anyone running a full led display???

[Troylee]

just like the title says is anyone running all led lights for there display??? if so please post some pics of your tank....im getting ready to build a fixture and as we all know the intial cost is a killer but the savings will pay for it's self....i wanna see some shots of tanks that are led lit to covince myself this is the way to go...thanks in advance....troylee

 

[KEEPERZ]

which bulbs are you gonna use Lee? I was checking out those Cree's at cutter but I know you have a hook up -lets see the pics-

 

[MAXreefer]

I had the AquaIlluminations LED's (first generation) on my 180 gallon.
I never had an issue with them and the corals showed excellent growth and color. Together with the Profilux controller I was able to create several weather scenarios up to thunderstorms.

You can see a few vids from the tank here: LINK

 

[Troylee]

which bulbs are you gonna use Lee? I was checking out those Cree's at cutter but I know you have a hook up -lets see the pics-

im debating joe....i got a hook up for some jt leds 1 watters with built in heat sinks and resistors ready to go just plug and play...."need a par meter" lol...
i like the cree led's but i think it's just way blown over in porportion ever since soundwave made a fixture and it worked everyone only seems to think that cree led's are the only one's that will work.....dont get me wrong there nice led's and obviously tried and true but there is other leds with the same specs just different names....hmm...btw. joe where is cutter here in town???i know everyone gets the crees from led supply....

 

[Troylee]

I had the AquaIlluminations LED's (first generation) on my 180 gallon.
I never had an issue with them and the corals showed excellent growth and color. Together with the Profilux controller I was able to create several weather scenarios up to thunderstorms.

You can see a few vids from the tank here: LINK

nice man the colors looked great.....thats what im gonna build a fully controlled light with dimmer and different settings etc.. fully adjustable..

 

[jaytizzle]

Direct comparison as I very recently upgraded my lights on my 24 gallon Aquapod. Sorry but these are just camera phone shots.

Essentially there isn't much difference in the pics. In person, the light is of similar brightness but the color is crisper from the LEDs. There is also significantly better penetration to the bottom levels of the tank. Additionally, there is practically NO heat transferred to the water where with the MH+T5 there was a lot.

150W Ushio 14k + 2x18W T5 actinics

90W LED fixture (45 x 1W royal blue, 45 x 1W white)

 

[gparr]

How long have these aquariums been under LEDs? I'm most interested in this topic because I question whether corals will grow/thrive long term under LED lighting. By long term, I mean two years or more. Are you guys seeing sustained healthy growth as time goes on? Do some corals do better and some not? Is your photoperiod longer? shorter? the same? as halides/T5s?
Gary

 

[Troylee]

im really concerend about these things myself gparr.....
it's one of those things ya know it seems to good to be true.....
i have ran supplemental led's on my displays but never ran straight up leds as a light only....the colors look great under royal blues, but is it fake???? if i took that coral that has amazing color under led's and put it under a mh would the color still be there??? or is it just a effect the led puts on the coral???

 

[benny z]

i have ran supplemental led's on my displays but never ran straight up leds as a light only....the colors look great under royal blues, but is it fake???? if i took that coral that has amazing color under led's and put it under a mh would the color still be there??? or is it just a effect the led puts on the coral???

blue leds really intensify the colors, but ime the colors are still aparent under more traditional lighting. maybe not as vibrant, but definitely still there. they have to be there for the leds to flouresce them, so imo no they are not "fake" colors. leds just bring out their full potential.

there is a local who has been running soley on leds for a about 2 years now. i will see if i can get him to post in this thread. he seems to have great sustained growth and coloration and he keeps a mixed reef.

 

[jaytizzle]

Gary, I can't say anything about long term. I don't know anyone who has been running LEDs for anywhere near that long. I have seen some people mention having them for 1+ year, but those are few and far between. This tank is intended to be a guinea pig. It had been running for just under two years when I changed the lights. That was two weeks ago. I was getting VERY predictable growth and that has only continued. The colors on the corals appear better to me as parts of both acros are coloring up where they were basically brown under the MH.

FWIW, this is a skimmerless tank and I also very rarely do water changes. I dose a capful each of Kent Nano Reef Part A and Part B twice per week. Flow is a MJ1200 return and Koralia 1. Livestock is a pair of clowns and a yellow watchman goby. Temp used to fluctuate from 76 in the AM to 87 in the PM. Now it doesn't move much at all.

troylee, I think that the LEDs get better coloration from the corals IME. Yes the royal blues show the fluorescence much better but my colors are changing, as I said above, for the better under the LEDs as compared to the MH. Kind of like comparing coral colors from T5 to MH. Colors will likely shift (sometimes good, sometimes not) when you change the lighting source.

