I go about 50% on the blues, 65% on the whites, a little dimmer than my mh, but they go up 10% for an hour to increase growth.
Have you ditched LED's for T5's?
- Thread starter thewackyreefer
- Start date
- Tagged users None
I am having a LED fixture built right now for my frag tank. I been setting back & watching my local club/DIY'ers develop an ever changing fixture. The whole thing is spectrum! Now the guys have mixed in True Violet, Turquise, Reds, Greens, etc. for a HUGE color spectrum! This has been going on for some time with lots of observation/experimentation going on until LPS, SPS & everything in between is taking a likeing to the lights. Plus 500 Par @40% with a massive blending spectrum is really cool. No one....NO ONE comes close to that. (As far as commercial product)
CoralObsessions
unregistered
Onedesign1
Active Member
+1 Full spectrum or lack thereof is the issue....along with running things too bright (don't under estimate this...PAR with LEDs should not be carefully judged...too much is not good). LEDs are exteremly narrow banded and by judiciously mixing in other colors such as reds and greens fills in alot of the missing spectrum. I too started out my experiments with royals blues and cool whites and evolved through trial and error to including these other colors. I have tremendous color and growth with this more full spectrum.............
spero
Community Member
So you've experimented with running the LED's at different intensities and seen little change in color? What kind of bulbs are you running?
I ran an AI Sol Blue for almost a year over my mostly SPS cube. Nearly every coral took a decline in color and growth rate. I started at 35% and worked up VERY slowly to 90-95%. I was sick of wishing my tank was the way in used to be. Luckly, I didn't sell my old MH. I switched back 6 months ago and my colors have come back slowly. LEDs need more development, IMO.
KJAG
Rogue
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2011
- Messages
- 1,343
- Reaction score
- 530
- Location
- Silver Strand Beach, Oxnard
- What state or country do you live in
- California
Still some sweet acans.In my experience Acans are notorious for morphing, regardless of lighting.Did your acans turn orange too?
Oh yeah the diodes came for the build & are as follows: True violets, turquoise, Red, Green, royals & a base white xpg. Thats as good if not better than any T5 rainbow of spectrum. It may be awhile before commercial "pre fab" fixture allow this but until then! Oh & since the lawsuit was dropped have you noticed how many controlers are out! This build will offer sunrise to sunset @left to right
I cant do that with my ATI's
I cant do that with my ATI's 
akma
Well-Known Member
I used an AI sol blue for about a year on my solana. Had problems with corals lightening and didn't corals didn't look great. Tried all sorts of intensities starting at about 15/30/30. Switched back to T5's about 2 months ago and all my lps and sps are looking great again. I'll probably stick with T5's now until LED's are able to offer the full spectrum T5's do. I personally won't return to AI units.
Troylee
all about the diy!!!!!
Ditched them for a mh t5 combo with led sups... A triple threat and love it!!!
I have used every sort of light over the last 15 years of reefkeeping (MH, T5s, VHOs, compacts fls, and now LEDs) and by far I have got the best color from LEDs in all of my corals. I keep mainly LPS and softies and mine look insane. As for acans......I have lost rainbow coloration on almost every acan I have ever had over the years regardless of what type of lighting I have kept them under. I have tried everything (feeding, temp, flow) and have given up purchasing them because of this (I wish I could keep them colored up though, as they can look sweet). I mainly keep chalices and favias and they grow and look great under LEDs. I would recommend going with a cheaper solution like the stunner strips.....they are cheap and you can mix and match as you like. I am finally purchasing some UV LED strips....perhaps this will improve the coloration on my expensive acans =)
cheers,
Darren
cheers,
Darren
spero
Community Member
Darren - Did you go with the 403nm stunners? Keep us updated on those as I'm curious to see how your corals react. I'm interested in adding some led's in the 400-450 range and had those in mind.
Jeppeterpan
Community Member
I had a 6 bulb t5 system on my rimless bio 29 and ditched it or a kessil 150w ocean blue. The reason I picked them is because I heard they had a great spectrum for coloration. What I heard was correct, and have not been disappointed in color at all. I think a lot of people get caught up in dimming capabilities of a system instead...I have now dismantled the bio and now have a 72 gallon bow front that has 2 150w ocean blues and also running a reefbrite 36in actinic strip. My chalices and acans, lobos, brains, trachys, favites, and war coral all have crazy coloration (and growth in case anyone ask...). My slimer, yellow acro, green acro, millepora, montis, and birdsnest have crazy colors. The only problem I've heard w the kessils is that u have to keep the corals within 24in depth wise for maximum spectrum. I don't have par readings but am basing off of coloration. One thing I have to say is that I will probably add another reefbrite 50/50 to add some more white cause my tank is a little blue. I haven't put up pics yet of my tank, but will as soon as possible. Just reminded myself, I need to get a nice camera!
