Who has really colorful acros under leds?

[tdb320reef]

Ahh okay thanks, just curious but do you know of any other controllers that aren't as heavy on the wallet? I just fried my last controller due to a wiring error and now have 5 color channels compared to 4 before and I'm looking for a controller that I can use for all 5 channels. Sorry for going off the topic but I find it impossible to get the correct spectrum of light using dimmer knobs that increase in larger increments than 1% etc....

Absolutely stunning tank btw, tanks like yours made the jump to LED's far to easy for myself. Especially after learning how to build them. Keep up the great work and ignore the haters.

Thanks - take a look at the jarduino aquarium controller. I built one for about $50 in parts. I was in the middle of a DIY LED build that I was going to use it for. Unfortunately I had to scrap the project do to Uncle Sam. I know it will do PWM and Analog dimming.

 

[ksicard]

Thank you! I'll look into it now, I was using the Typhon before but it can only have up to 4 channels.

Also what is your tank thread called so I can find it and do some heavy reading on your tank and what all color spectrums your lights contain. I've read through all the pages on this thread and didn't see what wattage/optics your led units use. I saw that they are "cheap knock offs" but I was curious as to what wattage/optics your LED's are using. And have you had access to a par meter? If so what were you readings on the bottom/middle/top of the tank? I think most LED users downfall is that they crank their light systems way to high and never give the coral a chance to acclimate properly. I also agree using an over kill amount of LED's is necessary, I have an obnoxious amount of LED's over a tank of my size and still notice that if I don't angle my corals just right they will loose color in certain spots, all my corals are angled a little bit towards the back in order to give the fronts full coverage.

 

[mess7777]

There are others on this forum and others using solely LED, as well as countless others who aren't posting. A couple that come to mind are Santoki and HenryColf(I think that's the name). It is just the beginning. There is a guy in my city with an awesome aquaculture setup, run completely by LEDs. Great colors, great growth...for an idea he goes through 1kg of Ca every 5-6 days.

There are loads of us struggling with LEDs(such as me!!), just as there are with T5 and MH. I don't believe if I switched to MH or T5 that my issues would be magically over.

For every persong going back to MH, there is at least 1 switching over from MH.

 

[ksicard]

As a LED DIY person I've come to realize that you can build a LED fixture with 1w led's and slap 40 degree optics on them and have 700 par on the sand bed, I don't recommend this route but it's just a true statement that LED's can easily be 2x-3x more powerful than 400w MH and users must take care that they aren't cooking their corals and allow proper light acclimation. With 1w led's capable of 700 par on a tank 24 inches deep just think about what the 3w LED's are capable of and not to mention the 5w led's that are becoming popular nowadays. MH and t5 are often more succesful than LED's because of the simple fact that MH and t5 are plug and play where led's you have to worry about intensities and color spectrums that are all adjustable on the fly, most common thing that I see when it comes to LED failures is user error. That's my 2 cents if it matters.

 

[tdb320reef]

Thank you! I'll look into it now, I was using the Typhon before but it can only have up to 4 channels.

Also what is your tank thread called so I can find it and do some heavy reading on your tank and what all color spectrums your lights contain. I've read through all the pages on this thread and didn't see what wattage/optics your led units use. I saw that they are "cheap knock offs" but I was curious as to what wattage/optics your LED's are using. And have you had access to a par meter? If so what were you readings on the bottom/middle/top of the tank? I think most LED users downfall is that they crank their light systems way to high and never give the coral a chance to acclimate properly. I also agree using an over kill amount of LED's is necessary, I have an obnoxious amount of LED's over a tank of my size and still notice that if I don't angle my corals just right they will loose color in certain spots, all my corals are angled a little bit towards the back in order to give the fronts full coverage.

I think on the Jarduino you can have 14.

Yes I have a par meter. the lights are 10" above the water angled forward and I am about 2200 at 75 blue and 50 white at water surface. That puts me at 300 - 200 at the sand bed 36" down (where my frags are at). At 100% they top the meter out at 3000 10" down at the water surface. They are Full spectrum 120 watt led fixtures with 90 degree optics on ebay for $175. I will try to get pics of the meter to substantiate my numbers.

 

[ksicard]

by watts I meant watts per LED, such as 1w, 3w etc....... And what's your par at the top of the tank as in the top rocks or where your SPS tips are. Just wondering for a rough estimate of par levels to shoot for on my own LED build and for others to see what has given you great results.

 

[Dapg8gt]

I honestly haven't read too many posts in this thread bashing LEDs or your tank at all. I think one or two were thinking that you photoshopped your pics and the other was a personal beef you have with a local reefer.

