Who has really colorful acros under leds?

tdb320reef said:
If you are referencing my tank. I need all of those leds to cover an 8 X 2.5 foot tank. I have been growing LEDS with cheep Chinese leds without 350 to 420nm and my SPS have been growing just fine.
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I take this back I just looked up the cheap $175 fixtures that I purchased on ebay and I guess they do have 420NM. Considering I never needed them before I will consider it a bonus.
 
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JPMagyar said:
T,

First off let me add to the chorus of voices saying "Wow!". Your tank and your skills as a designer, builder, and reefkeeper are stupendous. Thanks for sharing! Yours is the kind of LED lit tank that I've been wanting to see and one that brings me closer to someday pulling the trigger and changing my own system.

Now, a couple items for the thread . . .

1) Light is light is light. I realize Einstein talked about bending light, but that was in reference to massive gravitational pull which unless you have a hidden black hole in your tank is not what you are seeing.

2) How light is produced is a major factor in what you are witnessing. The nature of LEDs is to produce highly directional beams of light which is the exact opposite of metal halide lighting and fluorescent lighting. This is why we have fancy reflectors surrounding our T5 lamps. The net effect of this is to create scattered light versus flashlight like beams.

3) LEDs produce narrow spectrums of light relative to other common light sources used in home aquariums and much of the subtle changes we see are due to how this narrow light is reflected and how it stimulates growth of certain colors or not.

So what's my point. Well I simply want to make sure that folks reading through this thread understand that all light refracts using the same laws of physics and no light that we use in our home "bends".

Now back to the colorful LED SPS tank thing. . .


Did I mention I think your tank is Friggin' Awesome!
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Lol on the black hole statement. Thanks!
 
Cant wait to see what the tank will look like when the frags at the front bottom grow out and take away from that sparse empty look you have now (hehe). Great job!!! Colors are outstanding.
 
That tank is friggin amazing!!!

Question though, how the *$%* are you keeping that stunner chalice among all those SPS? I just had to evict my stunner today because it was getting too big and stinging too many corals. Yours is even bigger, and more tightly surrounded by sticks!

Did I say your tank was friggin' amazing?!?!?!?





To the OP. I have LEDs and lots of sticks, mostly frags that are growing out. My colors are just "OK" for me, but every one that sees my tank says I have nice colors. I don't have any browned out corals, but I do lack that vivid coloration you see in other tanks. However, I do have a 14 gallon nano, with no skimmer, and everyting is done manual so there are more fluctuations in parameters. That said, I get good growth.

We'll see how my corals look under my Radions I have for my build in progress. Great thread, looking forward to more LED porn, LOL!
 
re: really colorful Acros under LEDs

re: really colorful Acros under LEDs

t, nice aquarium.

I'm hoping to see what all the other Acro / LED folks have accomplished.
To be honest, most of the LED lit aquariums I've seen in person do not appeal to me. The color of many LED lit aquariums is often crazy blue and the focus is on LPS corals. Acropora often don't look or grow so hot under LEDs. You've done good. So has Henry Colf :)
 
Gary Majchrzak said:
t, nice aquarium.

I'm hoping to see what all the other Acro / LED folks have accomplished.
To be honest, most of the LED lit aquariums I've seen in person do not appeal to me. The color of many LED lit aquariums is often crazy blue and the focus is on LPS corals. Acropora often don't look or grow so hot under LEDs. You've done good. So has Henry Colf :)
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Thanks

Sent from my HTC Glacier using Tapatalk 2
 
I hope you post those pictures as the second post of every future "can LED's grow colorful corals" threads. The question we should be asking is: which LED combinations are best for growing colorful coral. Its no longer "whether" its "how".
 
Thanks.

Yes your right it is an aggressive one. I will usually stab it with my kent scrapper and trim it around the edges. I give the frags away locally. The high flow in the tank keeps the tentacles flowing toward the glass and reflectively flat. It did take out the bottom of the tenius and the right side of the green digi though.

rovster said:
That tank is friggin amazing!!!

Question though, how the *$%* are you keeping that stunner chalice among all those SPS? I just had to evict my stunner today because it was getting too big and stinging too many corals. Yours is even bigger, and more tightly surrounded by sticks!

Did I say your tank was friggin' amazing?!?!?!?





To the OP. I have LEDs and lots of sticks, mostly frags that are growing out. My colors are just "OK" for me, but every one that sees my tank says I have nice colors. I don't have any browned out corals, but I do lack that vivid coloration you see in other tanks. However, I do have a 14 gallon nano, with no skimmer, and everyting is done manual so there are more fluctuations in parameters. That said, I get good growth.

