Lights... hit me...

[Gweeds]

I would think outside the box. Everyone will recommend Radio a etc as they are viewed as the best. People who pay a premium for them won't come out and say their choice was wrong either.

Hence, why other supersize tank owners actual experiences are gold dust.

Personally, I like to follow a different path and am willing to experiment otherwise I would have a set of Radio a or hydras over my (much smaller) tank.

How are you mounting them? Are they going to be in a cabinet, enclosed, or hanging? What about bracing etc?

There's lots of large tanks on here and UR, I'd have a look at some of those build threads too

Thanks, yes I've been working my way through some of the larger builds.

True what you say about the radions etc I guess... it takes a brave person to say the £700 per unit they just spent was wasted!

As for thinking outside the box... it's what I do best lol... the tank is run as an immune / resistant system... heck I even purposefully introduced brook over the weekend [emoji1]

I even thought about light tubes... but the UK just doesn't have the hours of sunlight needed [emoji20]

I'll be diying a hanging fixture to give me flexibility to move whatever units I do plump for in the end... currently I have a hood bit that will be going with the light upgrade. I do have bracing and a rim. The bracing splits the tank into 4 sections a little under 24" each, with the bracing being 4" itself. I don't want the rim on show so will likely keep the rim of the hood to give the appearance of a lid and something to fix the mounting too.

For reference l, here's a fts from yesterday... you can see how poor the current lighting is!!

That little twig at the top, right in the centre of the left light (just below my OST who is mid turn) is my green digi frag... to give scale, that's about 4 inches tall and about the same left to right.

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[jda]

The high end SPS large tank folks are EXCATLY the kind of folks who will abandon $5k in fixtures if they are not performing. The want the best of the best and they won't hold onto a silly purchase if it is not working. They have done it. Check out tdb320reef's threads - he is a large tank guy, had a large investment in LED and switched and his thread lays it all out including the challenges of large tanks.

I don't seem to be getting anywhere, so I will try one last time and then just leave. You NEED to get feedback from large-tanks SPSers. They are a different breed. They have money (you have to) and have tried stuff. They have experience. They get the nuance and details. You need to get feedback from them. It will be more honest and more applicable than you will get from anybody else.

I did not give you my setup since you asked for LEDs but we have similar sized tanks, so here it goes... I use 3x250W 14K Phoenix on M80s and a pair of 150W 14K Phoenix on M81 on the ends - best of breed. No T5s, no dusk/dawn... just on/off with a light timer. Open top, hanging fixture. No heat issues, but I have a non-heat climate here in Colorado. I would need 12-16 Radion Pros or 12-16 Kessil 700s to replace these in coverage and the color would still not be as good. There would be no energy savings. I replace bulbs every 24 months for like $300 which I can cut a handful of higher end frags to more than pay for. If your tank was mine, I would get 4x 20x20 reflectors from Hamilton and run 250W Radium in them, hang them in an enclosure so that the top of the tank can breath to keep cool.

 

[Gweeds]

The high end SPS large tank folks are EXCATLY the kind of folks who will abandon $5k in fixtures if they are not performing. The want the best of the best and they won't hold onto a silly purchase if it is not working. They have done it. Check out tdb320reef's threads - he is a large tank guy, had a large investment in LED and switched and his thread lays it all out including the challenges of large tanks.

I don't seem to be getting anywhere, so I will try one last time and then just leave. You NEED to get feedback from large-tanks SPSers. They are a different breed. They have money (you have to) and have tried stuff. They have experience. They get the nuance and details. You need to get feedback from them. It will be more honest and more applicable than you will get from anybody else.

I did not give you my setup since you asked for LEDs but we have similar sized tanks, so here it goes... I use 3x250W 14K Phoenix on M80s and a pair of 150W 14K Phoenix on M81 on the ends - best of breed. No T5s, no dusk/dawn... just on/off with a light timer. Open top, hanging fixture. No heat issues, but I have a non-heat climate here in Colorado. I would need 12-16 Radion Pros or 12-16 Kessil 700s to replace these in coverage and the color would still not be as good. There would be no energy savings. I replace bulbs every 24 months for like $300 which I can cut a handful of higher end frags to more than pay for. If your tank was mine, I would get 4x 20x20 reflectors from Hamilton and run 250W Radium in them, hang them in an enclosure so that the top of the tank can breath to keep cool.

