Hello, I have a 60 inch by 45 inch 27 inch deep SPS tank. The main tank drains into 3 sumps. Each sump is also lit in sections. The main tank is about 7 years old. When I set it up 7 years ago, many of the corals were moved into the main tank from my old 189 gallon wall so many of the corals have been in my possession for ten plus years. The new main tank was lit by 6 400 watt halides with various mixed bulbs to give me a pleasing mix. I ran the lights close , less than a foot off of the tank for 12 hours a day. The corals grew great and colors were spectacular. I have numerous threads showing this tank on another site so I wont re-post here but they are easy to find if you search. I also have many you tube video links on this site. Any way I loved the halides but I live in Florida and the heat and energy cost was becoming unsustainable. So about two years ago, I decided to build some LEDS. One of my careers was as an avionics tech so it wasn't that big a deal as far as the engineering and assembly went. I used rapid LED recommended LEDS, 2 types of Blue lamps and 2 types of whites. I applied them to my tank in August of 2012. I spent about 1500 total to bulid 4 24 ich fixtures with four strings of LEDs on each fixture. At first the corals responded well to the lights. My electric bill dropped over 200 dollars a month and my AC and chiller started turning off sometimes. The corals colors were OK, but nothing like they had been under the halides. Most people who saw them thought they looked great but I wasn't happy. I lost a lot of my reds and the blues didn't pop . They had a grey tinge. In Feb of 2013 I had some surgery and during my recovery period, I lost a couple of blue LED strings. I wasn't able to address it for a couple of months. However the corals were looking pretty rough do to the lights failing and lack of tank maintenance. As i recovered i realized i needed to do something quick so i ordered a Chinese LED off of Ebay for $179 delivered. The light had additional colored lamps in addition to the traditional blue and white. I planed to use it to replace one of my failed fixtures so I could remove it and do a repair. I installed it and immediately noticed a better color rendition. The corals underneath the multi band led improved ever day. So I bought three more and installed them in addition to my homemade fixtures. They are so much better than what I was able to build its stupid. The corals underneath the multi-band lights grow better and are as colorful as they ever were underneath the halides. In conclusion I love the corals underneath the multi spec LED fixtures. The reds and blues really pop. I did not like them underneath the 4 band blue white fixtures. Any LED fixture in the future I use for sps will have more than just the traditional blue/white mix. I have also used Halides and LEDs in my sumps I find my LPS corals do fine under a commercial blue/white led fixture. I also find that LED tanks are more sensitive to ranges of chemistry and light. The Halide tanks are much more forgiving. The LED tanks are much easier to over light or under light and they also seem to respond more to stress.