I personally think you have an awesome tank

I had issues with LEDs that I didn't want to deal with and returned to MH but to me the tone some of your posts and calling everyone who has doubts on the technology "haters" has turned me off from the thread.

 

[tdb320reef]

I honestly haven't read too many posts in this thread bashing LEDs or your tank at all. I think one or two were thinking that you photoshopped your pics and the other was a personal beef you have with a local reefer.

I personally think you have an awesome tank

I had issues with LEDs that I didn't want to deal with and returned to MH but to me the tone some of your posts and calling everyone who has doubts on the technology "haters" has turned me off from the thread.

Thanks, I have never used that word to classify people and their opinions. With written communication we all take things differently and have a different style. I will say I am very direct and passionate. While that communication style may be considered aggressive, it is my personality and I apologize if you got turned off. I appreciate your positive criticism and respect your opinion.

Does anyone else have pics of Acros under Leds (I guess whites on only now in raw format) otherwise I will consider this tread concluded.

 

[jda]

Do you have glass or acrylic filtering the light over the back part of the tank?

 

[1mbrews8]

wow! That is awesome looking!

 

[tdb320reef]

Do you have glass or acrylic filtering the light over the back part of the tank?

That is 2 panes of glass (Glass tops). I actually have the Leds sitting on top of it. 3 of those lights are not dimmable thus too much par for the corals at the top of the LR. The saltcreep on the glass diffuses the light and I am still getting > 400 par under.

When I swap them out I will modify the canopy so that they can be suspended. and remove one pane. I like having glass back there as that is where all of my drivers and other components are just incase something falls. Plus I have a pretty good wave back there so it hits the glass not allowing all of the moisture to move upward.

 

[tdb320reef]

Conclusion

Conclusion

Just to put the nail in the coffin here are some RAW cell phone pics of with 2 year old Tmobile HTC mytouch. These were early last month under my normal LED lighting posted on another forum.

Thanks again and let me know about the Photo thread!:bounce2:

 

[karsseboom]

You should have just posted the natrual photos with less saturation and nobody would have said anything. Your tank looks great.

 

[jda]

The raw files that people are asking for is not what you are posting. You all are mixing terms. A raw image file captures all of the spectrum to be later jacked around with and settings altered where the camera did not know what to do - you can then use these to produce a final result (jpg, or the like) that is accurate. It is like a digital negative. Most higher quality DSLRs are capable of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

The glass interests me a bunch. When I tried the razor, sol and radion (and hated them), I wondered if they put out too much of the wrong kind of radiation in addition to the right kind. This is similar to what HQI does today without the glass, or the early MH bulbs (other than the long-time 6.5K grow bulbs). It had not occurred to me to try glass until weeks after I got rid of the LED fixtures. The glass would really help to eliminate some/most/all of any harmful radiation, but it would also cut down on the good light some. I had 4 250W HQI over a 2x2 frag tank and the SPS looked fantastic, but a single LED fixture harmed them, so I did not buy the too much light thing (PAR is not the issue here) and rather supposed that there must have been some kind of harmful radiation as well - I opined that I would try them again after more evolution/time. I wish that I had though about the glass a few weeks sooner. Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but I think that you are onto something with the glass, either directly or indirectly.

 

[mayjong]

i find some things amusing.
for instance- why would it matter what the corals look like under all white leds?
is running blue (or red or violet in the newer versions) somehow cheating?
my tank looks "washed out" under just white leds. what's the point?

nice blue color on the o.tort btw. how long have you had it? mine is growing well, but as stated earlier the branches/tips are the classic blue, but the base color has turned greenish. i have mine high (like8" below) under retrofit cree's

another amusing sidenote- as you must know o.tort CANNOT have any green in it, so it must not be o.tort! funny stuff....

 

[tdb320reef]

The raw files that people are asking for is not what you are posting. You all are mixing terms. A raw image file captures all of the spectrum to be later jacked around with and settings altered where the camera did not know what to do - you can then use these to produce a final result (jpg, or the like) that is accurate. It is like a digital negative. Most higher quality DSLRs are capable of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_image_format

The glass interests me a bunch. When I tried the razor, sol and radion (and hated them), I wondered if they put out too much of the wrong kind of radiation in addition to the right kind. This is similar to what HQI does today without the glass, or the early MH bulbs (other than the long-time 6.5K grow bulbs). It had not occurred to me to try glass until weeks after I got rid of the LED fixtures. The glass would really help to eliminate some/most/all of any harmful radiation, but it would also cut down on the good light some. I had 4 250W HQI over a 2x2 frag tank and the SPS looked fantastic, but a single LED fixture harmed them, so I did not buy the too much light thing (PAR is not the issue here) and rather supposed that there must have been some kind of harmful radiation as well - I opined that I would try them again after more evolution/time. I wish that I had though about the glass a few weeks sooner. Anyway, sorry for the tangent, but I think that you are onto something with the glass, either directly or indirectly.

