LED question

[scsdukefan408]

So ive been thinking of changing from T5's to LEDs and had a question for yall...1st whats everyones opinions on to have just white & blues or to get ones that have multiple colors?....2nd is it important for it to be dimmable or is it just a luxury?

Thanks for the input

 

[sredzins]

I've been doing a lot of research on this as well. Yes you need the different colors. Some will tell you the blues are only aesthetic but actually the blue part of the spectrum penetrates water the deepest. A red wavelength would be good to because photosynthesis takes place at 2 parts on the spectrum but this could be achieved with a higher color temperature. And the dimmable feature is nice because you can hook it up to a controller and have a dawn/dusk effect. But for the most part it is a luxury.

 

[scsdukefan408]

I've been doing a lot of research on this as well. Yes you need the different colors. Some will tell you the blues are only aesthetic but actually the blue part of the spectrum penetrates water the deepest. A red wavelength would be good to because photosynthesis takes place at 2 parts on the spectrum but this could be achieved with a higher color temperature. And the dimmable feature is nice because you can hook it up to a controller and have a dawn/dusk effect. But for the most part it is a luxury.

okay thanks for the reply....that makes since about the multi colors...sure it also helps with color pop...and ill look into the dimmable ones

 

[jservedio]

I recently went LEDs about 3 months ago and they are very different from T5s. No, you dont NEED anything besides RB/B/W - they will grow coral just fine. Additional colors will certainly help - but they aren't required. Take a look at where photosynthesis happens and where the peaks are - the biggest peak corresponds directly with the 460nm Royal Blue LEDs.

IMO dimming is more important if you don't have a really deep tank. I went with the Radion Pro and if I put that at 100% even my most light loving SPS would fry in my 16" deep tank. In fact, even at only 30%, my acans need to be on the sand in the corners of the tank to survive - even with 3 months of acclimatization.

Take a look at the new AI Hydras - they are full spectrum, really cheap, and from what I have read really nice. Additionally, look at the R420r, they are a little more pricy, but they are middle of the road. If you have the money to spend, take a look at the Radion G2s or Radion Pros. They are awesome.

Edit: Forgot to say - I went with the Radion Pros which are full spectrum. While you don't need full spectrum, they look much better than the RB/B/W combo and give you much more options with color. Also, UV is absolutely amazing!

 

[marinelife]

3 years only blue, royal blue, and white, corals look great!

 

[scsdukefan408]

I recently went LEDs about 3 months ago and they are very different from T5s. No, you dont NEED anything besides RB/B/W - they will grow coral just fine. Additional colors will certainly help - but they aren't required. Take a look at where photosynthesis happens and where the peaks are - the biggest peak corresponds directly with the 460nm Royal Blue LEDs.

IMO dimming is more important if you don't have a really deep tank. I went with the Radion Pro and if I put that at 100% even my most light loving SPS would fry in my 16" deep tank. In fact, even at only 30%, my acans need to be on the sand in the corners of the tank to survive - even with 3 months of acclimatization.

Take a look at the new AI Hydras - they are full spectrum, really cheap, and from what I have read really nice. Additionally, look at the R420r, they are a little more pricy, but they are middle of the road. If you have the money to spend, take a look at the Radion G2s or Radion Pros. They are awesome.

Edit: Forgot to say - I went with the Radion Pros which are full spectrum. While you don't need full spectrum, they look much better than the RB/B/W combo and give you much more options with color. Also, UV is absolutely amazing!

Okay then I'm leaning towards needing a dimmable one bc I have a 20long

 

[scsdukefan408]

this is what im looking at getting DM-132e - Reef Radiance

 

[Zero Nitrates]

LED's are awesome. I switched about 6 months ago. I went with vertex illumina. I really like the ability to program the lights. I started at 50% and have slowly increased the strength to 70%. Not sure how high I will go, have to see how the coral react. I read about the LED's you are looking at. I think you will be very satisfied with the switch.

 

[jedimasterben]

I recently went LEDs about 3 months ago and they are very different from T5s. No, you dont NEED anything besides RB/B/W - they will grow coral just fine. Additional colors will certainly help - but they aren't required. Take a look at where photosynthesis happens and where the peaks are - the biggest peak corresponds directly with the 460nm Royal Blue LEDs.

