I figure I should post this here too, since not everyone will go on the "modded black box" thread. Anyone that has LED's on their tank should understand what's going on:
"Maybe
@Dana Riddle can chime in on this as I haven't heard much of anything spoken on this subject. At least in the hobby. LED's will degrade. They may light close to the manufacturers claims of hours of use before they "burn out", but there will be a decrease in intensity and will color shift.
This is VERY important to us in the hobby, not so much in household lighting.
LED's degrade very slowly, so slow that we don't notice the decrease in intensity and color shift. Our corals will adjust to this slowly over time, to a point. This all has to do with heat and its effects on diodes. Cracks, delamination and heat effects on the phosphor coatings placed on the surface of these chips to achieve the color.
THIS HAPPENS TO ALL REEF LED FIXTURES. HIGH-END TO CHEAP FIXTURES!
With anything we buy, more expensive manufacturers of fixtures may use better manufacturing techniques and materials, but in time they will loose intensity and experience color shift. It's just going to happen.
Manufacturers of these fixtures, especially high end/expensive, regularly release "next gen" models in hopes that you will upgrade to them. As they don't sell replacement parts, led PCB boards, led diodes, drivers......etc. We've all seen this where owners will sell their "last gen" fixtures to help buy the "next gen" fixtures. Anyway, you get the picture.
Refreshing a PCB board with new leds, say every couple years will keep your corals happy and save you money in the long run!"
