Maxspect LED owners!!!

[bimmer88]

ok... so i'm looking into replacing my halides with a maxspect LED setup before summer gets here to avoid heating my tank up to high temps.. i'm currently running 3x250w metal halides with phoenix 14k bulbs over a 180 gallon tank... i'm trying to get a setup that would be as close as my current setup as possible... what should i get?? what are optics??? i know all this information is probably in this thread already but it's 60 pages long... can someone please give me the cliff notes??? Thanks!!!

 

[hhaase]

Dana;

I think you may have confused them on your room temp. You said 68-73 C.
That works out to around 155-150 F.

-Hans

 

[hhaase]

Regarding the fans.

Not sure about you guys, but mine have NIDEC fans, part number D04R-12TL in my G2-160. This works out to a 40mm x 40mm x 15mm fan. Plastic housing, ball bearing, 5000rpm. 4.9cfm airflow, which is pretty weak. Oh, and this model is also discontinued.

I just need to figure out connectors, and see what's drop in compatible. NewEgg has a bunch of 40mm fans, but some are too thick and some have the wrong connections.

-Hans

 

[Mandragen]

Alright heres what it comes down to for me and i want to order here soon.

The 3 units im looking at are the G2 170 Semi LED 545
G2 230 Semi LED 710
G2 170 Cree LED 790

Mainly because of the lenght of the fixture. Is Cree Worth it? NOt many ppl said wether they bought cree version or semi led. How are the 30w leds? any burn outs/replacemnts?

Me, personally im thinkin the 4 30w leds is gunna be alot on my mostly dominated lps tank. (tho i want sps) Thats why i said semi 170 or Cree 170

Im trying to order it by the 15 of March so some help on some stuff would be great.

I have a 48"x24"x24" tank and have semi LED with no optics running excellent. I do have the 30w LED in mine and run them about 30 min a day. I have had my fixtures 9 months with no problems. I keep SPS on the top half of my tank and softies on the bottom.

 

[Mandragen]

ok... so i'm looking into replacing my halides with a maxspect LED setup before summer gets here to avoid heating my tank up to high temps.. i'm currently running 3x250w metal halides with phoenix 14k bulbs over a 180 gallon tank... i'm trying to get a setup that would be as close as my current setup as possible... what should i get?? what are optics??? i know all this information is probably in this thread already but it's 60 pages long... can someone please give me the cliff notes??? Thanks!!!

never had Halide bulbs so I couldn't tell you what would be the same. Each 160w fixture would cover a 2' cube. Optics can be installed to focus the light which would give you less spread but better depth, if you are trying to keep SPS more than 15"-20" down from the top you might want to consider it.

 

[canesfan44]

I have a G2-160 (without optics) and I think it's the equivalent of about a 250w MH. You don't get as much spread as you would with a MH, but without the optics, you get pretty good spread. I would agree that the spread is about 2' x 2'.

 

[Felixc395]

That sounds like a perfect combination. I used optics on my 2x 160w for my 65g SPS dominated with good results.

Thanks. Your tank is gourgeous, and I love seeing it everytime.

Just two quick questions:
- has anyone experienced browning, I've read most of the thread. It seems like the 30 watt bulbs are the culprit?
- and would I need optics in my situation?

 

[hirez]

only me who thinks the fans on the actual heatsink are kinda louuud?
Its louder than my skimmer and other 3 pumps in the sump..
are all led lamp built today like this?or is there something better out there?

 

[Acrotrdco]

Im trying to stay under 750, esh im trying to stay as low as possibe...i have been in contact with the guys at fishstreet and he said the semi leds burn out quicker, have a higher turn over rate. How long have u had your fixture Acro? Any burn out on you? He also was suggesting the cree version but i want opinions. If the semi led's work good then ill do that but if they are bruning out left and right, eff that. Ill stick with t5's and wait for Sol's to come down in price if thats the case. Heres the current email exchange between me and fish street. Read from the bottom up, of coarse

I've ran 2 fixtures, one of them over 11 months now, and the other about 3 months, so far I've only had 1 bulb burn on me, but I got a replacement bulb within a week (it was under warranty), and it was a quick plug-and-play replacement.

Alright heres what it comes down to for me and i want to order here soon.

The 3 units im looking at are the G2 170 Semi LED 545
G2 230 Semi LED 710
G2 170 Cree LED 790

Mainly because of the lenght of the fixture. Is Cree Worth it? NOt many ppl said wether they bought cree version or semi led. How are the 30w leds? any burn outs/replacemnts?

Me, personally im thinkin the 4 30w leds is gunna be alot on my mostly dominated lps tank. (tho i want sps) Thats why i said semi 170 or Cree 170

Im trying to order it by the 15 of March so some help on some stuff would be great.