This is not correct. The peak for chlorophyll a is 428nm, the shoulder is at 662nm. The peak for chlorophyll c is 448nm, shoulder at 634nm. Chlorophyll a is present in about 10x the concentration as chlorophyll c. Chlorophyll b is present only in plants and higher-order macroalgaes and is NOT present in coral. Peridinin is able to absorb a lot of the energy we waste by giving 450-480nm light and transferring up to 95% of that directly to chlorophyll a through PCP.


To the OP, make sure that whatever fixture you use either does NOT use cool white LEDs, or has a 50/50 mixture of cool white and warm white, otherwise you'll lose color rendition of some corals (specifically reds).

 

[scsdukefan408]

Well I went ahead and pulled the trigger on those 132e LEDs...I really appreciate everyone's input made making the decision awhile lot easier

 

[redtop03]

the DM132e white channel has neutral 6500k white LEDs combined with red, green, and yellow/warm white then the blue channel has the royal blue and UV, the coral colors look great under 'em

here they are on the left side in my tank, compared to the 250w 14k Phoenix halides on the right, the LED side looks a lot better to me and so far the coral are loving 'em

 

[jedimasterben]

the DM132e white channel has neutral 6500k white LEDs combined with red, green, and yellow/warm white then the blue channel has the royal blue and UV, the coral colors look great under 'em

here they are on the left side in my tank, compared to the 250w 14k Phoenix halides on the right, the LED side looks a lot better to me and so far the coral are loving 'em

6500K is a cool white - and since they're using knockoff LEDs, they're usually much cooler than they're rated for. Neutral white will be in the 4000-4500K range. As long as it has around 50/50 with a true warm white ('yellow', aka amber, isn't warm white) it is ok. Red, green (not cyan, which is different), and yellow are wholly unnecessary and were only added to mimic the Radion Pro (which itself fails in its mimicry of the DIY community).

 

[jservedio]

This is not correct. The peak for chlorophyll a is 428nm, the shoulder is at 662nm. The peak for chlorophyll c is 448nm, shoulder at 634nm. Chlorophyll a is present in about 10x the concentration as chlorophyll c. Chlorophyll b is present only in plants and higher-order macroalgaes and is NOT present in coral. Peridinin is able to absorb a lot of the energy we waste by giving 450-480nm light and transferring up to 95% of that directly to chlorophyll a through PCP.


To the OP, make sure that whatever fixture you use either does NOT use cool white LEDs, or has a 50/50 mixture of cool white and warm white, otherwise you'll lose color rendition of some corals (specifically reds).

I stand corrected - Thank you very much!

I didn't know the ratio of Chlorophyll A and C, and lack of B in corals! I read in so many places that 460nm was the most important wavelength for corals (so I assumed, apparently wrongly, it was mostly chlorophyll b!). Thanks for that information. After hearing what you said about chlorophyll a, I feel MUCH better about going with the Radion Pro which has UV @ 402nm and Violet @ 420nm and provides a heck of a lot of power at those wavelengths.

You would think with corals primarily using chlorophyll a, most LED Lighting would be using Violet and/or Indigo diodes instead of (or in addition to) Royal Blue? I would definitely like to hear more about this. Though I guess if Peidinin is only wasting about 5% of the energy, RB lighting is still really effective (as it seems form all the successful aquariums using only RB/B/W LEDs)?

 

[Bluewater04]

I use blue royal blue warm white and cool white only and corals love it

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[jedimasterben]

I stand corrected - Thank you very much!

I didn't know the ratio of Chlorophyll A and C, and lack of B in corals! I read in so many places that 460nm was the most important wavelength for corals (so I assumed, apparently wrongly, it was mostly chlorophyll b!). Thanks for that information. After hearing what you said about chlorophyll a, I feel MUCH better about going with the Radion Pro which has UV @ 402nm and Violet @ 420nm and provides a heck of a lot of power at those wavelengths.

You'd be surprised at how many manufacturers still push chlorophyll b, despite it having been known since the 1960's (see here for more info on that: http://www.biolbull.org/content/135/1/149.full.pdf , and my sticky on it here: https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/eq...0170-lighting-spectra-photosynthesis-you.html ).

The Radion Pro provides a bit of violet light, but not as much as I would use (at least double, preferably triple over the same footprint).

You would think with corals primarily using chlorophyll a, most LED Lighting would be using Violet and/or Indigo diodes instead of (or in addition to) Royal Blue? I would definitely like to hear more about this. Though I guess if Peidinin is only wasting about 5% of the energy, RB lighting is still really effective (as it seems form all the successful aquariums using only RB/B/W LEDs)?

