New to SW! Need advice on lighting!

[yahtayfam]

I have been keeping freshwater aquariums for a long time but I have just made the switch to saltwater recently. I've done a TON of research about what I want to keep and I have decided that I MUST ABSOLUTELY have one of these beautiful tanks that I see in this forum. My goal is a SPS dominate mixed tank with lots of snails. I am not THAT interested in any fish TBH (I kept high(er) tech planted tanks and focused mostly on inverts and plants). I have a lot of questions that have been building up so I apologize in advanced for the long-winded post.

I have converted one of my 20 gallon longs into a saltwater QT tank that has just recently finished cycling. I also have an empty refurbished 75 gallon tank that had already been drilled in the bottom with an overflow attached. It came with a 30 gallon sump (which I will be remaking so look forward to another long post). After about a months worth of research, I am almost done acquiring the equipment to start cycling my 75 gallon display tank, but I have one HUGE component that I have not figured out yet: lighting.

I had planned on getting two Chinese black box LEDs and supplementing them with two to four 4' HO T5 bulbs. I want there to be enough lighting so that I can add any coral I want.

The dilemma is, after so much research, there is a lot of conflicting views on LED vs T5 vs MH or a combo of sorts. Now, I am unsure that my setup will be what I am looking for. I certainly don't want to use MH-- chillers, energy consumption and thermal output are too many factors for me to handle right now. Traditionally I have used ALL T5 HO, both for my hydroponics set up and the old FW setups I used to have. My concern with this is that I do not want to replace SO MANY T5 bulbs and was wanting to switch over to LEDs.

Do you more experienced reefers out there have any insights on my setup? I am really leaning towards these black box LED's after reading so many positive things about them, but am concerned about spectrum mixing, shadowing, and point light source which I think could be solved with a couple T5's. Please let me know if you think this would be adequate to keep an all acro tank happy if I so chose (assuming all other params are good) and how many T5s and where should they be placed? Should I do away with the LEDs and go for an all T5 setup? If so, how many T5s for a 48"x~18.5"x21" tank? I am not sold on an ALL LED setup BTW because IMO the cons are far too detrimental to be ignored and I am not willing to dish out the big bucks for the nicer LEDs because I am certain the technology will definitely progress and I'd rather save my money for the next big thing.

Thanks for reading this far and your insights are greatly appreciated!

 

[Ryan Darilek]

I think you're going in the right direction for sure. I've got all high-end LEDs on mine, but it's a much smaller tank (32 gallon). If I were in your shoes with the bigger tank, it would be a combo of the LED and T5's and I'd mount my 5's I'm the front and LED in the center. You may consider getting a DIY LED kit... Higher quality, you can position them however you'd like, add to it in the future and it's not outrageous on the cost. Welcome to the hobby man, post lots of pics and keep us posted on progress!

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[Ron Reefman]

You can go either way, t5 or led... or split the difference. They are all capable of growing colorful, healthy coral. You've done the research, you know the issues. Now YOU have to make up your mind as to what you want. Don't let the people here influence you too much.

That said, here's my take on the situation. You know that leds have some shadow issues compared to t5. IMHO that's a bit over blown, but it is there. And t5's have a nice even light. Of course you do need to buy new bulbs every year and if you don't like the shade of white in your tank, you need to buy more bulbs in a trial and error kind of situation. Chinese black boxes can grow coral just as well as t5. Maybe not quite as good on branching sps colonies where shadows by the colony start to slow growth at the bottom and deep inside the colony. To some this is a big deal. For me, not so much. I've had some big colonies and yes, there are some issues. But to me, it's just not that serious. But with leds you can sure change the shade of white in your tank easy enough. You can adjust the intensity of the light easy enough as well. What if you buy a 4 bulb t5 fixture and your acro corals don't grow as well as you want due to not getting enough PAR? You buy a new 6 bulb fixture? With an led fixture you just turn the knob and make the light brighter. And running just blues can sure make your tank look VERY different if you have corals that fluoresce.

Doing cheap leds and adding some t5 is a good idea. My issue with that is the t5's can over power the shimmer that the leds give you and you can't dim them. And not all leds are so 'point source' as you might think. Sure Kessil pendants are, and Eco Tech Radions, or many other led fixtures with just 1 or 2 led 'pucks' are. But some led fixtures spread the light quite well. You could get a 32" or 48" Chinese black box and have quite good spread.

