Long term LED results.

[rssayer]

I like many others have been pondering the idea of going LED, but I've wanted to wait a little while to see what long term results there were on coral growth good and bad.
Most people that I have talked to seem happy for the most part but have reported changes in coral growth or even some corals not making the transition. Par values are awsome to say the least but what about the narrow color spectrums that LEDs emit?
So please post your comments and what you have noticed.

 

[Sweet]

I bought the Ecoxotic LED system at xmas last year. The actinic led all started breaking this summer. I am not sure if it was because it was too hot or bad design. Anyway they replaced all my fixtures no hassle.

As far as growth, my corals have never looked better. They are growing at a reasonable rate.

My electric bill has been lower which was my goal.

 

[rssayer]

was it a bad driver issue that you had? Sorry to hear. otherwise it sounds like you've had good results. have you used other types of lighting before and haw do the LEDs compair?

 

[SkiFletch]

I've ran a custom LED rig for 2 years now. I designed it to replace my 2x175watt halides. From a PAR standpoint, my LEDs put out more energy than the halides did. As noted, at a fraction of the energy cost as well as added safety in warm weather months.

As far as coral growth goes, an overwhelming majority of my corals are doing very well on the LEDs with growth rates similar or better than with the Halides. My tank is dominated by LPS and those uniformly did very well. Acans, Euphyllia, Favia, Platygyra, and Blastomussa colonies did/have done great. My Crocea clam also does very well under the LEDs. I also have 2 colonies of encrusting Montipora which grew exponentially faster under the LEDs. My larger Palythoa (including giant palythoa) do similar to the halides. Polcillipora LOVED them. Things grew like weeds, along with some basic Acropora Millepora. I unfortunately killed those two colonies with a chemical event, but they were doing GREAT before that. The only thing I struggled with growing under the LEDs that I tried was Zoanthids. Then again they never grew fast for me under the halides, but they died under the LEDs.

On the non-coral things, Coraline algae did well if I kept the chemistry right. Bubble algae also does great under my lights . Hair algae does not do well though... A bit of a trade there. Various macroalgaes do well under them.

I'm never going back

 

[Sweet]

The LED were burning out one at the time, all around the same time on different units. I believe it was either a heat issue with the hot summer we had or saltwater splashing on them or a manufacturer defect.

I started with T5 and then from there I moved to 2x250W halide with T5 and now I am on LED. I prefer the LED.

With the LED the only thing I wished I had done differently was to buy all Panorama module instead of the two retrofit module.

 

[rssayer]

I've tried halides, then to PCs, and now I'm running overdriven t-5s off of a coralvue 660. I can't complain about the results i've had from the t-5s but at the same time I would love to be able to decrease my electrical footprint. I would hate to make the investment to LEDs and not have the same or greater results especially with all the corals I have. Anyone running a RapidLED settup?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Switching to LEDs is like switching to any other lighting technology. There will be some things that do better and probably some that do worse - with newer technologies it's harder to predict, though arguably there is a good body of evidence that LEDs are successful for mixed reef tanks in general.

At any rate the onus is on the reefkeeper to design or select the system to meet their requirements. DIY is a great option because it offers pretty much infinite flexibility, but it can also be overwhelming and it's easy to make choices you don't understand that end up being frustrating in the long term. If you're thinking about DIY I'd spend a few months researching first - go visit some reefers with DIY rigs and see how they look. Even if you choose a reputable vendor (like rapid) you're taking a lot into your own hands as far as matching to your tank and designing the overall system correctly.

Personally, I've been playing with DIY LEDs for several years and am pretty sure I'll never use any other current technology again. I appreciate the energy savings on my tank given that it's larger and a T5 or MH rig would be a huge power suck. But mostly I appreciate the flexibility to put just the kind of light I want at any given point in my system. Like everyone else, I've had some failures in the sense that some corals haven't done well, but the same thing happened "back in the day" when I switched from NO to VHO and from VHO to MH...