LED vs. MH
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ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
Ok the Pics are the proof. Both 3 watt, 5 watt and 1 watt LEDs will grow coral. All you need is to hit the right spectrum.
Once you have the grow spectrum covered the rest is looks and efficiency.
I won't go into looks because that can be rather subjective...Ginger vs Mary Ann or Blonds vs Red Heads....Everyones tastes very.
Efficiency is easier to compare.
The Cree 3 watt XP-E R3 driven at 350mA or a bit more than 1 watt produces 122 flux (lm).
When driven at 700mA or a bit more than 2 watts it produces appx. 222 flux (lm).
The harder you drive LEDs the less efficient they become. The sweet spot in this case happens to be around 600-700mA as its only a little less efficient and almost twice as bright. At this point the difference is heat. If you drive this LED harder than 700mA you will get a little more light and a lot more heat. In some cases this heat will start reducing the light output and driving hard becomes counter productive.
Generally 1 watt LEDs produce less Lumins or PAR per watt and generate a lot more heat based on their light output. Other differences are a less efficient thermal transfer between the LED and the mounting star or circuit board. This will reduce the life which is why many are rated at 20,000 hours not 50,000 hours.
Many manufacturers still use 1 watt LEDs for 3 major reasons...They work, they are cheap and their fixtures were UL listed and patented with them several years ago. To say 1 watt LEDs are more efficient would be misrepresenting the facts with out a direct comparison of total watts consumed and total light or PAR output.
Bill
Once you have the grow spectrum covered the rest is looks and efficiency.
I won't go into looks because that can be rather subjective...Ginger vs Mary Ann or Blonds vs Red Heads....Everyones tastes very.
Efficiency is easier to compare.
The Cree 3 watt XP-E R3 driven at 350mA or a bit more than 1 watt produces 122 flux (lm).
When driven at 700mA or a bit more than 2 watts it produces appx. 222 flux (lm).
The harder you drive LEDs the less efficient they become. The sweet spot in this case happens to be around 600-700mA as its only a little less efficient and almost twice as bright. At this point the difference is heat. If you drive this LED harder than 700mA you will get a little more light and a lot more heat. In some cases this heat will start reducing the light output and driving hard becomes counter productive.
Generally 1 watt LEDs produce less Lumins or PAR per watt and generate a lot more heat based on their light output. Other differences are a less efficient thermal transfer between the LED and the mounting star or circuit board. This will reduce the life which is why many are rated at 20,000 hours not 50,000 hours.
Many manufacturers still use 1 watt LEDs for 3 major reasons...They work, they are cheap and their fixtures were UL listed and patented with them several years ago. To say 1 watt LEDs are more efficient would be misrepresenting the facts with out a direct comparison of total watts consumed and total light or PAR output.
Bill
asmashling
Community Member
Nahh,. you are right and i know that when discussing different LED techniques, that we run in some trouble everytime.
The good point now is, that we both are convinced that LED is "better" and more efficient then the old techniques.
But it surely is true that you gain more light of a 1w LED into the water when comparing the same amount of energy on a 3w LED.
Direct comparisons of not only one manufacturer but many, are truely showing that close to everytime that you get more power into the water with the same amount of energy.
3x1w LED are always better then 1x3watt LED because most of the 3w LEDS are actually have a factor of 1.6. Compared to double the amount of horsepower in a car will not let you drive double speed (something like that)
Mounting the same amount of Energy compared to 3w LED is getting more light and more PAR/PUR down.
Also the 1w will last much longer.. because the frequency that are driving the LED (Voltage) is not that much stressing the emitters.
In fact it is true that they has to be cooled good otherwise they will not last longer.. but this is just "technique"
Sorry - it is hard for a german language guy to discuss some sort of thoughts in english..
I mean - at last: MH just sucks - more energy waisting, less PAR/Pur in the same amount of Energy, much much more Heat - i know rooms with big tanks in it where the temperature of the whole room is going down more then 30degree fahrenheit (i mean 3° celsius), and you have to change the bulbs every 6 months.
Want to drive a V8 with 4.2 liters at 8300 rpm and 450 horsepowser which is making just "wroooooooom" or driving a 450 horsepower turbocharged V4/V5 ricerocket where the noise is just coming out of the exhaust and not the motor?!
Bot are quit fast - but i think the V8 is just way more cooler and better driveable
no offense - i will prrof my words with a new tank threat the next days.. just awating my new tank..
