violet
- 410nm Violet
[/COLOR]

In all I used 456 LED's over a 300g 72"x36"x27" tank. Each color is on it's own dimming channel, so I can completely customize the color. I do not recommend doing this if you are new to LED's, as this complicates things A LOT. Most people can get away with 3-4 dimming channels.

Channel 1 - Whites
Channel 2 - Blues
Channel 3 - Red and Green/Cyan
or
Channel 3 - Red
Channel 4 - Green/Cyan

The easiest way to go is to buy a fixture with the dimming built in, Like the Radion, AI Hydra 52, or RapidLED Onyx.

I know this is a lot of info, but I hope it is helpful.
 
Don't overthink it. I am upgrading from a 60 cube to a 120. I use 2 AI hydra 52's now. Will be using at least 3 on the 120. My light rack will be set up to accommodate 4, just in case.
 
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