YoungREEFA
New member
I would like to know if anyone has trouble with them under leds. Please state your fixture. Maybe we can figure something out
Who has trouble with sps and LEDS
- Thread starter YoungREEFA
- Start date
trueblackpercula
New member
I have a single radion G1 and its simply amazing.no issues for me with LEDs
sealbeach1
New member
I have 5 AI vega along with 4 250r MH on my 325g systems. Everytime I start to increase the leds past 20% things start going bad.
David
David
YoungREEFA
New member
a 20% increase is HUGE segal. Go by around 5% if necesarry.
Im glad there are not many complaints, i was hopeing to not find many.
Im glad there are not many complaints, i was hopeing to not find many.
evolutionZ
New member
i have a 48x24x14" with a Maxspect razor 160w 16k 20" above water level. Current out put is A:70%B:100%. All my SPS looks happy. i have a friend who has the same tank as me but he is using 2 AI Vega. His SPS are turning brown.
trueblackpercula
New member
I forgot to mention I had to turn down the intensity to 70% because I was burning them. After putting on the acclimation mode my sps have transformed in to growing machines and have so yummy colors.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2310148
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2310148
footballdude2k3
Active member
I have 3 120w LEDs above my tank, pretty good color and fantastic growth. Blues are 75% whites are 50%
I can't really say that I have "trouble" but I would say that I haven't had glowing success either.
About a year ago I switched to a Kessil A350 and things looked pretty good overall. A few SPS frags started to lose color though while others looked great. I dropped the intensity and colors improved overall but I still had a few frags that were pale.
I switched to an AI Sol Blue a couple of months ago or so and things are pretty much the same. My tank is 20" deep and the Sol is about 8-9" over the water. My intensity is W:55%, B:60%, RB:70%.
I'd say that a lot of pieces look real good, some pieces look fairly good and a few pieces look horribly pale. The 3 pieces that just don't seem to like LEDs are:
-GARF purple bonsai
-Palmers Blue Milli
-unknown that I believe is acropora nana?
-Turquoise Stag
All 4 of the above came from a local reefer or board member and were under MH.
However, the following SPS have what I'd consider great color under my LEDs:
-Aqua SD Rainbow Milli
-Cali Tort
-Oregon Tort
-Forest Fire Digi
-Green Milli
-Pink Lemonade
On Monday my Lumatek ballast comes in and I'm going to be trying a 250W 14K DE in a Hamilton Cayman Sun pennant. I will definitely update this thread if I see significant changes in my SPS corals.
I don't think all the results are necessarily in on LEDs over SPS but I do believe that there are just certain SPS species that do not like LEDs for whatever reason. It doesn't mean that you can't have a really beautiful SPS tank under LEDs but I think you definitely lose some flexibility. Nobody wants to pay to have a high dollar LE frag overnighted to your door only to watch it lose all of it's color.
In my limited experience with LEDs I personally would say that they're fine for mixed reef or even for SPS dominant if you're not super serious or anal. However, if you're "hard core" about maximum color and rare corals or just a perfectionist then I'd say you may want to wait until the technology develops more. That's just my 2 cents after a year's experience with 2 types of LED fixtures.
Here's my build thread for anyone who wants to follow my switch from Sol Nano to 250W MH:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2309786
Not to highjack of course. But it may be interesting for people who are curious about this topic to see how things go.
About a year ago I switched to a Kessil A350 and things looked pretty good overall. A few SPS frags started to lose color though while others looked great. I dropped the intensity and colors improved overall but I still had a few frags that were pale.
I switched to an AI Sol Blue a couple of months ago or so and things are pretty much the same. My tank is 20" deep and the Sol is about 8-9" over the water. My intensity is W:55%, B:60%, RB:70%.
I'd say that a lot of pieces look real good, some pieces look fairly good and a few pieces look horribly pale. The 3 pieces that just don't seem to like LEDs are:
-GARF purple bonsai
-Palmers Blue Milli
-unknown that I believe is acropora nana?
-Turquoise Stag
All 4 of the above came from a local reefer or board member and were under MH.
However, the following SPS have what I'd consider great color under my LEDs:
-Aqua SD Rainbow Milli
-Cali Tort
-Oregon Tort
-Forest Fire Digi
-Green Milli
-Pink Lemonade
On Monday my Lumatek ballast comes in and I'm going to be trying a 250W 14K DE in a Hamilton Cayman Sun pennant. I will definitely update this thread if I see significant changes in my SPS corals.
I don't think all the results are necessarily in on LEDs over SPS but I do believe that there are just certain SPS species that do not like LEDs for whatever reason. It doesn't mean that you can't have a really beautiful SPS tank under LEDs but I think you definitely lose some flexibility. Nobody wants to pay to have a high dollar LE frag overnighted to your door only to watch it lose all of it's color.
