Let's See Your Best LED SPS Colors...
- Thread starter hatfielj
- Start date
Here are a few, I dont have a good camera for taking pictures of my tank just a cheesy point and click easy sharre kodak. It really does no justice to the tank or the colors, doesnt even get them in focus. Here are a few of them none the less. For what its worth I havent seen any better color or growth in person (outside of some "doctored photos") with t5 or MH. I love my AI leds and my corals seem to as well. Whatch out though, the emit a LOT of PAR and will bleach things quickly unless you acclimate them well. Tank is only 7 months old so the frags are still quite young.
Softhammer
New member
I have been running LEDs for 8 months now and every coral is either wild or bali maricultured with phenominal results. Not to mention an electric bill literally 70 percent less than when running 2 250 halides w ice caps. Everyone wants to put down LEDs but almost no one has them. Consider the source.
I have read every LED / sps thread I come across on RC, and have yet to see anyone with LEDs posting pictures with sps showing anything close to the colors people post with T5's or MH.
People say they get great growth with LED, and some say great color, but the evidence just isn't there yet. At best the pictures show corals that are drab and washed out looking and the poster says they just can't capture the color with their camera to do them justice.
And please don't misunderstand my intent, I would love to switch to LED with my next set up, but not at the sacrifice of sps color. The vibrant and diverse colors are one of the things that attracted me to reef keeping in the beginning.
People say they get great growth with LED, and some say great color, but the evidence just isn't there yet. At best the pictures show corals that are drab and washed out looking and the poster says they just can't capture the color with their camera to do them justice.
And please don't misunderstand my intent, I would love to switch to LED with my next set up, but not at the sacrifice of sps color. The vibrant and diverse colors are one of the things that attracted me to reef keeping in the beginning.
Well, it sounds like there's certainly still a lot of skepticism about the ability of LEDs to grow sps well. That's kind of why I started the thread. I wanted to see what kind of results people are actually getting.
I tend to agree with what softhammer says though that there aren't many people using them yet so its hard to say definitely what they are capable of at this point.
I've been keeping sps under MH/T5s for years now and I will definitely be able to give a comparison in the near future. But from what I've seen so far the color, quality and intensity of light I'm getting from my AI fixture appears to be capable of growing them well. My tank is not yet ready to add any coral, but I'll certainly be adding my pics as soon as I can.
My brother in law has some nice sps growing under LEDs right now and they look pretty darn nice actually. I'll be trying to get some pics of that soon too.
I tend to agree with what softhammer says though that there aren't many people using them yet so its hard to say definitely what they are capable of at this point.
I've been keeping sps under MH/T5s for years now and I will definitely be able to give a comparison in the near future. But from what I've seen so far the color, quality and intensity of light I'm getting from my AI fixture appears to be capable of growing them well. My tank is not yet ready to add any coral, but I'll certainly be adding my pics as soon as I can.
My brother in law has some nice sps growing under LEDs right now and they look pretty darn nice actually. I'll be trying to get some pics of that soon too.
There is no sacrafice of color. Its true that my camera is crappy, take a pic of your corals with a flash from a point and shoot camera see how they turn out.
I know I am not going to change your mind I just dont want people like you, that dont have any experience with LED, giving out bad information.
LED's are fairly new so there are not a lot of established tanks out there that have been run on them. My current tank is only 7 months old but I have several "common" corals with an expected color that are very colorful and growing well.
I personally didnt like the power consumption and bulb replacement, then the subsequent coral shock from the new lights for a month or so with the MH. The only downside I initially ran into with AI LED's was I didnt realize how much par they were putting out and had to rearrange my coral accordingly.
I believe LED is the future and we have just now arrived at a point where they are capable in our hobby.
SWINGRRRR
Premium Member
I'm off on Thursday if you want to come look for yourself. Ask Richard up at WW, hes seen my tank. Now all 8 channels are working, and hopefully Ill have the 8 channel DZW shield working as well.
2 weeks worth of growth. And yes, all I have is an iPhone for pics, sorry.
ros_sco
Premium Member
I posted some of these for a friend in a different LED thread. Colors look fine to me. I am definitely not saying that all LED's are created equal, but the ones he is running are definitely up to the task. If I didn't already have so much invested in my MH setup, I would switch myself. I have already replaced my VHO actinic with 2 x 4 foot LED bulbs, a 440nm and 470nm.
M007
Acro Whore
I posted some of these for a friend in a different LED thread. Colors look fine to me. I am definitely not saying that all LED's are created equal, but the ones he is running are definitely up to the task. If I didn't already have so much invested in my MH setup, I would switch myself. I have already replaced my VHO actinic with 2 x 4 foot LED bulbs, a 440nm and 470nm.
Totally off the hook! Thanks for posting that. Can you provide some info on the LED fixture? I'm seriously considering a full LED fixture. The hydro and heat of my current fixture is driving me crazy. :furious:
jcolletteiii
New member
Shhhhh.... Um.. no you can't get color with LEDs, and your corals will actually grow backwards, and oh yeah - they cost ALOT (...so cancel you AI order so I won't have to wait so long for the rest of my modules) 
somdinwong
New member
i built my own with crees and meanwells. they are sick
ros_sco
Premium Member
They are 48" Sun-Brite LED tubes of various colors over his 75 gallon. He retro'ed them into his canopy but fixtures are available as well. He was using 1 x 12K, 2 x 16K, 2 x 22K, 1 x 440nm actinic and 1 x 470nm actinic for a total of 7 tubes up until last week when he added a UV tube.
Turbovr3six
Colored Sticks addict
Your tank is off the hook Namn8r!!
Thanks Turbo, needs a bit of a clean and gravel vacuum but just had to point out proven results with SunBrite LED.
I am running 1 x 470nm, 1 x 440nm, 1 x 16000K, 1 x SPS UV & 4 x 22000K
Also playing around with a pink bulb at the moment...Sunbrite by far best coloured LEDs and results!
reefsahoy
I can see thru you!
You know it's funny, when i posted way back when, about t5's sps possible aquariums i got almost laughed out of town about they can't keep sps corals and how people were using photoshop to take pics of their tanks to show off color. I eventually went to Europe and saw for myself how T5's were being used and how colorful their sps were. When i came back and posted about what i saw people were in disbelief even then. Now comes LED's. I'm not saying they work for sure but I wouldn't bet against successfully keeping sps with them. Again time will tell. I'm interested in LED technology too so I'll keep posted!
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