The good point now is, that we both are convinced that LED is "better" and more efficient then the old techniques.
But it surely is true that you gain more light of a 1w LED into the water when comparing the same amount of energy on a 3w LED.
Direct comparisons of not only one manufacturer but many, are truely showing that close to everytime that you get more power into the water with the same amount of energy.
3x1w LED are always better then 1x3watt LED because most of the 3w LEDS are actually have a factor of 1.6. Compared to double the amount of horsepower in a car will not let you drive double speed (something like that)
Mounting the same amount of Energy compared to 3w LED is getting more light and more PAR/PUR down.
Also the 1w will last much longer.. because the frequency that are driving the LED (Voltage) is not that much stressing the emitters.
In fact it is true that they has to be cooled good otherwise they will not last longer.. but this is just "technique"
Sorry - it is hard for a german language guy to discuss some sort of thoughts in english..
I mean - at last: MH just sucks - more energy waisting, less PAR/Pur in the same amount of Energy, much much more Heat - i know rooms with big tanks in it where the temperature of the whole room is going down more then 30degree fahrenheit (i mean 3° celsius), and you have to change the bulbs every 6 months.
Want to drive a V8 with 4.2 liters at 8300 rpm and 450 horsepowser which is making just "wroooooooom" or driving a 450 horsepower turbocharged V4/V5 ricerocket where the noise is just coming out of the exhaust and not the motor?!
Bot are quit fast - but i think the V8 is just way more cooler and better driveable
no offense - i will prrof my words with a new tank threat the next days.. just awating my new tank..
asmashling
Community Member
The new DSB vs BB debate. Just got 2 radions ask me in a year.
your right - everyone knows that DSB and BB sucks because you cannot controll how much nitrates you want to get filtered out
Stpatrick
Well-Known Member
Ok so I had to chime in. Believe me I am no expert. All the corrals I have, started as tiny frags. Some are new frags and most I have had from tiny frags that are now mini colonies. They have been 100% under LEDS. I started out with 3 AI Sol blues back when I started my build thread. I guess it was around august. I went through many new build new tank issues along that way and I am shocked as many of my corals made it this far. Anyway, the biggest thing I have learned is that water chemistry is the #1 factor and growth and color, along with the photo period. I am running ULNS and it has been a challenge. My params are, PO4s = .00, ALK = 8, CA = 480, PH = 8 - 8.2. When I started this system I was having the hardest time getting things dialed in. I was at the point where I said I am going back to MH because my problems had to be because of the LEDs.
After having the same issues as many other led users I bought a Radion to replace one of my AI Sols as a test. After a few weeks of the Radion I didn't see much improvement, if any, in color. My corals for the most part where washed out and lacked color. After reading, more reading and even more reading I ordered some good coral amino acid, sponge power, a good bacteria and coral snow. After just one week dosing amino acids I notice a major growth spurt followed by great color. You definitely dont want to take the position of more is better when your dosing any of these. I lost a couple great corals in the process of trial and error. My becker tort colony is reduced to a frag now
.
Long story short. I am getting incredible color, for now. I am slowly starting to ramp my led power up again. I think I was starving everything because of my ULNS and blasting them with to much light from the leds. I will keep the LEDs, for now and keep dosing. Oh, I have two red planets that turn brown in my system. The minute I started using amino acids the red planet started to get it's green body back and I see signs of red polips I have yet been able to get my Garf Bonsi to color back up though.
The pictures where taken about 2-3 weeks after dosing. Color has improved a lot since then. But you can see by the pictures you can grow just about everything under LEDs. The pics suck but you can get the idea.
Thanks for listening.
After having the same issues as many other led users I bought a Radion to replace one of my AI Sols as a test. After a few weeks of the Radion I didn't see much improvement, if any, in color. My corals for the most part where washed out and lacked color. After reading, more reading and even more reading I ordered some good coral amino acid, sponge power, a good bacteria and coral snow. After just one week dosing amino acids I notice a major growth spurt followed by great color. You definitely dont want to take the position of more is better when your dosing any of these. I lost a couple great corals in the process of trial and error. My becker tort colony is reduced to a frag now
.Long story short. I am getting incredible color, for now. I am slowly starting to ramp my led power up again. I think I was starving everything because of my ULNS and blasting them with to much light from the leds. I will keep the LEDs, for now
and keep dosing. Oh, I have two red planets that turn brown in my system. The minute I started using amino acids the red planet started to get it's green body back and I see signs of red polips I have yet been able to get my Garf Bonsi to color back up though.The pictures where taken about 2-3 weeks after dosing. Color has improved a lot since then. But you can see by the pictures you can grow just about everything under LEDs. The pics suck but you can get the idea.