In my limited experience with LEDs I personally would say that they're fine for mixed reef or even for SPS dominant if you're not super serious or anal. However, if you're "hard core" about maximum color and rare corals or just a perfectionist then I'd say you may want to wait until the technology develops more. That's just my 2 cents after a year's experience with 2 types of LED fixtures.
Here's my build thread for anyone who wants to follow my switch from Sol Nano to 250W MH:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2309786
Not to highjack of course. But it may be interesting for people who are curious about this topic to see how things go.
ormet
Just one more frag
I have a 160w Maxspect Razor 10.000k and i have terrible problems with reds & pinks.
Blue, purple, green & yellow sps look just fine tho and i have good growth on everything.
Going back to T5 in the near future (or t5/led if i win the lottery) it will be fun to see if that gives me my red/pink back!
Blue, purple, green & yellow sps look just fine tho and i have good growth on everything.
Going back to T5 in the near future (or t5/led if i win the lottery) it will be fun to see if that gives me my red/pink back!
reef bloke
Member
Using a mix of Vega and Hydra here, all seems fine and dandy. I do use a PAR meter for best coral placement though.
dkeller_nc
New member
When I set up my first LED tank, I'd read a lot of threads on various forums noting that SPS corals didn't grow all that well. When I looked at the common denominators to these threads, what I noticed is that most of the folks that had issues had 1st or 2nd gen LED fixtures with all white and blue LEDs. Intensity didn't seem to matter all that much - some of the threads had supernova intensities, while some had very few fixtures that would result in very low PAR values.
So I decided on AI Vegas, which at the time were the broadest spectrum LED fixtures available other than Radions. When I first set them up, I was mostly using the blue and white LEDs with the red and greens running at very low intensity to keep algae issues on a new tank under control.
What I noticed is that some of my acropora colonies didn't seem to care for this lighting set-up. Once I turned the reds and greens up to about the same intensity as the blue LEDs, all of the acropora colonies have stopped any STN at the bottom and have started growing. They still do not grow as fast as my other system that has power compact fluorescents over it (they grow like weeds in that tank), but sufficiently fast that I'm satisfied with the tank.
However, if coral growth were my main consideration, I would probably switch to a MH/t5HO combination. But I would have to run a chiller without doubt, and the wattage used would go from about 110w to 500w-600w, which is quite a difference.
To be clear, my experience is entirely antecdotal. So far as I'm aware, no one has done a thorough study of narrow spectrum LEDs, full-spectrum LEDs, MH, fluorescent, and MH-FLuorescent combinations. Here is a video that describes Mike Paletta's LED tank experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4yIEIM1R48
So I decided on AI Vegas, which at the time were the broadest spectrum LED fixtures available other than Radions. When I first set them up, I was mostly using the blue and white LEDs with the red and greens running at very low intensity to keep algae issues on a new tank under control.
What I noticed is that some of my acropora colonies didn't seem to care for this lighting set-up. Once I turned the reds and greens up to about the same intensity as the blue LEDs, all of the acropora colonies have stopped any STN at the bottom and have started growing. They still do not grow as fast as my other system that has power compact fluorescents over it (they grow like weeds in that tank), but sufficiently fast that I'm satisfied with the tank.
However, if coral growth were my main consideration, I would probably switch to a MH/t5HO combination. But I would have to run a chiller without doubt, and the wattage used would go from about 110w to 500w-600w, which is quite a difference.
To be clear, my experience is entirely antecdotal. So far as I'm aware, no one has done a thorough study of narrow spectrum LEDs, full-spectrum LEDs, MH, fluorescent, and MH-FLuorescent combinations. Here is a video that describes Mike Paletta's LED tank experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4yIEIM1R48
trueblackpercula
New member
YoungREEFA
New member
I love it how MHG uses 17 UV. Unorthodox but MAN if you want led inspiration look at his tank. Keep the stories coming guys.
YoungREEFA
New member
Ormet no doubt pinks and res look best when light by the 400-450 and 660 nm range. They could not be very well implemented into the 10k razor
dadummy
Active member
ran diy led Cree CW@1050 ma and RB @700ma for a year. Millepora/Prostrata was the big issue for me. They would encrust but not grow upwards, a few other acro did not grow well, while others (slimer, red planet, mirabilis) grew well
I have since added T5 to the LED and am very happy with the results. Everyone is growing and colors are good
I have since added T5 to the LED and am very happy with the results. Everyone is growing and colors are good
rgfast
New member
IMO there is still something missing even with so called full spectum leds, I've run leds over my sps system for over two years and corals do grow but won't hold there colors. I've also added T5s and seeing improvement, I feel that those who have not been using leds for any less than a couple of years can't give fare judgement either way. I will say my lps system seems to love them
