Looking for proof LEDs work - post pics if you have them

[gskidmor]

A little background: I still see a lot of people frustrated about LEDs and questioning if they work. I know I've seen pics before of successful tanks, so here's what I'm looking for:

1) Tanks that have always been LED. One of the main counter-arguments people give is that "well they only switched to LED after MH successfully grew those colonies..."
2) If you did switch from MH to LED, then please post a pic of what the tank looked like just before you switched from MH/T-5/other to LED. I'm looking for proof that LED continued to grow you sticks successfully.

Now I would prefer more of #1.

Please, if you don't have any pics, please refrain from posting your opinions for or against LEDs - we seem to have at least a dozen of those threads going on at any one time. I'm looking to start a thread where people can post proof that LEDs do work.

Thank-you

 

[skyler78]

1 - AI sol blue unit, 15" AWL. led works great for me. here's a growth photo of a birdsnest, probably not the best example because they grow like weeds with sub par lighting. i put this coral directly under my rock and it was covered in white spots where new branches were growing out in a couple days.

6-26-2012

8-17-2012

 

[gskidmor]

Good start - lets see some more

 

[Arringar]

I don't mean to add a negative context to this thread, but I will say that I have seen a lot less growth since my switch to LEDs. Could be the LEDs I suppose, they're not all created equally. I still wonder if I will ever see the growth I got from halides.

 

[gskidmor]

These are the comments I'm trying to avoid - I'm looking for examples where they did succeed - there are sooooooo many threads where people talk about the problems they have - if every thread on LEDs has people talking about how the LED failed drowning out any voices of success, how can we examine what those who succeeded did?

 

[Dapg8gt]

Not really a long time with LEDs but for the little time I've had them they are def working
Day 1 under 150w halide

Now a month after LEDs running. Starting to encrust and color is starting to pop. Notice sky blue acro in back new tips are correct color growth.they came from a very dim set up and were basically green and browned out.

These are still new to me just running a little over a month but I am personally sold on LEDs. I have a evergrow D120 120watt 26 royal blue 25 mixed cool/warm blue and 4 violets dimmed down to 40%. A lot less power no heat and solid growth so far. I will post back some better pics over time as I get further along with these frags.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Arringar]

My apologies, I don't mean to taint your thread. I have read lots of positive stuff about LEDs and coral color/growth. I think the real truth of the matter is that some LED setups are better than others. Be it better quality LEDs or just better practices with photoperiod, etc.

 

[Koala226]

My apologies, I don't mean to taint your thread. I have read lots of positive stuff about LEDs and coral color/growth. I think the real truth of the matter is that some LED setups are better than others. Be it better quality LEDs or just better practices with photoperiod, etc.

Seriously, this couldn't be more true. It entirely depends on your setup. Don't expect to get into the LED game and have success with sps dropping 200 bucks, it's just not going to happen. There are DIY kits but even those cost around 250. Aqua Illuminations, Ecotech, ecoxtic, are all great. The first two being the top with the radion from ecotech having the largest spectrum. Stay away from marineland low power leds on their "reef bright". It works but.. it's sub.. par.. Get it? It's punny. Baiscally, it's the same thing if you bought a 2 bulb T5 fixture for a 24" deep tank. Do the research, LEDs are proven, you want even more proof? Vivid aquariums has a test going on on their 800g display, half leds, half halides. The owner even states he's had better growth under leds on some corals than he has under halides. Heres the link:
http://www.vividaquariums.com/aquariumLightExperiment.asp

In the end, LEDS work fine as long as you pay for what you want. Just an example.. average leds work out to about 50,000 hours. That's 13 years of running 10 hour photo periods every day. If you had a 4 bulb t5 fixture, that's 3,150 dollars in replacement bulbs over those 13 years, not to mention your fixture will probably die out before then. Metal halides..you could probably double that and then some between bulbs and outrageous electricity bills. So, LEDS have a high startup cost.. 400 a piece for each AI sol, 700 for each ecotech radion, but if you plan on staying in the hobby for more than a year, you'll make your money back easily. They also, as of current, have a great resell value.

Seriously, I can almost promise you that every single person who says "LEDs can't grow anything properly" are trying with an inferior setup or never have tried and are just so set in the old ways of t5/MH that they just condemn anything that breaks the mold.