Thanks for listening.
ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
Asmashling
Could you be specific on which 1 watt LED will last longer and penetrates deeper than the Cree XP-E R3?
When you say the 1 watt last longer, are you claiming that there are 1 watt LEDs out there available to us that last longer than 50,000 hours and then at that point will offer at least 70% of their rated output?
Optics are a force multiplier. Of course a 1 watt LED with quality optics can offer deeper penetration than a 3 watt Cree LED without optics. I tested a fixture at 30" with out optics and the PAR was only 73 with a lot of wasted light. The same fixture with Carclo Ripple Wide Optics gave 330 PAR. Over a 4 times improvement.
Bill
Could you be specific on which 1 watt LED will last longer and penetrates deeper than the Cree XP-E R3?
When you say the 1 watt last longer, are you claiming that there are 1 watt LEDs out there available to us that last longer than 50,000 hours and then at that point will offer at least 70% of their rated output?
Optics are a force multiplier. Of course a 1 watt LED with quality optics can offer deeper penetration than a 3 watt Cree LED without optics. I tested a fixture at 30" with out optics and the PAR was only 73 with a lot of wasted light. The same fixture with Carclo Ripple Wide Optics gave 330 PAR. Over a 4 times improvement.
Bill
ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
bella127
Bins matter and AI does not bin their LEDs.
Especially with the Royal Blue, different bins will offer more brilliance or colour pop than others. The closer you can get to 450nm the better. Also a warmer Cool White may wash out some brilliance.
The Radium was my favorite MH. That with 10K XM (High Noon), T5 Actinic, some 50/50 and a fiji purple is a great look but expensive and at close if not more than double the electricity costs, heat and bulb replacement was just too expensive for my big tank.
With the right mix of LEDs you can achieve the same results but you have to DIY. This allows you to specifically choose the LEDs that have the desired spectrum spectrum.
Bill
Bins matter and AI does not bin their LEDs.
Especially with the Royal Blue, different bins will offer more brilliance or colour pop than others. The closer you can get to 450nm the better. Also a warmer Cool White may wash out some brilliance.
The Radium was my favorite MH. That with 10K XM (High Noon), T5 Actinic, some 50/50 and a fiji purple is a great look but expensive and at close if not more than double the electricity costs, heat and bulb replacement was just too expensive for my big tank.
With the right mix of LEDs you can achieve the same results but you have to DIY. This allows you to specifically choose the LEDs that have the desired spectrum spectrum.
Bill
asmashling
Community Member
Sadly no, i am just a marketing and web guy which is building up a new company with - or better "for" some people - have no idea on which LED the lamps are made of.
I know that we have LED that deliver real 18'000 and 20'000k (also 15k and under) -dimmable without the lack of pushing the lifetime lower. And 100-110 Lumen per 1 1w LED..
Also we/they did not test the Cree XP-E R3.
I don´t know if "they" are available in the states - i know that they are available here. And talking about the amount of hours is just marketing. Stresstest from a external company claimed that it will last 50k hours and above - 3w will just not. None of them. But we´ll see in 10years
And its a fact that a good 1w LED can offer 100% but you should drive them at around 90-95% otherwise you will run into some troubles.
We have 3 different and really big (for european) Zoos here - they tested those lamps for a whole year -also tested many Cree and other 3w LED driven Lamps - now every fishtank there has "our" lamps above.
you are right on this - leds are useless without the right optics. (not talking about reflecting mirrors and so on..)
but i promise you that 1w led - compared with the same energy amount in 3w will get more light down -
1w LED have the factor 1
2w LED have the Factor 1,6
3w LED have the factor 1,9-2,1
Thats industrial standard when companies are testing LEDs
brahm
Active Member
I've been happy with both. However I'm back to 100% metal halide.
I bought a nice clean LED unit for when I changed my frag tank to an LPS tank. It worked great, I was happy with it. Really fun to change to all blue and see everything fluoresce. I also did the Halide t5 combo thing over my dt for quite some time.
However with everybody switching to LED I was able to find some amazing deals on top of the line halide setups. You can find luminarc/lumenmax pendants for under a 100$, Bluewave 7 blasts are now going for around 150, even used radium bulbs for 30-60 a pop that have only been used for a couple days or a couple weeks. I believe I paid 250-300 for my current setup over my DT. Which included 2x lightly used Luminarc 3 mini Pendants, 2 raidum bulbs, and 2 ARO ballasts (all cords etc), shipped.
