You can use philips Luxeon Rebel 490~510 cyan led
LED's with respect to color of Sps corals
- Thread starter Big E
- Start date
You can use philips Luxeon Rebel 490~510 cyan led
TropTrea
New member
I had experimented with those LED's and did not like the results. Using 4 of them on a 30 breeder tank they produced some strong cyan colored shadows for me. After a week I pulled them because of what I considered a disco effect. Now the opion with these might have been to run 8 or 12 of them at drasticly reduced corrent to the other bulbs in my set up. Yhey may also work better on a taller tank or located higher above the water line to reduce the noticable cyan shadows.
Dow to space restraints with this 30 Gallon it is located under the stand ov a 120 gallon tank. The clearance are from the top of the tank to the 120 suports is about 4" total. With 1" X 2" chanel rails it brings the space between the LED's and the water surface down to about 2 1/2" with the tank being only 12" tall and 3 inches of substrate I had less than 12" between the LEDs and the substrate.
On another note on this with shallow tanks unless you can raise your LED's well above the water line I recommend using more low watage LED's rather then less higher wattage LED's to get a more even light distribution.
TropTrea
New member
Yhe 3 ups are nice if your running them at a low wattage or you have a lot of cooling for the LED's.
The warm whites are already pushing out a lot red light and adding more red to that is something I'd be afreaid to get too much red for some corals. Remember the main color LED's for growth are the blues from about 420nm to 470 nm. So I would probably go wth a Neutral White, Cyan, and Blue Chip in the combination.
That's true. I recommended the warm white because it blends the colors better. Cool blue can be added on discrete stars without making shadows.
Big E
Premium Member
You would need a way to test the sectrum it's putting out..........that's part of the problem with most commercial units. You have no idea what the spectral plot is when you move those dials.
I believe Radion has an on computer plot, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.
Some units show a plot when 100% on and usually they're trying to mimick the 400w Radium. If it's accurate, you can just go 100% on an raise the Led units. They will likely be a lot higher than what people have done in the past.
Probably a good 24" above the tank.
A 5-1 blue to to white is mathematically what you could shoot for using mostly netural whites. I'm not familiar with the Hydra or it's options & capabilities. You have to have a mix of the violets like mentioned.
Big E
Premium Member
The t-5/LED combos I prefer are using the white bulbs....Coral+ and AB special.
Then use blue, royal blue and violet to supplement. For a 48x24 area I'm going to use 4 bulbs and two led strips. The electrical use should be the same as using two LED units and give better coverage without the inherent hot spots.
I have not done a Diy setup yet but it's easier to me not to even mess with the white LEds. The bulbs do a much better job in those areas of need.
Then use blue, royal blue and violet to supplement. For a 48x24 area I'm going to use 4 bulbs and two led strips. The electrical use should be the same as using two LED units and give better coverage without the inherent hot spots.
I have not done a Diy setup yet but it's easier to me not to even mess with the white LEds. The bulbs do a much better job in those areas of need.
Has anyone used these?
They use a combination of red, green, blue, and neutral white all in one emitter.
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cree-Inc/MCE4CT-A2-0000-00A4AAAB1/?qs=D3QG1iK7FqiesnUiat5l7w%3D%3D&gclid=CPO_ltydk7kCFVNo7Aode3EAxg
Or these rgb multichips
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1107517190/Epiled_chip_free_shipping_for_100w.html
I will experiment with both in my build, which won't be for about 6 months.
They use a combination of red, green, blue, and neutral white all in one emitter.
http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Cree-Inc/MCE4CT-A2-0000-00A4AAAB1/?qs=D3QG1iK7FqiesnUiat5l7w%3D%3D&gclid=CPO_ltydk7kCFVNo7Aode3EAxg
Or these rgb multichips
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/1107517190/Epiled_chip_free_shipping_for_100w.html
I will experiment with both in my build, which won't be for about 6 months.
TropTrea
New member
I'm switching myself to the LED/ T-5 Combo's on my larger tanks and all LED's on my smaller tanks. However I prefer the combination of 2 T-5's which are ATI Blue Plus for dawn to Dusk, Using a single strip of LED 's Royal Blues and "UV's" for a predawn to post Dusk. For mid day I use two strips of Neutral Whites with True Blues and Royal Blues.
As far as wattage goes to get simular color and brightness it is considerably less with the Combo. * T-5's on a 48" tank runs about 432 watts minimium, with the combo I have roughly 108 watts of T-5's and 180 Watts max of LED's for a total of 288 Watts or a 1/3 savings on power.
TropTrea
New member
There have been articles on these chips in LED specialty magazines. These are great chips for archurectural lighting but not recommended for aquarium use. The RBG chips hit specific frequencies to appear white but have little to no light emited in the other wave lenghts that are needed for photosynthesis.
With a Neutral White emiters there is no need to suplement red lighting in the Aquarium. The Blue part of the spectrum that is needed by corals is primarly 430 nm to 460 nm with a secondary need from 410 to 510 nm. These combination chips leave considerable gaps in the spectrum in the Blue range that corals depend upon.
If I were designing a multi chip I would use combinations of different wave lenght Blue chips along with a neutral white.
TropTrea
New member
With the white chips generaly you can look at them as a balance between red and blue.
Cool Whites have a strong blue spike and very little red
Neutral Whites are fairly balanced betweed red and blue
Warm Whites have strong red spike and weaker blue spike.
Many people go with Cool Whites because of its stronger blue complement and the ability to use less Blue chips to get the 16,000K look. But they usualy end up suplementing red.
The big fear with using the Warm whites is the amount of RED they put out. There are some corals that will bleach outt rapidly with an excess of red light. Also to te get that 18,000K look they require a lot more blue chips to balance out the spectrum.
