curthendrix
New member
I anticipate we will start to see many LFS and commercial frag farmers begin to switch to LEDs due to their operational cost savings...both wattage and cooling.
I have what many of my club members consider to be a highly successful SPS tank.
I made the switch to LEDs from 250 Watt SE Radiums w/ 2 X 160 watt VHO actinics as of February of this year. I have seen no down side thus far, growth is good and colors are just as they were under my prior lighting regimen.
I am running 6 AI Super Sol Blues over my 180 as it's sole light source.
My tank includes the following:
setosa
ORA Plum Crazy
ORA Pearlberry
Green Slimer, which still grows like a weed
Red planet
Various blue and blue green A. Tenius
Garf Bonzai
Reef Ready Grapejuice
A. Turaki
Various Millis
Purple/green and orange Cap
Shades of fall
Blue slimer
superman
Pink Lemonade
Bali Tricolor
Purlple Plasma
ORA Hawkins echinata
Other unnamed echinata
All of the above are doing great, w/ great color.
The only one I have a bit of difficulty w/ is the Pink Lemonade. This never grew well even under my MH, and this may be due to a shading issue w/ my huge green slimer, which I am in the process of selling off.
I have only had the AIs for 8 months but so far so good. Most of my MH equipment has been sold off, so I am in it for the long hall.
Herb
i run only 72 creed diy leds and have almost the coral list as reefermadness, leds have been up since 15jun. great results
Let me put some of your minds at ease, I switched to LEDs from MH about 4 months ago.Since that time all colors of my acro have gotten MUCH more vivid. I had to put some T5 blue fiji bulbs in to pop the red but its there . As far as growth goes, it is every bit as fast under the LED as the MH. I did not kill any coral with the LED change over. Some faded out but are since returning to a new color. You must acclimate new coral slowly if they dont come from an LED lit tank, especially small frags.
I have over 30 different colonies in my 180. Yes I took a chance, but the change in environment LEDs make is not substantial enought to crash a tank IF YOU FOLLOW SIMPLE GUIDELINES. I have one pic in my gallery of the tank under LED sorry its not better. I will work on it.
no master here ... but the main reason for "masters" not switching yet, is cause the technology is new, and we are still using old LEDs, [cause they need to sell !!] before moving onto the new ones
Sanjay had an article on coral magazine[great article in general], stating that Photon is a Photon, doesnt matter the source. Which is just wrong ! alot of things effect a given Photon ! electric field, magnatic field, electromagnetic field of propagation[for penetration and energy transfer], and alot of intensity and wavelength parameters. studying in a biophotonic lab working on OCT systems has shown me how "wrong" some of the LED lights out there are today ! and if anyone wants to measure they LEDs spectrum, there are easy ways to do so at home
wait a while, see the LEDs that would come out, I know guys down at TSMC are already working on it and as with everything cost will be much more justifiable in some time. I dont know how long though, 6 months, or 2 years ...
Ive weighed in on another similar thread so no reason to do so again. I cant believe im saying this but I agree with Allmost! lol
Also, power boat jim, glad the switch has worked for you. Did you sell off all your halide gear?
wait a while, see the LEDs that would come out, I know guys down at TSMC are already working on it and as with everything cost will be much more justifiable in some time. I dont know how long though, 6 months, or 2 years ...
If you have LEDs that put out a 6700K spike on the white 10000K on blue and 20000K on Royal blue how is that the wrong spectrum? and what spectrum do you want a bulb to produce? Also how do you measure the spectrum at home?
Assuming DIY, why not just make the jump then adjust color as needed later? Once everything is wired up and running, swapping out some stars for newer versions should be relatively cheap and easy, no?
I'm getting ready to make the jump and my break even point is nine months after incorporating electrical savings, bulb replacement savings, and the dumping of my current system. I can pretty easily invest that extra money into tweaking my color mix and still come out ahead.
those are color temps
Michelson interferometer.
Well said.I think there are probably a few reasons the "masters" aren't switching.
#1 IMO is probably because of the old mantra "If it isn't broken don't fix it." Metal Halides & T5s are tested & proven lighting methods. People invest a lot of money into their tanks, including hundreds (and for some thousands) of dollars into livestock. That's a lot of money, not to mention for some the sentimental value of their corals, to risk on what I would still consider new technology.