 

[Setragni]

I tried the Ai sols for 5 months. And im not ashamed to say that I spent over a thousand dollars on something that did not work for me.
A week ago I bought a T5 fixture and put the Sols up for sale.
In one week I noticed a pretty good diference already.
Corals are more colorful and not only on the tips. Reds are red again and yellows are not green anymore.
The AI were good but not good enough for me.

I will give Leds another chance in the future.

Edit: Colors were bad but growth wasnt too bad.

 

[Arringar]

I think for good color, that is to say, to see the colors correctly under LEDs the rgb LEDs are probably the best. It is after all similar to how the human eye works.

 

[gskidmor]

I understand the desire to argure for/against something but I wanted to avoid that cluttering up the thread. I'm positive LEDs can work - I've seen threads were people would occassionaly pop on and post a successful pick. Then as the countless thread pop up talking about deciding to switch back to MH/T-5 big arguments ensue about their suitablility and as I just posted in a different thread arguing about this - it's hard to find a lot of concentrated proof of success. I believe people aren't setting them up right. Let me use me as an example. I bought a Radion. It said it was equivalent to a 270w MH. I did the same thing I've always done for light acclimation that has worked for well over a decade - I bleached every single frag.

Why? I had mine set at 100% thinking a frag coming from a 12" frag tank lit by a 400w MH would do good lit in my tank by something equivalent to 270w...WRONG. LEDs are considerably stronger.

What's working for me now? Radion using only 3 channels (white, blue, dark blue) set to 45% brightness.

I will post pics of my SPS starting to grow, though I've only had my Radion dialed in correctly for les than a month, but I'm already seeing good results.

Not SPS, but here is my anemone thriving under 45% LED:

So please keep it to success pics of your tank and if you could, give a little background specs - # of LEDs, total power, and how much you're driving it (in my case, 45% for only 3 of 5 available channels for about a total of 35 watts)

So let me at least contribute. I'm starting to get good results with LEDs.

 

[dunk373]

I have added led's to my vho setup with better colors as a result. I have a t5 and led setup as well and will be adding an all led setup to compare but i will give all spectrums of light. As long as we give the proper spectrum It wont matter what light you use it will work you can take one coral and have 10 different colors. All tanks are running off the same water too.

 

[dadummy]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2199046

couple pics at bottom of thread

 

[Ryan-]

Here is my tank thread. Only ever ran under DIY leds, they are cree 3w, 72 RB 24 CW, 24 high noon i run all of them at 95% except the high noon, the tank is about 8 months old.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2201810

 

[Paul B]

My tank maybe 6 or 7 years ago with MH

Maybe 10 years ago

Today it has many SPS growing all over the place as are the LPS. For some reason I didn't have luck growing SPS under MH

This acro grew from a tiny frag to about 9" across in a year under LEDs

 

[bigbuckdown]

I am having great growth under my AIs but the color is a bit shameful dont know if its the lights or something else i am not finding. my blues are descent but yellows red and pinks all turn brown in the matter of 2 weeks. looking to add maybe a few UV bulbs around the tank to see if that has any impact but dont know where to purchase a little strip from

 

[OneReef]

One year, been under LEDs since day one of this tank.

 

[Setragni]

One year, been under LEDs since day one of this tank.

Your tank looks great. But pretty much like mine did. With great purples, greens and blues but the rest is brown.

Please dont get me wrong, i dont mean to be rude just pointing out the same thing that was happening to me. Cuz i dont have pics to back up.
Happy reefing

 

[OneReef]

Your tank looks great. But pretty much like mine did. With great purples, greens and blues but the rest is brown.

Please dont get me wrong, i dont mean to be rude just pointing out the same thing that was happening to me. Cuz i dont have pics to back up.
Happy reefing

No, your exactly right. Blues and purples are great. I made a post earlier today stating that I'm thinking of switching back to 250w radium halides. On my old tank, I had much better and diverse colors. My tank seems monotone and just doesn't have "pop". My picture was to show that LEDs do grow SPS fine. But I don't feel I'm getting the most out of my colors that I did with Radium halides.

 

[gskidmor]

OneReef - In one of the other threads I'm involved in, many are speculating it's the lack of 420nm in the prebuilt LED pendants (like my Radion) - does the AI Sold have 420?

One of the other posters had indicated that he grew his SPS like weeds with LED and started supplementing with T-5 and his colors exploded. Another said he did a DIY LED with 420 and his colors came back...