Switched back to metal halides.

[gadolinium]

I purchased one of those retro kits from rapid LED about 10 months ago. Initially I was happy with it. The color was nice, but my corals would not grow. Some would encrust. No vertical growth. Others browned out and many slowly died. I tried rasing the lights covering them with layers of screen mesh to acclimate the corals etc etc. Finally I gave up. Water tests through this entire periord were perfection.

I'm now into my 3rd week since I switched back to the halide and there has been more growth over the last 3 weeks than the proceeding 10 months with the LEDs. I was thinking about buying 2 echotech Radions as I'm about to upgrade from my nano 12 gallon to a 120 gallon, but I'm just not sure any more.

Any one else have trouble with a rapid LED kit? I currently have a 4 ft giesemann 2*150 watt MH with 2 t5 bulbs. How much supplementing would I need if I ran this halide on the 120. ( 48*24*24)

Any input is appreciated.

 

[s_kelley]

Welcome back!

 

[highpower9979]

I also switched back to halides and never looked back .....

 

[Old Glory]

Seems like a trend

 

[higorc]

I am happy with my AI Sol Blues....going on 3 months now and doing good. Good growth on montis, Digis, lps and softies...anemone likes it as well. Not to mention the programmability on these things. I can't even imagine not having the ramping (gradual increase+decrease) feature on these guys anymore! It's so much more natural for everything in the tank instead of just "on" and "off".

I never used MHs. I know that they r proven lights for many years. But I could never deal with the heat. I always had T5s and now my second set of LEDs... I know there is a lot of debate on lack of spectrum on LED lighting...but so far "I haven't looked back" either since switching to LEDs.

I think u really have to get the right ones for u. I am happy with mines for now... not to say I might switch for something better down the road! (o;

 

[badlands25]

I switched to LEDs about 3 months ago and the growth has been insane! I love everything about them especially the savings on electricity!

 

[Yanni]

I used the ai sol blues for about a year and was not happy with the growth of my corals at all. I went back to t5 but purchased a dimmable unit from ATI so it allows me to ramp them up and down slowly through the day which was the feature of the led's that i liked most.

 

[P-Nut]

I was going to go LED. But I only need around 200W of T5. After calculating the cost at 1KW=$0.17, it will cost me around $10/month and around $40-50 to replace lights every year.

Every good review I ever read about LEDs is from people that had their light for 4-5 weeks. They never post pics, nothing. They just say: "my corals are happy".

So, I think I will go the T5 way for another 2-3 years, then, I hope, we will have some good reviews on LEDs, and the retarded $700 will come down a bit.

 

[higorc]

Hahaha!!!

I think this is gonna be one more of those debate threads about LEDS... All I am gonna say is that I have had my AIS for only 12 weeks and "so far everything is good". Not just good, but I remember looking at one of my digis this week and being like..."crap, this thing really grew" not to mention my other corals... Like I said before, " u have to pick the light that's works for u" I don't know why, but it seems like certain lights works for some and not other... I have no idea why. I don't have anything to gain from saying LEDs r good. I would switch in a heart beat into something else that worked better for me if it ever came to that.


Higor's EVO 3D

 

[Pat02026]

I used 72w of DIY led over a 20 long for three months, colors looked great but the corals were just surviving. I moved to a 54 gallon tank, with nothing else but light changing to a 250w halide, over a span of three months under the new halide vs led I had watched most corals grow anywhere from 10-30% in size as opposed to almost no growth under the led. That was my short experience with led; I cannot speak for the high end fixtures, but for now I have a tank that needs to fill in, so I'm sticking with halides.

On a side note the winter months will require less heater run time, and the summer months have been fine with my home staying at a fairly consistent 70-75 with the AC going.

 

[s_kelley]

I used the ai sol blues for about a year and was not happy with the growth of my corals at all. I went back to t5 but purchased a dimmable unit from ATI so it allows me to ramp them up and down slowly through the day which was the feature of the led's that i liked most.

Dimable t5's sound pretty cool. Could add it to my halide and have a dawn and dusk effect. Hmmmmmm

 

[Old Glory]

I have dimable T5s on my 90 and love it.

 

[JonsReef]

not that there will ever be a definitive answer to this debate, but i did feel compelled to add my experience. and since someone above mentioned that no one ever posts pictures, i figured i would add pictures of my tank over time. my apologies that some of them require clicking.

