led vs. t5 halide

toothman

Premium Member
New tank new light. Well the new tank just does not do nearly as good as the old one. Old tank had cebu sun fixture 250 halide 4 t 5. the new tank has Maxspec razor. This is the only variable I can say is truly different. Same reef keeper, same ro unit same sump etc. Is it possible it really is just the light.
 
You realize, this is an incredibly loaded question? :D

Is feeding different? Flow? Bioload? Coral selection? Coral placement?

How are you defining a tank doing "good?"

There are about a billion factors at play here, but certainly the light is an important one, in terms of spectrum, intensity, and spread/diffusion.
 
Possible. Maybe even plausible. You would have to keep everything constant (almost impossible in this hobby) and put a new light over the tank and see if things change
 
I say that it is the light. That being said, what corals are you trying to grow? For some reason there seems to be anecdotal information that a new tank has a difficult time growing SPS even with all the "right" parameters.

I have an SPS tank and my experience started with MH and when LED became popular I tried them (AI Sol and then Sol Blue) I had three across my 180 and eventually went to 5 in order to get better coverage and try to eliminate dead spots. I eventually said "this just ain't working and went back to MH with very good results, but for heat and cost I thought I would try T5. The results were good but I couldn't get the color I wanted (not the the color of the corals but the visual appearance to my eye.

I now have 3 MH (250 Watt radiums) and 4 ATI t5's and everything is great. I like the appearance and the coral look good and are growing very nicely.

When I sold the 5 AI LED's that pretty much made the switch over a no cost transfer.
 
the tank was mostly sps it has cebu sun light over.
2 part dosing, faunna marin 3 part dosing additive
Just seems like the corals do not really like the new light. I know reef keeping is not a exact science, but seems like the led light is a limiting factor.




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