IMO, get the Semi LED and optics.

Read here on the PAR I've measured with Semi's - they're just about the same as Cree's.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1965294

ok... so i'm looking into replacing my halides with a maxspect LED setup before summer gets here to avoid heating my tank up to high temps.. i'm currently running 3x250w metal halides with phoenix 14k bulbs over a 180 gallon tank... i'm trying to get a setup that would be as close as my current setup as possible... what should i get?? what are optics??? i know all this information is probably in this thread already but it's 60 pages long... can someone please give me the cliff notes??? Thanks!!!

What's the dimension and is it a SPS dominated or mixed reef?

If it's SPS dominated you'll probably need 3x 160w, otherwise 3x 110w would do just fine.

Thanks. Your tank is gourgeous, and I love seeing it everytime.

Just two quick questions:
- has anyone experienced browning, I've read most of the thread. It seems like the 30 watt bulbs are the culprit?
- and would I need optics in my situation?

You mean browning of what? SPS? or the bulb itself?

If you've more than 17-18" of water, and it's a SPS dominated tank, then the answer is yes.

only me who thinks the fans on the actual heatsink are kinda louuud?
Its louder than my skimmer and other 3 pumps in the sump..
are all led lamp built today like this?or is there something better out there?

My fan is quiet and absolutely silent - I think you probably have a fan with a worn bearing, I get that with my computer fans as well, just get a replacement, it's a simple replacement.

 

[Mandragen]

only me who thinks the fans on the actual heatsink are kinda louuud?
Its louder than my skimmer and other 3 pumps in the sump..
are all led lamp built today like this?or is there something better out there?

I don't even hear my fans, had to check to make sure they were still running. I have 2 160w and just bought a little 60w for the frag tank. Went over to visit the boys and picked it up.

 

[Dana42078]

Thanks Acro!

 

[Felixc395]

You mean browning of what? SPS? or the bulb itself?

If you've more than 17-18" of water, and it's a SPS dominated tank, then the answer is yes.

Thanks for the response. I meant browning or loss of colors/washed out in SPS. I see in your situation, there's no problem with that, but I was just wondering in general.

 

[BigRedNole]

I have a 90g (48x18x24 I think) tank that is just about ready to start adding corals. I need lights though. I do not like the MHs and will be going T5 or LED. I have seen and know what the AI Sols can do at my LFS. I have been looking at some of the Maxspect lights. However, I am not sure what will suffice for a 48" tank.

The G3 is only 32". If I went with one of those, there is 8" on each end not covered. If I go with G2, I would need at least 2 units. What is everyone using to cover 48"?

 

[Mandragen]

Thanks for the response. I meant browning or loss of colors/washed out in SPS. I see in your situation, there's no problem with that, but I was just wondering in general.

I have seen this in my tank, and was also talking with Brian over at Fin's, this past weekend I rode over there as it is about 45 min from the house. The 30w LEDs are pretty powerful, some units have the 15w instead. I ran my 30w for 5 hours at first and although great growth the coral was not able to adapt to that high of light so quickly. I dropped my time on the 30w to 30 min and colors are back to perfect. The thing is just acclimating them really slow and starting to increase time as slow as possible, probably going to add a couple minutes a week. Really, the only corals that were having trouble with the lighting were lower light sps that were directly under the 30w LEDs and pretty high up in the tank, this accounted for maybe 4 corals out of the 50 I have. HTH

 

[Mandragen]

I have a 90g (48x18x24 I think) tank that is just about ready to start adding corals. I need lights though. I do not like the MHs and will be going T5 or LED. I have seen and know what the AI Sols can do at my LFS. I have been looking at some of the Maxspect lights. However, I am not sure what will suffice for a 48" tank.

The G3 is only 32". If I went with one of those, there is 8" on each end not covered. If I go with G2, I would need at least 2 units. What is everyone using to cover 48"?

If you read back a couple pages or a few posts you will see that you would only need 2 160w units, and if you went with the 32" fixture you would probably find that it would be fine, depending on what you wanted to keep and where, as the spread of light is not just right underneath the fixture, but extends out. It sorta frustrates people to repeat something every day, in a post above this I stated, as well as someone else who confirmed, that each 160w is good for a 2'x2'x2' area. I have a 120g tank SPS dominant, LPS, softies, with 2 160w units and no optics. Our tanks are almost exactly the same.

 

[Felixc395]

I have seen this in my tank, and was also talking with Brian over at Fin's, this past weekend I rode over there as it is about 45 min from the house. The 30w LEDs are pretty powerful, some units have the 15w instead. I ran my 30w for 5 hours at first and although great growth the coral was not able to adapt to that high of light so quickly. I dropped my time on the 30w to 30 min and colors are back to perfect. The thing is just acclimating them really slow and starting to increase time as slow as possible, probably going to add a couple minutes a week. Really, the only corals that were having trouble with the lighting were lower light sps that were directly under the 30w LEDs and pretty high up in the tank, this accounted for maybe 4 corals out of the 50 I have. HTH

Thanks!!