November 19, 2010. This is the tank at age 2 (set up August, 2008) under the stock BC14 PC lights. I replaced the bulbs about every 6-9 months but could never really get good coral growth. You can see the xenia straining/stretching to get to the light.
Large Image Link (584 kB)

July 26, 2011. This is the day I installed my DIY retrofit LED set-up. You can see the reflection of the individual bulbs at the surface of the water. You can see that none of the corals look very good.
Large Image Link (679 kB)

September 3, 2011. The next two pictures were taken only 5 weeks later. The corals are staring to rebound already and the xenia is starting to bunch and pulse like a healthy specimen. The kenya tree frag on the rack more than tripled in size from under 1" to 3"+

November 24, 2011. About two and a half months later. Notice the size of the kenya tree, which was moved to the front of the tank. The GSP has totally engulfed the lower rocks on the sandbed. The brown palys from the frag rack have a nice established colony in the back right.

 

[JonsReef]

March 16, 2012. Four months later. I think the size and health of the corals speaks for itself here. The wispy GSP on the lower right was all but gone when I installed the LEDs and has made an awesome comeback. Kenya tree is huge now and the small frag of frogspawn and yellow polyps are growing nicely. The toadstool/leather, which started as a frag the size of a quarter, is now about 3-4" across (bottom right in the clam stand).
Large Image Link (162 kB)

July 7, 2012. Present. Corals are getting to the point where they are taking over the tank and need to be fragged and/or cut back. Frogspawn is about the size of my fist at this point. GSP has taken over the back wall.

Granted, this is only my own personal experience and was by no means a controlled experiment. However, I think it does strongly lend itself to the assumption that the LEDs were at least partially responsible for the great growth of both soft and hard corals in my BC14. I think the most remarkable change was between 9/3/2011 and 11/24/2011, just 2-4 months after switching out the lights.

 

[gadolinium]

I'm wondering if the problem was that I built the LED fixture or the quality of electrical engineering is much higher in a professionally made fixture which could account for the difference.

Still have one question. If I use my 48' 150 watt MH on a 120 gallon tank what kind of supplement would I need? What could I grow if I only used that light?

 

[SteveDola]

youre tank looks nice. the corals do seem very happy but lets not get carried away with gsp and xenia...you can grow those corals under a shop light if need be. WOnt be the most colorful but the corals would be healthy. never the less, Im sure certain LEDs can grow and maintain color but I dont know which fixtures and which led combonations and at what strength. It just seems like so much more can go wrong compared to T5 or MH.

 

[JonsReef]

I'm wondering if the problem was that I built the LED fixture or the quality of electrical engineering is much higher in a professionally made fixture which could account for the difference.

i think the quality of the components has more to do with the outcome than anything else. i made sure to use high-quality components from reputable manufacturers even though it was more expensive than something from ebay made in china, which are often of questionable quality.

 

[JonsReef]

youre tank looks nice. the corals do seem very happy but lets not get carried away with gsp and xenia...you can grow those corals under a shop light if need be. WOnt be the most colorful but the corals would be healthy. never the less, Im sure certain LEDs can grow and maintain color but I dont know which fixtures and which led combonations and at what strength. It just seems like so much more can go wrong compared to T5 or MH.

<looks over shoulder> who is getting carried away? i was simply stating that IN MY EXPERIENCE my xenia and GSP did not do well under the stock PC but rebounded quickly under LED. i made it very clear that i was comparing my previous lighting to the new LED setup and that my results were positive. not once did i make a comparison or judgement about the merits of MH or how they compare to LED.

 

[SteveDola]

I'm wondering if the problem was that I built the LED fixture or the quality of electrical engineering is much higher in a professionally made fixture which could account for the difference.

Still have one question. If I use my 48' 150 watt MH on a 120 gallon tank what kind of supplement would I need? What could I grow if I only used that light?

is it 2x150w? if so you could do LPS and softies. youre going to be limited SPS wise but could possibly do lower required sps close to the top.

I would try to add some blue LEDs for supplementation due to the easy of retrofiting and controlability.

 

[highpower9979]

I switched to LEDs about 3 months ago and the growth has been insane! I love everything about them especially the savings on electricity!

Proof is in the pudding....got pics to go with that