I need some honest to god feedback from some people on whether or not LED lighting is working for them. I have been using it for 6 months now and am just about ready to call it quits. I have several different fixtures including maxspect mazarra AI sol Blue, and a few cheaper Evolution lighting ones. Sadly the Evolution lighting ones have given me the best results. I want to know if there are people out there using ONLY LED to light their tank and having good luck with it. I also want to know if people using them can think of anything I might be doing wrong. I've made sure that all my parameters are good and that I'm not burning the corals by having the LED up to high. As I said its been 6 months and I've had almost no growth and get little polyp extension. Before the LED were put on my tanks were incredible with HQI.
Are LED working for people?
- Thread starter EpicWin
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Reeferon
Active Member
Interesting.. could it be your corals are getting too much light with the higher end fixtures? I think they have optics that narrow the light projection which intensifies the output right under the fixture.
Well ive really tried alot of different things. Ive had teh units at 30% power for a while to see if it was too much lihgt. I had tehm at 50% for a while, and ive had them at 80%... it seemed like the result was teh same. I treid each of these settings for like a month. I really just want to hear from some people who have had good results, so i can put a lil faith back in LED.
Demonic
Love Change
I am getting more growth out of my Led's than I did with my 10X80 T5 setup, or the 3 X 250 halide setup. But I am using reef filtrations (Lukes LEDS as they have been called). The acro growth is amazing, once they get accustomed to the light that is. That does take a while.
pumarjr
Reef-a-Holic!
i run led's on my tank, i've seen great growth on all types of coral, sps, lps, softies, and whatnot. now, I do know that you will see better growth with MH, it's my preference to run led's, no chiller, less operating cost, longer lasting fixtures. just a few reasons for me keeping my fixtures.
GR808
Well-Known Member
Do you have a par meter? If so, what kind of par readings are going on in your tank?
I have an all LED lit tank and I am having great growth. Alot more in some than others but growth and color have never been better. Like Demonic said though, it does take some getting used too. I've had mine up for 4 months.
I have an all LED lit tank and I am having great growth. Alot more in some than others but growth and color have never been better. Like Demonic said though, it does take some getting used too. I've had mine up for 4 months.
KJAG
Rogue
Im waiting on Nanotuners to complete my heatsink/fixture-Am still running T5's so I have no personal feedback. However, this dude has prob the most insane setup Ive seen, and hes all LED. An interesting read for sure.Good Luck. Second Quarter of 2011. Evan Tsang (bonbon) - Hong Kong, China - zeovit.com
Acrodisiac
New Member
I have tried Vertex Illumina 200 36" on my 36" x 30" x 24" SPS tank, I found that there was growth but color improvements was not that great, I also have ATI Powermodule 8 x 39W and found it to be far more superior in growth and color, the visual appearance of the tank is totally different. Take a look!
Vertex Illumina
Powermodule
Vertex Illumina
Powermodule
Acrodisiac
New Member
I think that the LED's need to be fine tuned to output best results like the % of white, blue and Royal blue must be set at a specific level to get the maximum juice out the. Where as T5 lights you just need to get a good combination of bulbs like i have in the above picture, 2 fiji purple, 2 giesemann, actinic+, 2 ATI blue+, and 2 ATI special
AquaWorldPSC
Well-Known Member
Check out our progress in this thread, happy to say the LEDs on our display tank is ridiculously good.
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/aq...ing-project-incendia-reeftech-prometheus.html
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/aq...ing-project-incendia-reeftech-prometheus.html
chadfarmer
profilux in the house
well how long did you give? before a change in lighting and the evolution has the least par so maybe you were running your other lights too bright
i have been runnign AI for 3 weeks and a few corals are loking better and a few are looking worse but that could be the change so i am just palying the waiting game
kuyatwo
Well-Known Member
+1 getting great color and growth had a 8 bulb ati powermodule before and changed my bulbs out every six months.
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I run 3 Evolution 120 Watt units on my 300. I have great growth and colors. What model of Evo are you running? How high off the water are you running them? How deep is your tank? What is the par at the SPS that are browning? What spectrum are the LEDs? What spectrum were the HQI?
CJO
Valuable Member
I've been running DIY LEDs for almost a year and a half now and have very good results. I would second (third?) the comment to borrow a PAR meter to check out your levels. It is very easy to put too much light into a tank with LEDs.
I keep hearing this, but don't think that it's an issue.
Metal halides do put out UV, but they also have a glass shield that blocks it. The corals shouldn't be seeing any UV from metal halides. Fluorescent tubes put out a very little UV, too little to matter.
CJ
I keep hearing this, but don't think that it's an issue.
Metal halides do put out UV, but they also have a glass shield that blocks it. The corals shouldn't be seeing any UV from metal halides. Fluorescent tubes put out a very little UV, too little to matter.
CJ