Thanks, you are getting somewhere I promise... I just posted in the sps forum [emoji4]

Take a read, there's a load of background as to why I need (I think) leds and the challenge I've set myself...

Honestly, I agree with you and if I could I'd go with MH... but I would need cooling given where my tank sits in the house and the high temp I run at and I need the full sunrise / sunset to run my reef as naturally as possible... appreciate my MO is different to a lot of reefers, but we all have our reasons I guess.

Thanks for the advice... it is heeded I promise!!

If you happen to be on that other forum too, look up my build thread and the thread on the immune / resistant system route...

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[Potatohead]

It seems to me most of the guys really successful with LED's and SPS are mostly using Radions. The one main exception is David Saxby who has 28 (!!!) Hydra 52's over his tank, but his tank is not SPS exclusive either.

If it were me I would do a couple Sunpowers and swap bulbs every 10 - 12 months.

 

[jda]

Cool. Sorry to be emphatic, but there are too many bad choices made for large tanks.

Although I hope that you do, I don't think that you are going to get any posts that will help you with what you want to do in that budget. Large SPS tanks and LED are nearly impossible without a lot of panels. I wanted you to hear from the folks who do it, though, and not conjecture from folks who think that what they do will scale since this can lead you down the road of lots of wasted money and missed expectations.

I think that in the end, you will either figure out how to deal with heat if you really want a nice SPS tank (it is not that hard), or will get some LEDs and have a nice mixed reef with some easier to keep SPS in the mix. This is what happens to most folks. If you decide to go LED/mixed route, then I would get the larger panels (ReefBreeders, AcroOptics, etc.), just twice as many as what people will suggest to you. I would fill the top with panels.

 

[Gweeds]

Cool. Sorry to be emphatic, but there are too many bad choices made for large tanks.

Although I hope that you do, I don't think that you are going to get any posts that will help you with what you want to do in that budget. Large SPS tanks and LED are nearly impossible without a lot of panels. I wanted you to hear from the folks who do it, though, and not conjecture from folks who think that what they do will scale since this can lead you down the road of lots of wasted money and missed expectations.

I think that in the end, you will either figure out how to deal with heat if you really want a nice SPS tank (it is not that hard), or will get some LEDs and have a nice mixed reef with some easier to keep SPS in the mix. This is what happens to most folks. If you decide to go LED/mixed route, then I would get the larger panels (ReefBreeders, AcroOptics, etc.), just twice as many as what people will suggest to you. I would fill the top with panels.

Thanks, appreciated. It will be a mixed reef, that's all part of the natural approach... but a good 50% of the tank will be dedicated to acros... of this I am certain as it's the challenge I've been set... I don't do failure!

When my tank was overrun with bryopsis and cyano I set myself the challenge of turning it around in a month... I did that.

I set myself the challenge of developing resistance to common diseases in my fish... I've done that (ich and brook so far and a decent protocol for introducing pathogens and building resistance to them)

I was set the challenge of growing sps for under £2500 total spend (including tank, stand, livestock, everything) and I've achieved that (monti only granted, but technically sps regardless)

Also, the budget is a challenge too, so again I will not fail on that front either... there is a certain satisfaction which comes from achieving the impossible!

We will see... the more I read, the more I am inclined to buy some bigger Chinese black boxes for the shimmer and then surround them with t5s for the growth. I just can't get past the challenge aspect and that was always to be 100% led...

I'll have to look at DIY too... the possibilities are endless there and I do currently have a hood to hide anything effective but hideous in! It may be the only way to get the right coverage at the right price.