 

[evilc66]

I have been running LEDs in one form or another for over two years. I currently have three tanks running soley LEDs:

4g Finnex:
Tank has been running for a little over two years and 10 Cree XR-Es have been running over it for about 14 months now. All going well.

3.5g PicoAquariums Barracuda:
Been running for about 6 months with LEDs running the whole time. Doing well. This tank replaced an older 1.4g pico that I had running LEDs on as well. That was a very experimental tank when it came to LEDs, and was the source for a lot of my research.

40g Breeder:
Running for about 8 months now with strictly LEDs from day one. I'm running 4 of my 15W PAR38 lamps with 40 degree optics 32" over the sand and I'm keeping sps in most areas of the tank. Everything has started from little nubs of frags, and have grown and encrusted well. I don't dose consistantly on this system, so growth hasn't been what it could, but it has been fantastic for only 60W of light.

 

[droblack]

I ran a Solaris H4 for around 2 years and had good growth on much of my sps, but wasn't getting the popping colors.

 

[Troylee]

blue leds really intensify the colors, but ime the colors are still aparent under more traditional lighting. maybe not as vibrant, but definitely still there. they have to be there for the leds to flouresce them, so imo no they are not "fake" colors. leds just bring out their full potential.

there is a local who has been running soley on leds for a about 2 years now. i will see if i can get him to post in this thread. he seems to have great sustained growth and coloration and he keeps a mixed reef.

so your saying if you had a grow out tank and had some frags in there for x amount of months and posted pics online under the led lighting that looks super cool and sold some to a guy out of state and he got them and put them in his tank under t5s or mh, he is not gonna accuse you of photo shopping the pics????really what im trying to get at is the corals actually color up really well under the leds or is it only gonna have that color under a led????and look blah under a mh, or t5 the same day you pulled it from the led i know the color will shift after awhile under different lighting etc....

 

[evilc66]

It's no different than using a super actinic style T5 or a Radium/Phoenix MH. Royal blues just pop a little more. There should be very little change in color between different lighting sources. If anything, certain corals will color up more under certain lights.

 

[Troylee]

It's no different than using a super actinic style T5 or a Radium/Phoenix MH. Royal blues just pop a little more. There should be very little change in color between different lighting sources. If anything, certain corals will color up more under certain lights.

I got cha man... That's what I'm wandering is like how do the LEDs compare to say a radium bulb??? Better or around the same just more edficiant??? I'm all for power savings and energy edficiancy... My tank is a total of 220 gal and I only run at 130 watts of power for all the pumps and skimmer, ph's etc... The only killer is the mh and vho supplements..

 

[benny z]

so your saying if you had a grow out tank and had some frags in there for x amount of months and posted pics online under the led lighting that looks super cool and sold some to a guy out of state and he got them and put them in his tank under t5s or mh, he is not gonna accuse you of photo shopping the pics????really what im trying to get at is the corals actually color up really well under the leds or is it only gonna have that color under a led????and look blah under a mh, or t5 the same day you pulled it from the led i know the color will shift after awhile under different lighting etc....

to be clear, i do not use leds over my frag tank except to show them off and for pictures. i use t5 as the primary lighting and only flip the "bling" switch every now and again.

also, none of them look "blah" under just t5.

 

[Soundwave]

At Benny's request, I'll post some shots of my tank and growth under ONLY LEDs. I'm the same Soundwave from ReefCentral and some of you may have read my giant thread. Enjoy...

FTS - The sand is a little dirty and my tang is PURPLE for some reason but the point is to show you an up to date shot. This is today.

Shot of the side.

Not that long ago.

Quite a while ago.

A little further back in time.

Check out the growth on this guy, at the bottom of the tank...

This is with 24 CREE XR-E royal blues and 30 XR-E Cool Whites.

 

[LegoZ81]

Nice Soundwave!

 

[Troylee]

that looks sweet soundwave....i didnt know you were over here....big props on the evolution you have created....glad your here i got some questions..that thread over there is so congested i cant even think straight after i read a couple pages...and i can't talk to you directly...anywho i was there when you first posted that and talked to ya, are you using any optics on your tank?? i talked to evil and we came to the conclusion that i would need to get 6x24 led's to light my tank properly with different optics on each side since my tank is 2 different depths...i really wanna do it just trying to justify the 2gs in leds upfront.. it's rough knowing my current light's work and they work very well...lol

 

[benny z]

i will note that i traded with soundwave for a frag of his garf bonzai and it has done very well in my system since the move from his leds to my halides.