As LED Lighting Develops...

[Flippers4pups]

I just happened to get lucky and live by and started buying corals early on from a guy who started to produce his own lights and had an amazing tank. Now he sells thousands of the lights and owns the best lfs on the gulf coast. After seeing his tank and what his lights can do, I'll never have a reason to switch.

Of us with "Chinese black boxes", we all know who you are referring to! lol He's doing very well, good product and great/exceptional customer service.

 

[bobman]

I have 4 of them with burnt diodes. They still work just not all the diodes. All were about 18 months old more or less. I think one was over 2 years. They do work and would be fine just not all the diodes do. Its not a big deal though sbreef sells new boards for I think 60 bucks that goes into marsaqua fixtures with a 2 year warranty. What I will say though if you have more than 1 fixture running say 2 and they are about a year old replace 1 and you will see a huge difference between them.

 

[Flippers4pups]

I have 4 of them with burnt diodes. They still work just not all the diodes. All were about 18 months old more or less. I think one was over 2 years. They do work and would be fine just not all the diodes do. Its not a big deal though sbreef sells new boards for I think 60 bucks that goes into marsaqua fixtures with a 2 year warranty. What I will say though if you have more than 1 fixture running say 2 and they are about a year old replace 1 and you will see a huge difference between them.

Replacing the diodes is very easy, of which I've done and I have to say very cheap. (changed out the 6500k's and 7500k's for 14000k's and 20000k's on my three units for under $15) 3w diodes are very abundant on eBay and Amazon. Epistar brand.

Of course you can get the SBreeflight PCB boards and just swap them out for like $60-70 each.

 

[Rip Van Winkle]

It's a marketing ploy to build planned obsolescence into a product to make it malfunction after a period of time. The idea being that it will force the consumer to purchase another product after that period of time. If the driver boards are designed properly, they should last a very long time as there are no mechanical or moving parts. It would be a shame to find out that the less expensive lights have been sabotaged like that but honestly I wouldn't be surprised. (I find planned obsolescence absolutely awful)

 

[Jlentz]

It's a marketing ploy to build planned obsolescence into a product to make it malfunction after a period of time. The idea being that it will force the consumer to purchase another product after that period of time. If the driver boards are designed properly, they should last a very long time as there are no mechanical or moving parts. It would be a shame to find out that the less expensive lights have been sabotaged like that but honestly I wouldn't be surprised. (I find planned obsolescence absolutely awful)

I prefer to think of it as something along the lines of: They just max out the current to get more output and don't pay attention to lifespan.

Even outside the hobby when I see blue leds. It seems that they start to get dimmer after a couple months. (Which I guess is kinda good because I loathe blue LEDs unless it's over my fish tank.) One major audio equipment manufacturer that I deal told me at one point to just give it a couple months and it would dim quite a bit. It did. Then when I got another box and put it in the rack right above it one led was burning my eyes out bright and the other was dim, yet still annoying.

 

[becks]

Personally, I actually dislike the customization potential of LED spectrum. I don't want to spend money on a PAR meter to make sure I'm not frying my corals alive. I also don't really care to mess with every single color channel individually. Give me 10,000K, 14,000K, 20,000K, and maybe 20,000K + actinic or 25,000K settings and I'm happy. As a side note, this is why I like the Kessils so much. Twist a knob to make it more or less blue. That's it. I also have no interest in setting spectrum from my phone or a web browser. There's no need for that added complexity and cost in my opinion. Give me a little read out on the fixture, or an external controller that I can hook up to make adjustments, then unhook when I'm done. My dislike of many of the current LED products aside, it's simply untrue to say that LEDs aren't able to match the coloration and growth of MH or T5s. There are far too many successful SPS tanks out there lit by only LEDs to make that claim.

It's also incomplete to simply compare a G4 and an 8-bulb T5 fixture on power consumption alone. You're not factoring in efficiency (in other words, how much of that power taken in is converted to actual light instead of heat). You're also not factoring in fixture cost. A Radeon G4 is an expensive light to be sure ($650/$800 respectively), but a comparable 24" T5 fixture is not that much cheaper ($504 for an 8 bulb ATI fixture on BRS at the time of this writing). Then, you have to factor in bulb replacement costs. Eight 24" T5 bulbs from ATI cost $160 ($19.99 each on BRS at the time of this writing). If you replace them annually, after 4 years T5s will have cost you an additional $640 in this scenario. More if you have a longer fixture that takes longer and more expensive bulbs.

It's also unfair to say that you must upgrade to the latest and greatest LED fixture, like it's a cell phone. New LED fixtures do have more features and usually better color spectrum, but that doesn't mean the old LEDs will suddenly no longer grow corals. The AI Sol Blue was one of the first commercial viable LED fixture in the hobby. It's downright primitive by today's standards, only having cool white, blue and royal blue LEDs. Yet, there are still amazing tanks out there today lit by these primitive lights. My QT tank is lit by an old AI Sol Blue, and the orange monti cap I have in QT started showing visible growth only a week or so after acclimation.

It's just not accurate to say that LEDs are inferior because there are competing lighting technologies out there that consume similar amounts of power. It's not just about power consumption. There are way too many other caveats to consider. If you prefer to use other light sources than LEDs, that's fine. You should use what you like and works best for you. But just because a light is best in your situation doesn't mean it's the best light out there. Every situation and tank is unique, and everyone has their own preferences.

It's why I picked out the new maxspect razor 15ks, they grow all types of corals and although some view it as disadvantage with only two channels, but it's very simple to set up and for me it's an advantage