Thanks for providing that but your synopsis is wrong please double check what you said with what is documented in Wikipedia. Raw are unfinished/negative metadata that needs to be finished or converted to an image. Jpg,etc is an Image compression technology that allows pixels to be lost making the image smaller and possible to be viewed online with todays bandwidth thus using the metadata to create a compressed image. However with my DLSR the RAW image is a NON viewable format online furthermore each pic is 30 mb. So your correct to be accurate. My pictures posted are compressed versions of unedited/unfinished Raw metadata.

If you would like to download the Raw metadata go here (FYI these 9 images are 300MB):

http://images.cpucs.com/images/RAW/

As for the Glass The fixture already has either glass or a lens that defuses radiation so I doubt that radiation is the issue. Furthermore I don't have glass in the front half where the light is the greatest and dont have issues.

 

[tdb320reef]

.

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You should have just posted the natrual photos with less saturation and nobody would have said anything. Your tank looks great.

Thanks! Like written communication we have our own tastes on photos. I tend to like them to look as I view the tank as not washed out with blue or under saturated with exposure. Since they are mine I posted them the way that I like them I adjust the WB and saturation. I am sure as time goes on, I will perfect the "natural look" to continue to show the world how beautiful Acros and SPS look under LED lighting. As the above post clarifys, The pictures posted are RAW or negative exposed and not finished. But IMO even though they are not finished they addresses the OP original topic.

Unfortunately, I cannot compensate for how others like them, Monitor resolution and or everyone else's personal tastes.

 

[Zstriker]

i find some things amusing.
for instance- why would it matter what the corals look like under all white leds?
is running blue (or red or violet in the newer versions) somehow cheating?
my tank looks "washed out" under just white leds. what's the point?

nice blue color on the o.tort btw. how long have you had it? mine is growing well, but as stated earlier the branches/tips are the classic blue, but the base color has turned greenish. i have mine high (like8" below) under retrofit cree's

another amusing sidenote- as you must know o.tort CANNOT have any green in it, so it must not be o.tort! funny stuff....

Examining the corals under white light only allows us to determine the true color of the colors. LEDs are heavily criticized because they make the corals "appear" colorful, thanks to the royal blues. Turn off the royal blues and your corals may not appear to be as healthy as once thought.

To further highlight this - an oregon tort will remain deep blue under 10k halides, no need for the royal blues to aid in its color.

The point being - there is a difference between actual coloring of coral pigmentation vs. coloring the coral "appears" to be due to lighting.

 

[tdb320reef]

Examining the corals under white light only allows us to determine the true color of the colors. LEDs are heavily criticized because they make the corals "appear" colorful, thanks to the royal blues. Turn off the royal blues and your corals may not appear to be as healthy as once thought.

To further highlight this - an oregon tort will remain deep blue under 10k halides, no need for the royal blues to aid in its color.

The point being - there is a difference between actual coloring of coral pigmentation vs. coloring the coral "appears" to be due to lighting.

I sort of agree however the 10K spectrum is much different then the 6.5K. IMO individual corals look much better under 10K. However, you will find that most fixtures, including mine, dominate 6.5K. For those that dont know the numbering game 6.5K is a more of a Yellowish/White where I consider 10K a crisp white. My one AJM in the back has all 10K whites and the corals individually look better with whites only, however, the entire landscape looks pastel collectively. I have accepted the 65K as a more natural/daylight look for the landscape but like individual corals under 10K.

 

[tdb320reef]

i find some things amusing.
for instance- why would it matter what the corals look like under all white leds?
is running blue (or red or violet in the newer versions) somehow cheating?
my tank looks "washed out" under just white leds. what's the point?

nice blue color on the o.tort btw. how long have you had it? mine is growing well, but as stated earlier the branches/tips are the classic blue, but the base color has turned greenish. i have mine high (like8" below) under retrofit cree's

another amusing sidenote- as you must know o.tort CANNOT have any green in it, so it must not be o.tort! funny stuff....

Yes the LED manufactures seem to leverage the 6.5k spectrum for whites. They do tend to over power the coloration of the coral. But the benefit is that your corals will grow very fast. For this I do one month with my Whites and blues at 75% and the other month with blues 75% and whites 50% or will bump up the blues to 100%. This way I get great growth and color. I believe that those that end up with washed out colors have the whites up too high for too long.

I got the OT in Jan. So far so good. The jury is still out of it is legit. I know the OT is a very slow grower. I have the Cali tort with a green hue and that one grows very fast. My OT just started to encrust.