The only issue with violet LEDs is that not only are they still not cost effective for the true high-output chips (over 700mW in my book). In a perfect world, you'd have violet light be equal to royal blue light, but to get that, the cost is very high. A royal blue Cree XT-E or Luxeon Rebel ES at their most common current of 1000mA consume 3 watts of power and produce around 1600mW (1.6 watts) of light, costing around $3 each. The highest output violet LEDs consume around 2.5 watts of power at 700mA, and emit around 920mW (0.92 watts) of light. For a 'standard' 75g tank, the amount of royal blue LEDs (XT-E or Rebel ES) I recommend is 24 at 1000mA, so that would put the optical power at around 38.4 watts (72 watts consumed) and would cost around $75. To get the same amount of violet light, you'd need around 42x LEDs at 920mW each (100 watts consumed), costing around $190. That being said - violet LEDs are absolute PAR monsters. I measured the PAR from 14x LEDs (920mW output each) using 60 degree lenses at 233 PAR (corrected via Apogee's sensor response curve) - at a distance of 28". With PAR that high, you could reduce the amount of neutral white and royal blue LEDs needed to reach the PAR you require, otherwise you might start frying stuff or let corals reach photoinhibition, which nobody wants.

By my calculations, the Radion Pro should have about 4 watts of radiant output power across its eight violet LEDs, as Ecotech does not use top-tier bins of LEDs, unlike their price tag would lead you to assume. The use of red, green, and 'yellow' (amber) LEDs is simply superfluous to using high quality white LEDs to begin with, and the end user ends up paying more because of it (and still having a light that does not look nearly as great as any based on a high quality neutral white). If you use it to cover a 24"x24" cube tank, that's around 11 watts per square meter of violet light - corals in the wild receive over 50 watts per square meter of violet light at 45 feet depth! Imagine how many of the Radion's violets it would take to get THAT much light

 

[johnanddawn]

I have been running a DIY led for three years now. I have about a 3-2 royal blue to cool white only and no dimmers - I have multiple circuits that I run with timers and only have the whole thing going for about three hours of noon day light which is plenty on my system.
I have sps, lps, and zoas of a multitude of colors and great growth.
I disagree with anyone who says you need red, green or amber LEDs. These people simple don't understand what "white" light is.
Now there is some discussion to be had about warm white vs cool white but IMO cool white has worked for me and there is nothing like the proof of a flourishing tank. I do understand that side of the discussion though.

Now I have precise binned Cree LEDs not the random ones you get in a cheap fixture so it does make a difference. I also have ripple wide optics that is also important that few talk about.

But onto your question:

If your looking a buying a fixture the reef breeder units are nice ( they are "full spectrum") and reasonably priced and with such a small tank you will need to dim.
If your looking to DIY check out reefledlights.com - bill will hook you up with a nice build.

 

[jedimasterben]

I have been running a DIY led for three years now. I have about a 3-2 royal blue to cool white only and no dimmers - I have multiple circuits that I run with timers and only have the whole thing going for about three hours of noon day light which is plenty on my system.
I have sps, lps, and zoas of a multitude of colors and great growth.
I disagree with anyone who says you need red, green or amber LEDs. These people simple don't understand what "white" light is.
Now there is some discussion to be had about warm white vs cool white but IMO cool white has worked for me and there is nothing like the proof of a flourishing tank. I do understand that side of the discussion though.

Now I have precise binned Cree LEDs not the random ones you get in a cheap fixture so it does make a difference. I also have ripple wide optics that is also important that few talk about.

The phosphor powering your 'precise binned LEDs' were designed to light parking lots and shopping centers in a very unprecise way, keep that in mind. Cree bins their LEDs for a certain similar Kelvin temperature - not spectrum. Just because they are 'white' doesn't mean anything. You can make white light with a tiny bit of blue, and a bucketload of green and red and get the same 7500K that your LEDs are, with a VERY different look over coral. Or you could do a ton of red, a little green, and a lot of blue and get the same look and color temp.

A lot of people don't understand what I'm trying to say. Growth and full non-fluorescent color are two very, very different things.

Do you have any non-fluorescent red corals? By that I mean red corals that you can only see when your white LEDs are on. If you can see any color when only blue LEDs are on, then those are fluorescent colors, all non-fluorescent colors will be grey or black.