We'll see how my corals look under my Radions I have for my build in progress. Great thread, looking forward to more LED porn, LOL!
Click to expand...
 
acesq said:
I hope you post those pictures as the second post of every future "can LED's grow colorful corals" threads. The question we should be asking is: which LED combinations are best for growing colorful coral. Its no longer "whether" its "how".
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Excellent point. The only other caveat I would add is why is it near impossible to grow deep blue and deep purple. Why do all the colors stay slightly pastel. That is not a put down or a negative just a genuine interest in figuring out the answer. One other note is it seems to me the best LED tanks use one of two methodologies, either they have their fixtures super high up therfore spreading the light out more than the manufacturer planned or they have a much higher density of LEDs in their fixtures. Either way your point about "how" is spot on.
 
JPMagyar said:
Excellent point. The only other caveat I would add is why is it near impossible to grow deep blue and deep purple. Why do all the colors stay slightly pastel. That is not a put down or a negative just a genuine interest in figuring out the answer. One other note is it seems to me the best LED tanks use one of two methodologies, either they have their fixtures super high up therefore spreading the light out more than the manufacturer planned or they have a much higher density of LEDs in their fixtures. Either way your point about "how" is spot on.
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I disagree. My purple monster is deep purple and my Hawkins and blue Stag are deep blue. Having experience with LEDS I believe the issues are coverage and intensity.

Not enough coverage and too intense in some spots and not enough in others thus you hear everyone reduce the intensity which then minimizes the coverage. This was apparent after I bought a par meter thus the final solution of so many fixtures at less intensity.

As for How, IMO and having built my own fixture I think you really only need two colors which are the 6500K and RB 450NM. My fixtures in the back Only have this combo and I have been using them for two years now and do not see any difference from those with mufti color.

Finally, Type off fixture. Well IMO it is one that is Cheap (commodity) and designed to be able to lose a LED and have the rest of the string light up. The previously mentioned fixtures had an issue where two leds in a string fail the entire string failed. No worries. I bought new beads from ($1 for 10) Ebay soldered them in and back up and running in 15 min. So for me, why the cheap ones when I have such an expensive set-up? Well the thought is that as the tech of the fixtures improve I cycle out the old and in the new. In the local market there is a high demand for "cheaper" used led fixtures while everyone swaps out MH and T5, I recoup about 90 % of the fixtures costs. Obviously the ones that are repaired I continue to use for now but for the others I am on my 3 generation of lights while maintaining 80% of my OG investment.
 
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TBD best looking LED tank I have seen. I may have missed this but are these the evergrows?

I have been transitioning to LEDs from MH/VHO setup and have not really seen any issues with SPS color or growth other than the colors being more vivid and sharp. I have a Radion and an evergrow fixture, I wasn't really happy with the SPS with the Radion until I upgraded the lenses.
 
Alright T, get your macro out let's see deep purple and blue pictures taken with a macro :) I know it's so hard to compare using online photos, but at least we can get a general sense of each others expectations. As I said earlier your tank is fantastic iand s the first to make me reconsider LEDs in general, but I'd love to see macro shots of what you are calling deep purples and blues, not that you are wrong or your corals aren't spectacular. Just call me the "Doubting Thomas" of LEDs and SPS. ;)

Your reefin' buddy,
Joe











BestTortB.jpg



TyreePurpleMonster.jpg



NanaA.jpg
 
Just a few.

Just a few.

Here are a few from last summer only a few month after the tank cycled and I procured my canon T4i. Ill break out the macro and post some recent ones when I get back from the local swap. BTW I didn't say the were better I just disagreed with your statement about not getting purples and blues. I believe that you can! You can still see the diatoms in the background. =)

GBsm.jpg

HawkinsSM.jpg

PBsm.jpg

PMsm.jpg


BTW I only have a small frag of the OT 26" down and it is my most colorful Blue coral. I cant wait to post that one!
 
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I just sat down for lunch and quickly skimmed through, so I may have missed something: Tbd says "cheap knock offs" what is "cheap?" I was guessing from the most recent pictures that there is ~$7500 worth of lighting, then I saw in an earlier post they are knockoffs. Next, what size heater do you need to run? One down side I can see to led is the increase in heating costs; I don't really want to get into the costs of running a chiller, as many find other means of keeping temps acceptable. Just curious if you are needing to run a larger heater? Your tank is truely amazing!
 
mr.maroonsalty said:
I just sat down for lunch and quickly skimmed through, so I may have missed something: Tbd says "cheap knock offs" what is "cheap?" I was guessing from the most recent pictures that there is ~$7500 worth of lighting, then I saw in an earlier post they are knockoffs. Next, what size heater do you need to run? One down side I can see to led is the increase in heating costs; I don't really want to get into the costs of running a chiller, as many find other means of keeping temps acceptable. Just curious if you are needing to run a larger heater? Your tank is truely amazing!
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Thanks, About 2 K in lighting. No LEDS run cool and minimize the heating vs. T5 and MH. That is one of the big pro's. For heating I run a DIY hot water loop. I prob. cost me less than $30 this winter to heat the tank.
 
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