2Sunny
Active Member
I realize this comment came from a couple pages back, but I hate to see misinformation on the web not be corrected, and to anemonekeeper I hope you will understand that this is meant as friendly discoure of a great topic. Also, based on the comments others are making I think most folks have a good grip on this issue, but for those who may be curious or haven't had time to research yet I'd like to offer some brief insight on what we know about light and corals.
First of all let's clear up the term spectrum:
There are many types of spectrums, but for the purpose of LEDs it is critical to understand that the discussion is about the wavelengths of the photons being created by this source of light. Roughly speaking light humans can see comes from photons that have wavelengths in the approximate range between 400 nm and 700 nm. What that means is actually quite complicated because on the one hand light can act like a B-B shot from a gun and on the other it can act like waves rippling across a pond, but for this discussion we're talking about the waves rippling across the pond. The only difference is the waves are really really really tiny :bigsmile:
Now, hypothetically speaking if I take 3 distinct photons of very different colors say a blue photon and a red photon and a green photon each with it's own distinct and singular wavelength, I can "fool" your eye into seeing yellow light that looks like high noon sunlight, BUT I only used 3 distinct photons with 3 very specific wavelengths. I did not shoot any photons at all of the inbetween wavelengths, but your eye perceived the 3 photon mix the same as sunlight. LEDs create photons in very narrow bands of wavelength. There is some creation of other wavelengths, but when you are discussing the radiation that is actually used by coral zooxanthellea you can essentially treat the LED as a single wavelength because the relative amount of energy created in the other wavelengths from a single LED is negligble. Metal halide lighting and flourescent lighting are quite different. They have peaks in their emission spectrum like Radiums peak at 420 nm, but the proportion of total photons having this wavelength is low relative to the total number of photons produced. Metal halide and flourescent lights produce lots of photons across a broad spectrum. LEDs produce photons in a very narrow spectrum.
The trouble begins when we begin to ask what wavelength do we need? We know precious little with regards to that for 99.9% of the corals out there. We do know that research on stylophora showed red wavelengths can kill, and that because the ocean water filters out some wavelengths of sunlight many corals with symbiotic zooxanthellea if not most corals have adapted to grow best with light from the blue end of the spectrum, and importantly we have recently learned that a certain amount of UV is helpful to stimulate the growth of zooxanthellea clades that create the colors we love so much in our SPS and LPS. Amazingly we have also learned that corals can photoadapt. So if you change the amount or type of light a coral gets it may well survive regardless as it will rely more on direct feeding if light falls, or increase the production of zooxanthellea that can absorb hurtful amounts of light to protect itself, if light becomes stronger.
Personally, I have tested 3 different manufacturers of LEDs, 2 that used a limited number of LED colors and 1 that used a greater number of LEDs including LEDs that produced light in the UV range. In my experience, Oregon Tort could not survive under blue + white LED light alone. I also saw O.T. die in two other local tanks that use LEDs as well. While in those same tanks rght next to the Tort other corals were growing like crazy with fantastic color. What do I think happened? I think Oregon Tort has photoadapted to life under metal halides and flourescents that have wavelength peaks in the area of 420 nm, and LED lights that don't have ample amounts of this particular wavelength actually starve the Torts. Now this last part is not scientifically proven, and is merely my opinion, but I would add that commercially speaking greenhouses have not yet changed over to LED lighting. Why not? LEDs definitely grow plants. The answer is LEDs cause peculiar growth patterns that we don't yet fully understand. Lettuce grown under green light grows faster than normal. Roses grown under red light will deepen in color. Each particular wavelength seems to have benefits and sometimes drawbacks (like red light killing stylophoras). So what does that mean to you and me.
It means, if you choose to use LEDs that is awesome 'cuz you're getting some killer technology and efficiency, but in terms of whether or not you'll get great color on all your favorite corals, that you'll just have to see for yourself. Obviously some corals love it but just as obviously some corals don't. On the other hand if you choose T5s, you are guaranteed to have great color on virtually any light loving coral you'd like to try.
And there ends my overly wordy discussion of spectrum :tongue:
Personally, I'm thinking of converting from my combination of MH + VHO + LED to either a Sfiligoi 8 x T5 + 2 x 150 watt MH or a Pacific Sun combo light that has LEDs for shimmer and 4 x T5s for color. We'll see . . .
Joe
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2007
- Messages
- 6,381
- Reaction score
- 4,853
- Location
- Waukesha, Wi
- What state or country do you live in
- Wisconsin
That is the problem with allot of led fixtures. It also was a problem with t-5s over halides in the beginning. Leds are even more narrow spectrum than t-5. People are now using more than just white and blue t-5's with the purple or red lamps and started getting better coloration. This is more a problem with sps because most come from shallow water and are exposed to a wider spectrum.
People seem to focus too much on par but its not just about par and most good fixtures, t-5, halides or leds put out plenty of par.
Last edited:
