Led nightmare

[Blue isles]

I've been considering LEDs for a while, and may be ready to make the jump. This will be a sps dominant tank, and I've heard mixed reviews about color and growth. I do not want to build my own, and I was looking at the ai blue sols. I like that they are dimmable. Ive also looked into the evolution leds. Ive read some threads of peoples acros turning brown. What do you guys think?

 

[GR808]

Probably the biggest mistake is underestimating the intensity of the LED lights. I've made that mistake and lost a couple of sticks but was able to save others. Par value is incredible with the LED lights and with dimmable LEDs you can make the color temp that best suits you. I will admit that I do have one sps that was browning out but since I've improved my flow and started dosing coralamino and lugols, I've been getting color back and more. Just watch how you acclimate them to the LEDs.
good luck

 

[Blue isles]

Thanks. That is helpful.

 

[Batt]

I have leds on my 120 for 5m now the colors are more brighter then when I had my T5s and have crazy growth would never go back to anything elese. If you do take it slow and start with 10% like he said up top leds are par monsters thay will beach corals if there no usto the light

 

[Blue isles]

I have leds on my 120 for 5m now the colors are more brighter then when I had my T5s and have crazy growth would never go back to anything elese. If you do take it slow and start with 10% like he said up top leds are par monsters thay will beach corals if there no usto the light

Cool. do you have a mostly sps tank? That is what I'm worried about is the acros and montis.

how quickly can you raise up the percent of the leds? Don't want to do it too fast, but I didnt know if anyone had experience, or if it is just something you have to play with.

 

[swannyson7]

I used to run 14k Phoenix 250w halides along with T5, but I switched over the LED & T5 on my new tank. I think the growth might have been a little bit better with the MH (barely noticable), but the colorations under my LED/T5 combo is substantially better. +1 to the warning about bleaching your corals though... I've seen way too many people make that mistake.

 

[Blue isles]

I used to run 14k Phoenix 250w halides along with T5, but I switched over the LED & T5 on my new tank. I think the growth might have been a little bit better with the MH (barely noticable), but the colorations under my LED/T5 combo is substantially better. +1 to the warning about bleaching your corals though... I've seen way too many people make that mistake.

Seen lots of people burn there corals too after switching to LEDs. You think that just the LEDs will do it? Just curious as to why include the t5s as well?

 

[swannyson7]

The LEDs by themselves are definitely capable of bleaching everything in your tank. I added the T5s for color customization more than anything, but also to provide a borader spectrum range of light. By switching around the bulbs, I can get pretty much any color spectrum that I want. When I first switched to LEDs, there were still many naysayers that claimed LEDs have a very narrow color spectrum which didn't provide all of the wavelengths needed for photosysnthetic corals. It provided piece of mind to have the T5s as a fallback to the LED fictures just in case there was truth to such claims.

 

[Markpolo123]

we can get a better result if we apply the led in the right way ,every boday has his own idea of led light,

 

[Beach Bum]

evolution leds here for about 6 mnths.great color sps , and lps.
they are very strong like said below... Love the i have seen my power bill drop about $20 a mnth also

 

[Laborator]

evolution leds here for about 6 mnths.great color sps , and lps.
they are very strong like said below... Love the i have seen my power bill drop about $20 a mnth also

What type evo do you use?

 

[GR808]

alot of good information in this thread. I know you mentioned about not building your own but there are alot of benefits to DIY. One big + would be if your worried about color spectrum, the DIY fixture could easily exchange stars for different color mixes to suit your needs.
Although if you want to supplement with T5s, that is a great plus. Swannyson's tank is proof positive of that.

 

[bige]

I've heard good thing about evo and ai. Look at the vortech ones. They seem cool but pricey. The main thing with sps is acclimation. My sps actually all morphed color. My digitata went from all green to light blue. Which is really cool. I had a lime green deep water acro turn pink with red mouth. But still really cool. I then threw some t5s on just to light them a little more, and they colored up even more.