How many of you have went back to halides or t5s

[dz6t]

Very well said! Steve.

Sometimes I am wondering the design of current LED fixture really center around the health of coral.
Here are several factors that tie and hands of LED designers:

1. The available mass-market LED chips: cost is a great factors, availability is another. The bottom line is that they only can choose what are available, which sadly are not designed in reef lighting in mind.

2. How to sell their products to make a profit in a low volumn market. The solution seems to be take advantage of the "cool" factor by high tech approach. Such as wireless remote, highly customizable color temperature (which in term can be harmful to corals) to suit users preference.

3. How to cut cost. By using higher power (such as 3w, 5 w and 10w) LED to achieve the same wattage instead of using more 1 w LED. The result is the "disco ball" effect.

Just to name a few. But it is part of the growing pain in this industry.

 

[yukyuklee]

lol disco ball glittering around my sand bed! I see the fishes dancing!

I give AI credit for keeping cost down compared to all the other major led companies.

 

[dz6t]

Do you dose Volka in your tank? Some Long Island Ice Tea may enhance the effect.

 

[SteveDola]

maybe the disco effect can help with fish spawning ---you know, to set the mood and loosen up the fishes.

 

[LoveTheReef]

Thank you Steve -- I appreciate you not putting down current gen LEDs -- they didn't work for you back when you tried them, so you switched back to your existing fixture, and I respect that.

To Dongs points --

I agree with 1) -- that the LED "chips" are not designed with reefing in mind, and the manufacturers really have to work to get a combination and fixture that works (or doesn't work? ) for our needs.

I don't agree with 2) -- I (along with a lot of other LED users) have our corals under lights that change every 15 minutes (yep!) -- have had this for about 3 weeks now. All my corals under this schedule are looking better than before. My ricordeas are nice and puffy, my acans are getting their colors back, torches are doing great, zoas are looking healthy. We don't have any SPS so I can not comment about those as of now; however based on reviews on RC, SPS thrive under certain LED fixtures as well. Am I saying your experience will be the same as mine? Nope -- you might have better, same, or worse experience. I can only state what I have observed in the last 5 months. I also love the wireless support. Is it necessary? probably not, but when I have someone over, and I'm trying to show them what the coral might look like under their lights, it is a lot easier to flip my phone out, and change the color output from my fixture to their preference. Does this functionality "need" to be wireless? probably not. But is it helpful? In my opinion yes.

I don't agree with 3) -- the reason to use lower wattage bulbs is not to get same wattage using less bulbs, and 3w, 5w, 10w bulbs are not the reason for disco effect. If you remember when people started using leds, they started with 1w bulbs -- people still saw the disco effects. Disco effect has to do with lens. Also the disco effect can be easily avoided by agitating the surface of water. I honestly have not noticed the disco effect in any of the lights (CurrentUSA TrueLumen Pros, PacificSun, Radions, Vega, Evergrow (Chinese fixtures, same as ReefBreeders)). The only time I noticed the disco effect was when I built my own fixture, and used strong lens. Of course, your mileage may vary, but just my observations, and you can observe the same here if you decide to witness it. One thing that does annoy me about LEDs, is when I'm trying to take pictures using the coral viewer, and the light shines back on the acrylic. I'm sure I would get some reflection with MH also, but it's just annoying regardless. A regular user who is not taking top-down photos should not have any issues with this, but I wanted to mention it regardless.

But again to Dongs point -- yes, there are still a few things here and there the Aquarium LED industry has to overcome. I absolutely agree with everyone that the price of LEDs is very high and hope that the prices will come down in the near future (biggest pain in my opinion). Trust me, it was not easy giving a check of $6k for our PacificSun lights when we were setting up

To me what makes LEDs worth it, aside from the long term cost savings (if you decide to not keep switching fixtures i.e. ), is the colors I am able to produce and see (please remember, I'm doing this because I enjoy the hobby more than anything ... so to me, being able to enjoy my corals is more important than anything), having the cool sunrise and sunset effect (I feel my fish and corals appreciate it ... whether I am right or wrong, I don't know. Fish did fine with simple on-off back in the day, fish do fine with gradual increases / decreases ... but at least as a user, to me it looks nice, and my fish look calm).

Anyway, just wanted to make this post as an "informational" thing so everyone has both sides of the story

 

[SteveDola]

and that what was extremely frustrating to me with my AIs...there are so many varying experiences with LEDs. One person loves them, the next hates them, the other person kind of likes them...etc. Thats what drove me back to T5s, it was familiar, Id experienced good results in the past, and it was easy to use...no programming/no guessing/add some bulbs and grow baby--->grow

 

[this is me]

and that what was extremely frustrating to me with my AIs...there are so many varying experiences with LEDs. One person loves them, the next hates them, the other person kind of likes them...etc. Thats what drove me back to T5s, it was familiar, Id experienced good results in the past, and it was easy to use...no programming/no guessing/add some bulbs and grow baby--->grow

Yup, two many color options with LED. I gotta admit, when I ran the Pacific Sun, I had a hard time deciding what channel should be at what intensity. When you have the ability to change, you'll have to itch to change it.
Went back to MH and boom, either on or off and the corals grow and color up without the extra brain power wasted.