I appreciate your help and your concerns... I share them. But you are speaking to someone who in the last 18 months has started and completed a self build home for my mother, bought a new home & renovated it, set up a 8ft reef tank for £2500, had a third child, arranged a wedding, got a promotion and all whilst working full time in a job which averages 60 hours and a 1000 miles of driving per week. As I said, I don't do failure... or sleep [emoji6]

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[Vinny Kreyling]

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2621935&page=8
Check out post 178

 

[Ted_C]

I'm personally running two Pacific Sun Pandora S3. each lamp has 2x145w LED, 4x39w T5 so that gives me 4 pucks across the 8 feet and 8 t5's that run for 4 hours to cover everything else.

Fully programmable for sunrise/sunset. I run filter socks so the water is usually crystal clear and can only run the lamps at a maximum of 40%. 10 hr total photoperiod w/ 90 minute sunrise and 90 minute sunset.

It's a new tank so I dont have long term pics to provide. I've had success with Pac Sun LEDs in the past though.

Full tank coverage:

 

[tastyfish]

If you wanted to expand the budget and go for the Mitras, have a chat with xDave on UR. He runs his extremely large tank on mitras and there probably isn't much to know that he hasn't experienced or thought of on these lights.

I didn't suggest earlier as there was no way they would be within your stated budget

 

[Stolireef]

My personal experience both with my own tanks and having visited many others, is that the shading issue is way overstated with today's lights. Granted it's not a 350 gallon tank, but I'm running two G4's over my 125. It's deep front to back (30 inches) and the coverage is solid from front to back and side to side. If I really wanted to have absolutely complete coverage, I could turn them perpendicular to the front of the tank and add a third. Even running at less than 60% intensity, my par at the bottom of the tank is well over 250 at 20 inches deep (haven't measured it for a few months and I've been playing around with the light quite a bit).

This is a new tank growing mostly frags so perhaps things will change as they grow into colonies but I'd really doubt that. I have a friend that keeps a 750 gallon tank using a bunch of the original AI Hydras. Most high end SPS. His colors are extremely intense, his growth is insane (literally growing out of the top of the tank), and he's only running at about 40% intensity.

BTW, this is coming from someone who ran dual 400 Watt Radiums and VHO actinics for ten years and swore by them.

 

[Gweeds]

My personal experience both with my own tanks and having visited many others, is that the shading issue is way overstated with today's lights. Granted it's not a 350 gallon tank, but I'm running two G4's over my 125. It's deep front to back (30 inches) and the coverage is solid from front to back and side to side. If I really wanted to have absolutely complete coverage, I could turn them perpendicular to the front of the tank and add a third. Even running at less than 60% intensity, my par at the bottom of the tank is well over 250 at 20 inches deep (haven't measured it for a few months and I've been playing around with the light quite a bit).

This is a new tank growing mostly frags so perhaps things will change as they grow into colonies but I'd really doubt that. I have a friend that keeps a 750 gallon tank using a bunch of the original AI Hydras. Most high end SPS. His colors are extremely intense, his growth is insane (literally growing out of the top of the tank), and he's only running at about 40% intensity.

BTW, this is coming from someone who ran dual 400 Watt Radiums and VHO actinics for ten years and swore by them.

Thanks... I'm leaning towards 4 reefled coronas now... according to a very well respected LFS that i visited today, the puks are identical to the radion gen 3... but the price point is just below half that of the gen4. They showed me their SPS frag grow out tanks which run off these and the colours and growth is phenomenal.

Either that or the hydra 52HDs still, again 4, mounted perpendicular to the tank as you mention. I figure at 100% the par at 26" is going to be excellent still.

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[rickyb]

Gweeds,

There are many different ways to run a successful tank. My last tank was a 180 6x2x2, it was full of SPS and run the simplest way possible. For lights, I run 3 x 400w MH with 14K Phoenix bulbs and 2 160w actinic VHO's.

To me this setup was perfect, coloration, coverage was excellent (to ME).

In early 2014 I started a 400 gallon 6x3x3. This time around, I basically did most everything the same, except the lights. I did some research and was not about to spend 4K+ in lights to cover the tank as I already knew it was going to be full SPS, that's when I found a thread in RC about LedZeal and decided to give them a try. I first both one 5FT light and as the tank matured and I added more corals added 2 more, 1 5FT and the other 4 FT due to the back overflows.
Is now been 3+ years in the making, all corals were grown from 1"-2" frags. I will say I have been successful with these lights.

