Open letter to the LED industry

[marc price]

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tank is a 24x24x20 rimless. I'm an SPS guy

I'm leaning towards PAR38's; if I decide to go this route, can anyone tell me how many bulbs would be sufficient enough for the depth and size of my tank to successfully keep SPS alive and thriving?

TIA

What began as a temporary 40breeder (36"x18"x16"), set-up is now past it's first year with SPS and T. maxima doing just fine under five daylight PAR 38 LED's located a foot above the aquarium.

I'm using standard daylight PAR 38 bulbs from Home Depot and Lowes. Alternating mix because the Phillips are more blue/pinkish 5000K and the Utilitec (multichip) are a greenish 5000K.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Philips-...ulb-425280/203553286?N=5yc1vZbm79Z15bZ1z0u18w
http://www.lowes.com/pd_150661-7577...RL=?Ntt=par+38+led&page=1&facetInfo=Utilitech

They are inexpensive enough that i'm very tempted to take apart one of the Philips and swap a few of the 5000K LED's for Blue and UV LED's.

I looked into adding a more blue PAR 38 only the bulbs offered in the Aquarium market are imo, much to expensive for what they are.

 

[proietti]

higher number of Violet/UV LEDs is part of it.ratiof I think they use 405NM UV LEDs based on what I was able to come up with. There is one UV for every 2 blue and 2 cool white, that is a higher ratio than Ive seen elsewhere.

I think this is the main reason. In my set up as I have a very high ratio of UVs.

 

[msr224]

The problem is that they added 689 channels to that fixture giving you a total of 6897456258741258965412 different setting with 99.99% of those being sub optimal.

Said it a million times but I can never be said enough it seems. The main problem with LED isn't the technology, it is the failure of LED reef light producers to realize that not everyone is as interested in the topic as they are.

This is absolutely the truth. Too many settings and too many ways to go off the rail. Disco mode, lightning, turning on the reds only or greens only, running every fixture at 100% all the time. Green LEDs, yellow LEDs, orange LEDs....the list goes on and on....throwing everything into a fixture but the kitchen sink......

Light companies need to be the experts. There are lots of DIY things to do but it seems as though anyone with a credit card is ordering fixtures and calling themselves experts. Spectrum analysis tells the whole story. The abundant use of 6000k- 8000k white leds just makes me cringe. Slap a snazzy name on it and get a bunch of your online buddies to talk it up.....viola!

 

[TropTrea]

This is absolutely the truth. Too many settings and too many ways to go off the rail. Disco mode, lightning, turning on the reds only or greens only, running every fixture at 100% all the time. Green LEDs, yellow LEDs, orange LEDs....the list goes on and on....throwing everything into a fixture but the kitchen sink......

Light companies need to be the experts. There are lots of DIY things to do but it seems as though anyone with a credit card is ordering fixtures and calling themselves experts. Spectrum analysis tells the whole story. The abundant use of 6000k- 8000k white leds just makes me cringe. Slap a snazzy name on it and get a bunch of your online buddies to talk it up.....viola!

In my mind LED technology applied to Aquariums either fresh or salt water is not as complicated as some people would love us to think. It all breaks down to three factors in the lighting spectrum.

1. What spectrums create the best coral growth
2. What spectrum creates the best reflective color.
3. Whch spectrum produces the best florescent color.

Unfortunately the last two are are matter of balancing one against the other. When you increase the florescence your decreasing the reflective color, and vice versa.

But even looking at the first factor this can be argued by some of the so called PHd experts. Looking at Nature because the spectrum is so wide it gives extremely high PAR ratings compared to what we have in our Aquariums. Yet we can come close to duplicating the growth in nature by providing only light in the spectrum that the corals require at a fraction of the PAR. But for many this would be far from pleasing to they eye especially when we desire to see all the reflective colors in the aquarium.

Furthermore different coral as well as plants depend more on different parts of the spectrum. Beep water corals depend almost soley on the Blue end of the spectrum while some shallow water plants and corals have a greater dependency on the red end of the spectrum.

Therefore there is no perfect lighting that meets everyone needs. Your coral selection as well your preference between the three factors determine what you think is the ideal for you.

 

[ZON]

Also here many tanks use GNC fixtures that simulate t5 perfectly

 

[proietti]

Sorry what is GNC?

 

[Mark426]

GNC LED fixture: http://www.reefs.com/blog/2014/01/30/led-fixture-sicce-gnc-am-466-in-depth-review/

 

[Pacific Sun RD]

This is what we need for LEDs, spectrum based comparisons to really dial in

Additional really usefull chart is that one:

Together with pigment excitation/emission it give us information which light wavelenghts(aread) are most important from corals point of view - and like it was posted here - it's range 400-500nm

 

[jdm1114]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2430825

 

[jdm1114]

maybe white LEDs aren't the problem...

 

[Pacific Sun RD]

Nobody say that white leds are problem
Statistically I have seen more ugly tanks under T5 than the LED. It's mean that T5 not work?
No.
Light is NOT most important key. But without proper spectrum its VERY hard to built strong and nice pigments in corals. If you have ULNS tank with best on eart lighting(t5, hqi - what you want) without proper corals feeding you will NEVER get this kind of pigmentation like on this photos.
Your tank start to be ULNS = your corals start to be pale.

 

[orangekush4]

The problem with LED's is that people spend alot of time play around with them and not focuse on there tank LOL JK.

 

[TropTrea]

I think the rel problem with LED's is in the actual selection of wave lenght intensities that people end up with. If your look at Przemek Cybulski charts on Coral absorption you see the key area is between 440nm and 480 nm with a secondary range between 400nm and 500nm. With LED's most set up concentrate on the wave lenghts between 420 nm and 460 nm then try to balance this with the white LED's which are usually very weak in the 480 to 520 nm range.

This is where my experiments showed the best results were using a combination of T-5's in the blue range with LED's. The blue T-5's had a better wider spectrum of light which while concentrated in the 420 to 460 rang still produces a considerable amount all the way into the low 500 nm range.

But yes even with the best lights in the world if you starve the corals of the proper nutriments they will not survive, least of all thrive.

 

[fewponds]

Is there any company manufacturing high power leds with peak intensity at 545nm?

 

[stancfii]

Philips Luxeon Lime, great addition to your array. Took some tinkering, but I'm quite happy with them.

 

[proietti]

I have Luxeon Limes and PC Ambers. They really make colours pop.

 

[fewponds]

However these Lime diodes still have wide spectrum 500-650nm. It would be great to see narrow 550nm spectrum in high power leds...

 

[proietti]

True. But I have now come to the decision that we ought to look at the lighting as 2 periods. Period 1 being the full blue spectrum which is required by the corals to thrive, and Period 2 my personal appreciation of the tank, so therefore in my set up I have Period 1 starting at 11.00am through to 7:30pm just 420s, 430s, Rblues, Blues, and OCWs (during this period nobody views the tank as we are all out working). Period 2 from 7:30pm through to 11:00pm Limes and PCAmbers come on and RBlues and 430's go down by 50%. this is my appreciation time.

 

[DanceTweety]

Kessil

Kessil

There is a good spectrum led on the market kessil led lights

 

[rtparty]

There is a good spectrum led on the market kessil led lights

Debatable. It's limited and nowhere near a halide or T5 setup.