LED Spotlights to keep corals?

[W.Glint]

Hey guys, i have a question!

I recently got some new lights for my tank, and im thinking its time to jump into reef keeping! I recently got (3) spotlight LED's, i believe they are 40 watts a piece, and i have one over each 50 gallon section of my tank (72'' 150g). These suckers are bright! When i plugged them in for the first time to make sure they worked, note to self: dont look right at them- i was seeing spots for a good hour! Anywho, the guy i got them from said they would sustain pretty much any type of coral in a reef tank and that they have amazing par levels, but im a little leery about that claim, so im thinking i should stay on the safe side and start with some low light-needing corals and work my way up. Any suggestions?

Theres' also a possibility that i may be getting (2) 48'' quad bulb T5HO fixtures on the cheep that i would add on each end of the tank, and then overlapping by 2 feet in the middle. (6 foot tank)

I guess the real question is: what would be some good corals for me to start out with to...um....'test' my lighting and tank!

I should also note that the only place near me that carries any decent coral is a guy who is super unorginized so nothing is really labeled in his holding tanks (beautiful fish and corals, but the guy has no sense of making it easy on his customers), so most of the stuff i get, i get offline.

Tank Details:

150g Oceanic glass tank
150-170lbs live rock, 50-60 lbs live sand (additional 40lbs of rubble in the fuge)
20g sump with filtersocks changed every week
20g remote refugium with cheato
MRC MR2 skimmer in sump
Mag 12 return pump
(3) 40 watt LED Spotlight (supposed to be equal to 150 W MH )
(2) 1200gph powerheads (grand total flow, around 3000gph)


Tank inhabitants:

(1) 5'' yellow tang
(1) 7'' Blue Throat Trigger (model citizen)
(3) Green Cromis
(3) 2 striped damsels
(1) Devil damsel
(1) scissor tail Goby
(1) Firefish Goby
assorted snails, hermits
(1) Serpant Sea Star
(1) Emerald Crab

Param's:
Nitrate: 10-20 (depending on how recent the bi weekly water change is )
Ammo/nitrite: 0
Temp: usually right at 80, fluctuates up or down a degree if the plasma screen is on (Tank is in the movie room)
Salinity: .026, give or take .001. ( i dont have a refractometer as i most certainly should)

Apologies for being so long winded, any help is greatly welcome :help:

 

[fort384]

Start with some mushrooms and some cheap zoas or palys. Do you have a link to these lights so we can check them out? Sounds interesting. I would be concerned about spotlighting, if these lights are spot lights - that is you will have 3 distinct small areas where you can grow coral in the tank, but may not be able to support coral out of those small areas. How high did you mount the lights above the water line?

 

[W.Glint]

I got them on ebay, but i found out about them on a thread here on the forum...let me see...https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/le...awesome-new-light-emitting-diodess-check.html

I have mine sitting on eggcrate about 3-4 inches off the water. they guy who sells them on ebay has them over his tank and claims he gets amazing results. And apparently the reflectors do a pretty good job at distributing the light in a 120 degree cone. ( I can only tell where the light is actually coming from in my tank from just from seeing the beams of light at the very top where they are visible on a few micro bubbles, besides that i seem to have pretty good light distribution with 3 of them )

 

[fort384]

Sounds cool. I will check em out.