I'm not saying that should go and give them your paycheck, but I know for fact that these lights work. Are they the best lights? probably not, do they grow SPS? hell yeah!

I feel that the colors LED vs MH still needs improvement, but that's just me. Oh and I run my lights from 8am to 11pm with ramp up and down by using their DYI mode in their controller, at 95%. I still wonder why many folks hesitate to increase the % on their lights, I wish mine could go 150%, I am a true believer that corals need more light that we can possibly give them.







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[rickyb]

Lights... hit me...

Here is a picture for reference. I have over 80 different SPS in here.

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[karimwassef]

Any lighting would work with enough PAR. The question is whether you can afford enough of the expensive LEDs to cover your space or whether you can afford the cooling required to run Halides. I don't know anything about CFL.

Here's my PAR and tank

For SPS, I keep 800 (shadows) to 1600 (highest lit) on the water surface.

Here's a surface PAR map showing new bulbs (top) and old bulbs (below)

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/LED%20experiments/Capture_zpsqflx1soi.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/LED%20experiments/Capture_zpsqflx1soi.png" border="0" alt=" photo Capture_zpsqflx1soi.png"/></a>

I've since replaced the reflectors on the side to the same as the middle.

<a href="http://s1062.photobucket.com/user/karimwassef/media/4A261F16-3008-4CFA-B046-391D6D9C3977_zps6ftrjkvz.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1062.photobucket.com/albums/t496/karimwassef/4A261F16-3008-4CFA-B046-391D6D9C3977_zps6ftrjkvz.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo 4A261F16-3008-4CFA-B046-391D6D9C3977_zps6ftrjkvz.jpg"/></a>

 

[Stolireef]

Here is a picture for reference. I have over 80 different SPS in here.

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JDA: I'm a callin' you out on this! His growth is obviously stunted and weird and his colors are just not what they should be.:deadhorse:

 

[Stolireef]

I think that we are still learning how to use LED's. I communicated with the peeps at Battle Corals and Cultivated Reef and they both run their LED's at very high intensities. I'm slowly ramping mine up in the hope of finding a sweet spot. One thing that is definitely true is that MH/T5 is way less complicated. Turn 'm on/ Turn 'm off. Only thing you have to decide is your photo-period.

 

[rickyb]

Lights... hit me...

Stolireef,

Keep in mind that my picture is NOT a good representation of coloration. The picture provided was to show that the lights can grow SPS. The picture was taken with a phone. Coral colors are way better in person or with a good camera and white balance.


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[jda]

JDA: I'm a callin' you out on this! His growth is obviously stunted and weird and his colors are just not what they should be.:deadhorse:

You don't have to call me out, he flat out said as much. Read the post. He is also using twice the panels that other people would basically covering the whole top of the tank. Is any of this different than I have been saying - lots of panels (more than recommended) for not as good of colors. I would need better pictures to see if the colonies are dying from the bottom up - that is another LED stable for most, but the best of the best can avoid it if they use enough panels.

 

[Stolireef]

Stolireef,

Keep in mind that my picture is NOT a good representation of coloration. The picture provided was to show that the lights can grow SPS. The picture was taken with a phone. Coral colors are way better in person or with a good camera and white balance.


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Sorry about the misplaced sarcasm. I was actually complimenting how beautiful your tank is. It's a little bit fun to needle JDA because he really doesn't like LED tanks.

 

[Stolireef]

You don't have to call me out, he flat out said as much. Read the post. He is also using twice the panels that other people would basically covering the whole top of the tank. Is any of this different than I have been saying - lots of panels (more than recommended) for not as good of colors. I would need better pictures to see if the colonies are dying from the bottom up - that is another LED stable for most, but the best of the best can avoid it if they use enough panels.

Not really on a tank that size. I agree that LED manu's tend to overstate their coverage. That said, LEDs can produce gorgeous results. As I even agreed, on my tank, I may (emphasis on may) have to add a third fixture if shadowing becomes a problem. Even with three full Radions running at full power, I'd be running at about 500 watts vs. about 1000 watts running T5's and 400W Radiums.