 

[jservedio]

By my calculations, the Radion Pro should have about 4 watts of radiant output power across its eight violet LEDs, as Ecotech does not use top-tier bins of LEDs, unlike their price tag would lead you to assume. The use of red, green, and 'yellow' (amber) LEDs is simply superfluous to using high quality white LEDs to begin with, and the end user ends up paying more because of it (and still having a light that does not look nearly as great as any based on a high quality neutral white). If you use it to cover a 24"x24" cube tank, that's around 11 watts per square meter of violet light - corals in the wild receive over 50 watts per square meter of violet light at 45 feet depth! Imagine how many of the Radion's violets it would take to get THAT much light

Yeah, I really wish they had dropped the Red, Green and Amber from the Pro and went with neutral or soft white while doubling up on the Violet and UV in their place. Luckily for me, I am only lighting a 20g tall tank with that beast, so it is only at around 35% total output and I don't plan on going much higher (if any). I can crank up the Violet/UV channels WAY up in comparison to the rest so I am only using 10-30% of the other channels, but 80-100% of the Violet/UV channels - which would act as if I have FAR more violet and UV LEDs than the fixture actually has.

I will definitely check out your thread about lighting. I wonder if manufacturers are pushing chlorophyll b because of how cheap/easy to get Royal Blue LEDs are and a fixture is much easier and cheaper to make then a fixture aimed at chlorophyll a? Thanks for all the knowledge you dropped on me today - I really appreciate it.

I've read enough on lighting to know a little - but some of that stuff gets incredibly complex and I simply don't have to time to spend going through thousands of pages of physics and biology. Some day I will have the time

 

[Ron Reefman]

You don't need the time or the expertise that jedimasterben seems to have. Most current leds sold as full spectrum and with dimmers or controllers will grow corals for you just fine. From what I've read, jedimasterben is into this in a pretty serious way. But do you need all that expertise in order to pick a good led fixture and have good looking corals... absolutely not. I see a lot of what he says a being more than 90%, 95% maybe 99% of us need or care to know. Do you need to know every detail of how you car is made and what it's made of in order to drive a car? No. And do you need to know everything about light spectrum, leds and photosynthesis in order to get a light that will work just fine for your corals? No. It may be nice to know, it may be helpful to know, I appreciate that jedimasterben knows all this and is willing to share it, but it sure isn't required in order to get an led that will work just fine over your tank.

 

[jservedio]

You don't need the time or the expertise that jedimasterben seems to have. Most current leds sold as full spectrum and with dimmers or controllers will grow corals for you just fine. From what I've read, jedimasterben is into this in a pretty serious way. But do you need all that expertise in order to pick a good led fixture and have good looking corals... absolutely not. I see a lot of what he says a being more than 90%, 95% maybe 99% of us need or care to know. Do you need to know every detail of how you car is made and what it's made of in order to drive a car? No. And do you need to know everything about light spectrum, leds and photosynthesis in order to get a light that will work just fine for your corals? No. It may be nice to know, it may be helpful to know, I appreciate that jedimasterben knows all this and is willing to share it, but it sure isn't required in order to get an led that will work just fine over your tank.

I agree with this, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to what jedimasterben has to say and at least learn the basics - especially when manufacturers are spoon feeding you BS that is wrong, or at best entirely misleading (and he has the sources to back it up). A lot of manufacturers now let you chose the layout/breakdown of your LEDs and what ben is saying can make a HUGE difference in the color and growth in your corals. Why wouldn't you spend an hour or two reading a little bit about lighting when contemplating spending a boatload of money on it? Sure, most people don't know every part of their car, but before you drop $30,000 on a car, you bet your *** you spend a good amount of time learning about it, comparing it to other cars, and most importantly - Test Driving it.

Before you buy an LED test it out - look at it and make sure it is what you want. Also, for a 20g long, you MUST buy a dimmable LED unless you want a boatload of screen on the top of your tank or immediately bleached corals. My Radion pro will never go above 40% total power and that is on a taller tank then yours - 100% intensity would turn my entire tank (including probably half my acros) white in a day or two.

Look at Metal Halide and T5 fixtures as an example - the difference between a quality light with individual high quality reflectors and good ballast is night and day when compared to an ebay special: even though they are both "250w 20k Metal Halides."