OK, so what did I chose to do? I use the higher end Chinese made fixture from Reef Breeders. My tank is 60" and my fixture is 50". End to end I love it. And being a bit more expensive, it has 6 channels of color control and the ability to do sunrise/midday/sunset control. For some that's just a waste of money and the corals could care less. But I wanted the additional control. And being honest, front to back I had an issue with not enough light spread. My tank is only 20" deep, so the light doesn't spread front to back as well as it would if it were 24" deep. And I have corals growing off the back glass, so I need light at the back just 6" to 8" deep. If I move the fixture back to light those corals, I get a bit more shadow under rocks at the front.

I tried a white t5 at the front of the tank so I could move my led fixture back enough to light those back glass corals. But the t5 was too bright a white and over powered the cool white I love from the leds. So I got 2 led strips. A white & blue with 2 channels and dimming for the front and an all blue strip for the back. I love the effect. And the front white & blue led strip does almost as much to eliminate the shadows on the rocks as the t5 did, but because it has dimmers, I can control the shade of white and the intensity of the white and I still get great shimmer. And the white up front and blue on the back wall makes the tank look like it's more than 24" front to back.

If any of that interests you, there is more info and photos of before and after in my build thread. The link address is in my signature below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them here or there.

Best of luck with your new adventure! :beer:

 

[Ryan Darilek]

Don't see the link to your build thread Ron... Could you try posting that separately?

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[gffpm1247]

I just set up a 75 gal tank and and very new myself. My LFS recommended the zetlight ZT 6800. I love it!

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[Ron Reefman]

Don't see the link to your build thread Ron... Could you try posting that separately?

It's in the signature below. Look and you'll see:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2593017

 

[yahtayfam]

Hey guys, thanks for your thoughts! I am actually more interested in ALL the different Montiporas but I said Acros because, from what I understand, they are apparently the most light hungry and difficult to keep. Just wanted to see if I could use this lighting for Acros so that I could be able to possibly add them in the future once my Monti craze has died down.

I'm glad that my T5's supplements would be a good idea. My plan was to suspend the LEDs at the same height as the T5's so that the T5 fixtures won't shade the LEDs. Then, I was thinking I could adjust the intensity of the LEDs to match the T5s.

As for your comment on the complete uselessness of the dawn and dusk settings, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in fact beneficial albeit I agree some say its not necessary. If its worth anything, I know my plants respond better to it. I know plants and corals are far from being similar, but in my eyes the sun's movement is an important factor for all living things to "time" their biological functions. For example plants use the shorter photo-periods of the fall as a sign to begin hunkering down for a dormant winter. While I have yet to come across any solid evidence to support one way or another, I believe that sunrise and sunset might not be important to keep the corals ALIVE but I am sure it contributes to them being HAPPY. Maybe the shorter photo-periods stimulate them to spawn or any other number of biological processes we don't know about. In short, our goal is to re-create the environment these corals come from and so isn't dusk/dawn part of that environment? I say good for you and your corals Ron.

One of the main reasons I want to use LEDs is so that I may one day either mod the black boxes and hook it up to an Apex controller once I am able to afford it so that I can run dawn and dusk settings. Hopefully this is good enough for a dusk/dawn setting for my tank.

I looked at the fixtures that you use and while I would love to have something convenient like that, a lot of my future paychecks will be going to things like a nice Octopus Reef skimmer and some Reefflakes for the display ect.

My questions are what type of LED strips did you end up using? I might consider them if they are cheap but I have some T5 fixtures that I could use right now so if they aren't.... Also, I noticed that you placed a blue in the back and a blue/white in the front. I want to know your reasoning for this so that I might apply it to my T5s. And lastly, did you notice the different areas of your tank be lit by different spectra, or do you think that the overall affect is not noticeable?

Thanks so much for everyone's input!:spin2:

 

[yahtayfam]

And to clarify, I know shorter photo-periods does not equal dusk/dawn but I what I was trying to say is that we should try to recreate the light they receive in the wild as accurately as possible.

 

[Ron Reefman]

If you want to believe that sunrise and sunset over a reef aquarium is important to the coral, I'll say everybody is entitled to their own opinion. However, corals have been grown in aquariums for 15 to 20 years now and it's only in the last 5 or 6 that we have had light fixtures that can do sunrise and sunset. But the corals don't do any better because of it. Up until a couple of months ago my frag tank did not have sunrise/sunset and even damaged (cut/injured) corals heal and grow every bit as good as they do in my DT.

I used 21ledusa strips. They were the least expensive but still offered 2 channels and dimming.

Good luck with your project.

 

[yahtayfam]

Thanks a bunch!