My personal vavorate is the neutral white. Interestingly they also have the strongest green light emited but they work great with a ratio of 1 Neutral White to anything between 3 and 6 Blues dependent on the individuals color preference.
Big E
Premium Member
Here's Sanjay's testing of some the latest models. For me, disappointing on many levels, especially the big humps at the 670 range.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/8/review
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2013/8/review
670nm is good for corals. Algae absorbs it too, but algae also absorbs other wavelengths.
I don't know where the myth that red leds can bleach corals got started. That is simply not true. You can bleach out corals if you use pure red light, true- but that's true of almost any wavelength. You can bleach them with green too, by that logic. 660nm is absorbed by corals readily, and it's hard to bleach them with it.
natedogg
Nate
I would like to hear other people's thoughts on this article as well.
Big E
Premium Member
Corals don't use 670....plants and algae do.
I don't see any coral pigments or chromo proteins that benefit from that level of red. Look at the lists and tables in these two articles.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/aafeature
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/12/corals#disqus_thread
The bleached thoughts may have come from a study that Dana Riddle performed. Under just a red led the coral was damaged. I believe that green and blue were also tested and they caused no damage. I'll try and dig the article up.
You only have to look at the huge spike of blue that most MH/T5 lighting systems use, to make it more pleasing to our eyes, to know that blue doesn't damage corals at elevated levels.
The concern with the red diodes is that it's possible certain corals placed under their tight beam could damage the coral or won't allow it to color up correctly.
If you go back to the gold standard I've used at the start the 400w Radium bulb, it doesn't have that huge red hump. Again, this thread is about coloring corals not if they can grow under certain lights.
You can see a small hump on the radium chart and that's from overdriving the bulb on a HQI ballast. It shows some red which makes the ambient look more white to our eyes, but it doesn't spike above the other humps.
radium by Big E 52, on FlickrIf you look at t5's "¦.my combination in particular of blue+ and coral+ , which give me outstanding colors, they have no peak in this area"¦"¦.it's relatively flat.
ati blue by Big E 52, on Flickr
ati coral by Big E 52, on FlickrWhen my bulbs get old I get cyano, so I can assume that there is a shift to more red under which cyano thrives.
The red incorporated in those units is probably used to make the ambient light of the tank look more pleasing or to subdue some of the blue look. They are merely coloring the water and serve no other benefit.
When your working with the same diodes they've used from previous generations and just try to configure them differently in numbers or combinations it can only go so far.
Adding a bunch more of useless software isn't going to help much..........in the wrong hands it's disaster for corals, as most people don't understand what they're dong when changing spectrums.
I'm just looking at the spectral plots and coverage and I haven't even commented on the coverage/par of some of these units which aren't making me giddy.
Having said all that I'll wait to see how they perform. Right now there hasn't been enough results/feedback to make any real conclusions. After all, it's just spectral and coverage charts, so they only go so far in evaluation. The real test is how they color up acros over a period of months.
The Mitras 6200 looks okay"¦"¦"¦"¦"¦"¦I probably need more time to look over the data for all the units, so I don't want to sound overly critical as they are an improvement over some of the older models.
My standards and expectations are high"¦"¦"¦"¦.they have to perform as good as the T5's I'm using for me to plunk down the ridiculous prices some of these units command.
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Duna_
New member
Thanks for your post, I have read it with attention. Maybe you can help me with my question ...
I have a 6x39W T5 with ATI lamps. I started with 3 white (Aquablue special) and 3 Blue +. But I thought it looked too white, and changed one of the white Aquablue and put a Purple Plus. (visually perfect).
This is the spectrum:
It's similar to the Coral+, but with higher in the reds. Could that benefit the algae, but the coral algae, the zooxanthellae? Could it boost them, more than other spectrum fixtures?
I have no algae, nothing. Only on the glass. Using Biopellets, nitrates are between 0-5 (or less, it's not more acurate), phosphates 0,1, going down every week thanks to chaeto. I found that the blue acropora looks more brown that it was, also the pink millepora.
My question is if the purple T5, with a higher peak in the reds, can boost the zooxanthellae, or is just a matter of ates and will reduce when reducing the nutrients.
No algae problem, is just the color of the pink and blue acroporas.
Is it true (as I've read in the article) that best growing results are at higher kelvin temperatures (15000-20000ºK)?
So maybe for a better look or aspect, we could only use Coral+ (15000ºK) and Blue+, and no Aquablue special (11000ºK)??
The tank looks wonderful with the purple +, but as I have read in this thread, it's different what we like to see, and what corals prefer.
Should I change the purple for a coral+? Or even the white ones?
Thanks
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Squidmotron
New member
I'm confused now. We does the chart of zooanthellae light absorption show a spike in that red range? Also, according that article, zooanthellae are algae.
I guess what I think you're saying is that it doesn't affect the colorization of the coral but that wavelength is still used for energy by symbiotic zooanthellae?
Pacific Sun RD
Przemek Cybulski
Corals can grow under T5 and have beatifull colours? Yes.
Why -if they (T5) dont emit anything near 670nm?
Because they are getting enough energy from "low"(blue) region of spectrum.
Its like money and our pockets. If you need 100$ per day for your live - you dont have to keep them only in right pocket. You can keep 50$ in each pocket or simply 100$ in one pocket - left..
Much more important where you keep that money is how total you have to spend..
Why -if they (T5) dont emit anything near 670nm?
Because they are getting enough energy from "low"(blue) region of spectrum.
Its like money and our pockets. If you need 100$ per day for your live - you dont have to keep them only in right pocket. You can keep 50$ in each pocket or simply 100$ in one pocket - left..
Much more important where you keep that money is how total you have to spend..
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