This makes perfect sense to me and if I do go with the maxspexts then I will go slow with the 30w LED's.

It's good to hear that you can still have success with the 30w though. But then wouldn't the corals bleach, rather than brown? But I don't know much about SPS, I'm pretty new to it.

 

[Acrotrdco]

Thanks for the response. I meant browning or loss of colors/washed out in SPS. I see in your situation, there's no problem with that, but I was just wondering in general.

On the contrary, I was getting improvement of coloration after using the 4x 15w (the Extreme versions uses 4x 15w instead of 2x 30w, for better coverage and less "spotlight" effect on one spot).

I have a 90g (48x18x24 I think) tank that is just about ready to start adding corals. I need lights though. I do not like the MHs and will be going T5 or LED. I have seen and know what the AI Sols can do at my LFS. I have been looking at some of the Maxspect lights. However, I am not sure what will suffice for a 48" tank.

The G3 is only 32". If I went with one of those, there is 8" on each end not covered. If I go with G2, I would need at least 2 units. What is everyone using to cover 48"?

You could go with G2-230w which is 32" wide, without optics it'll cover the entire 48", ideal for mixed reef tanks, with SPS's on the top half and LPS/softies on the bottom half.

Or you could repeat what I've done, 2x 160w for my SPS dominated tank.

Thanks!!

This makes perfect sense to me and if I do go with the maxspexts then I will go slow with the 30w LED's.

It's good to hear that you can still have success with the 30w though. But then wouldn't the corals bleach, rather than brown? But I don't know much about SPS, I'm pretty new to it.

SPS usually don't "brown" to bright light, they tend to fade in color (some folks called that as bleaching).

In my tank, however, I've noticed that acro's with bright purple tips tend to color up really nicely under 800-900 PAR, since I put them directly under the 15w's with optics.

You need to do some research on the light requirement of the species of SPS you're buying, for example, some staghorn SPS's love high intensity, while some others deeper water species will start to fade then bleach with more than 300 PAR on them.

 

[hirez]

hmmm well my fans are so loud, i will have to try shutting them off one by one and see..
i have a feeling both are loud, also noise is very subjective...

 

[canesfan44]

You need to do some research on the light requirement of the species of SPS you're buying, for example, some staghorn SPS's love high intensity, while some others deeper water species will start to fade then bleach with more than 300 PAR on them.

This is something you should try to do with every coral. Ask your LFS, or whoever you are buying it from, if they know the collection depth and location. Some of the exact same coral can be found on reefs in 30' of water and the same coral might be found at a 150' reef. The one that has been growing at 100' depth has adapted to life at that depth and going into a brightly lit reef tank could shock it, and vice versa.

 

[grabbit]

hi guys.. here is my 170W which i have now for almost a year.. about 6 months ago I did change ALL the Semi LEDs with all CREE LEDs on my own... also added 40 degree optics with 8 - 70 degree optics on left and right side and 4 - 70 degree optics on the back.. ALSO, I took all the UV LEDs out.. I did exchange all the BLUE Semi LEDs with Royal Blue CREEs.. and all the white Semi LEDs exchanged with white CREEs ... added some NW CREEs as well..

Now, as You know, U can get 3 different LEDs to be ON in different times.. well the whole blue option, I decided to do middle part of my tank blue.. but the sides (left and right ) have each 2 white crees ON.. so it give the tank different look. I think it is kinda cool..

Also added 24" 2xT5s with Actnic light..


As U can see.. I did put much more money into this light just to exchanging all the LEDs with CREEs and adding optics..

Light is VERY high on my tank.. at least 15"-18" above water level and I still got some bleaching.. Right now everything is to normal...Just whenever I get new coral, I start it from the very bottom of my tank.

I love the sides of my tank to be darker.. I think it is so much better than light splling all over the room and tank.. I still can grow any soft / LPS corals on sides of my tank..

My tank is 90G 48"x25"x18"deep...

I keep those light on for only about 6 hrs a day. Simply it was to much light for some corals.. I bet PARs are as high as AI with all the optics....

At this point I am getting ready to purchase AI SOLs... reason? I want more control over these lights.. and futures..

YEAH I put lots of money to this light but I also know, when it will be time to sell it, and whoever is looking for great light.. this is going to be the right light for much less than AI..

well here are pics of my current setup..

it is a tough job to capture colors on LEDs.. never could adjust balance to get it right..

this is on my old 36" Oceanic.. :