 

[Ruge13]

Yah, LED's suck

 

[dcforester1]

I am selling my DIY LED setup because it was built for my 75, and now I have a 120. I love the radions I have. I will admit that my acans were losing color, but that is easily solved by getting rid of them. LOL I was getting sick of my chiller on in the early spring, and if heat was never an issue I would have stayed with my MH. I am very happy with my radions but they do have there drawbacks. My tank is all SPS, and I get great growth. I dont know about less power, when I plug my radians in they pop the breaker, my MH never did.

 

[dz6t]

Trust me, it was not easy giving a check of $6k for our PacificSun lights when we were setting up

To me what makes LEDs worth it, aside from the long term cost savings (if you decide to not keep switching fixtures i.e. ), is the colors I am able to produce and see (please remember, I'm doing this because I enjoy the hobby more than anything ... so to me, being able to enjoy my corals is more important than anything), having the cool sunrise and sunset effect (I feel my fish and corals appreciate it ... whether I am right or wrong, I don't know. Fish did fine with simple on-off back in the day, fish do fine with gradual increases / decreases ... but at least as a user, to me it looks nice, and my fish look calm).

Anyway, just wanted to make this post as an "informational" thing so everyone has both sides of the story

$6K for LED? waoo, that is some serious money. But if you think it is worth it, that is all good. I think there is little need to debate any more. I think the orignial poster was debating about the cost and benefit ratio for LED vs MH and T5.

Also, I can see what is the major difference between us. I care more for the growth of my coral, I enjoy to keep them helthy and growing.

 

[P-Nut]

Love the reef does have a nice set up. And he does ahve quite a few LED hanging there. The colors also do look great. As for growth, I cant speak, because I have only been there once.

 

[pvh]

I went from T5 to MH back to T5 then switched to MH and now I'm using T5. Does that tell you something? lol

 

[me2003]

"proven technology" I consider LEDs proven technology today. There are many poorly designed t5 or MH
systems that also have the problems that many list for LEDs. There have been countless discussions on
the correct MH or t5 bulbs etc. Many of the issues with LEDs listed I attribute to either poor design
or issues caused by changing your lighting. Just changing metal halide bulbs can cause similar issues.
You can design a system that is better for your corals with LEDs. The heat issues caused by MH
cause many issue with corals. The constant shift in spectrum and bulb replacements causes lighting
changes that are harmful to corals. These lighting changes can also cause algae outbreaks that
are very harmful to corals.

 

[Bobbofin]

Do I belive the future for LED? Yes I do, so don't get me wrong.
Until the day comes, I will stick to MH and t-5.
Look at the new breeds of LED from Germany and France, the time may come soon, may be this year I hope.

I just don't like being the guinea pig and r&d for the various types of LED that have come around. I've had a DIY , Acan Lighting, Reef Bright and a Radion. I done for at least 5 or 6 year until they get it right.
Remember they said you couldn't grow SPS under T5 and we're doing it now. I just got a ATI Sunpower dimmable so T5 is still being perfected.

 

[dz6t]

Now some people are looking back at VHO and found that it was not such a bad technology.
When DE halide became popular, people are ditching their SE halide until better reflectors for SE came out.

 

[LoveTheReef]

Also, I can see what is the major difference between us. I care more for the growth of my coral, I enjoy to keep them helthy and growing.

I'm not even going to bother with your statement. not worth the effort.

 

[yukyuklee]

Dong he spent 6k for multiple fixtures not 6k for 1 lol... damn 6k for one led fixture that thing better make me dance under it! lol

 

[SteveDola]

For 6 k I could design a beautiful setup with quality equipment...those leds must have a lot of nice features for that amount of cake.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

 

[LoveTheReef]

For 6 k I could design a beautiful setup with quality equipment...those leds must have a lot of nice features for that amount of cake.

Sent from my Nexus S 4G using Tapatalk 2

yep -- I did a LOT of research on leds, user reviews, experiments etc before settling on PacificSun. They are worth it in my opinion.

But it's easy to spend a lot of money when starting a business. PacificSun lights are lighting majority of our tanks, and I can't wait to replace the others with them as well (eventually everyone runs out of funds ). I will try to post a video when I get a chance (a little busy planning upcoming sale).

Thanks,

Archit

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[charged45]

Don't think you need too. Sounds more like a personal issue more so than a discussion. I've seen the maturation of Archit's system since the beginning. He has been successful growing corals under LED's. He is very informative when it comes to reef lighting. His ongoing testing of different reef lighting along with those who have personal experience w/these types of lights should benefit us all. What matters is what works for each reefer. I'm done much research on all types of lighting and have experience in that field having worked for sylvania/osram. . I love the "Bells and Whistles" that come w/LED's. No doubt they can be successful growing coral just as MH and T5's. My concern is the high price that comes w/a quick changing technology.