While they may not have the nicest look to them, I am able to cover 6' feet of tank with 3 luminarc reflectors (2 minis over the DT and soon one full size over the frag tank) all 250w radiums. I / the tank couldn't be happier. When I first switched to this setup I bleached everything. Before I was running 6 t5s, and a 250w DE pendant. The 2 Radiums in luminarc minis just blew that setup away, growth has been great and so far I've been running them on cheapie ARO ballasts. I'm hoping to soon switch to a Bluewave 7 which is the correct ballast for these bulbs as I've seen a lot of great deals for them used lately. So far the coverage is great and the par is to much for some species, I've had to lay out my corals where lower light stuff is now getting shaded by tabling species, and where I don't shade stuff I can have acros growing at the bottom of my tank. I do miss having the non point specific light but I can't justify the extra electric bill and the tank doesn't seem to mind. I only run my lights for around 6 hours a day and my electric bill is between 70-90 a month which really isn't that bad it was about 40- 60 a month w/out the tank.
The plus side for me, and I know this won't apply to a lot of you. I live in a high altitude area where it snows for 7-8 months a year so the heat from the halides keeps my place a little warmer and makes it so the heaters in the tank don't have to work as much and since our summers never get that hot I can get away with a fan alone. I run my lights from 4:30pm - 10:30pm
So while yes I do like LED's, and I'm sure eventually I will go that route I have no compelling reason to make the switch at this time. The only lighting setup I liked better then my current setup was my 400W SE Luminarc setup w/t5s or VHOs, but with a smaller tank I don't need the extra watts.
I bought a nice clean LED unit for when I changed my frag tank to an LPS tank. It worked great, I was happy with it. Really fun to change to all blue and see everything fluoresce. I also did the Halide t5 combo thing over my dt for quite some time.
However with everybody switching to LED I was able to find some amazing deals on top of the line halide setups. You can find luminarc/lumenmax pendants for under a 100$, Bluewave 7 blasts are now going for around 150, even used radium bulbs for 30-60 a pop that have only been used for a couple days or a couple weeks. I believe I paid 250-300 for my current setup over my DT. Which included 2x lightly used Luminarc 3 mini Pendants, 2 raidum bulbs, and 2 ARO ballasts (all cords etc), shipped.
While they may not have the nicest look to them, I am able to cover 6' feet of tank with 3 luminarc reflectors (2 minis over the DT and soon one full size over the frag tank) all 250w radiums. I / the tank couldn't be happier. When I first switched to this setup I bleached everything. Before I was running 6 t5s, and a 250w DE pendant. The 2 Radiums in luminarc minis just blew that setup away, growth has been great and so far I've been running them on cheapie ARO ballasts. I'm hoping to soon switch to a Bluewave 7 which is the correct ballast for these bulbs as I've seen a lot of great deals for them used lately. So far the coverage is great and the par is to much for some species, I've had to lay out my corals where lower light stuff is now getting shaded by tabling species, and where I don't shade stuff I can have acros growing at the bottom of my tank. I do miss having the non point specific light but I can't justify the extra electric bill and the tank doesn't seem to mind. I only run my lights for around 6 hours a day and my electric bill is between 70-90 a month which really isn't that bad it was about 40- 60 a month w/out the tank.
The plus side for me, and I know this won't apply to a lot of you. I live in a high altitude area where it snows for 7-8 months a year so the heat from the halides keeps my place a little warmer and makes it so the heaters in the tank don't have to work as much and since our summers never get that hot I can get away with a fan alone. I run my lights from 4:30pm - 10:30pm
So while yes I do like LED's, and I'm sure eventually I will go that route I have no compelling reason to make the switch at this time. The only lighting setup I liked better then my current setup was my 400W SE Luminarc setup w/t5s or VHOs, but with a smaller tank I don't need the extra watts.
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plasma with led suplement!!
led are color spacific wich means wou will need multiple colors of led all pointed at the same place to get the color light you need
mh are still hot, but color is nice. I live in maine and still put my tanks in the basement so I dont need a chiller for the summer
led are color spacific wich means wou will need multiple colors of led all pointed at the same place to get the color light you need
mh are still hot, but color is nice. I live in maine and still put my tanks in the basement so I dont need a chiller for the summer
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How about xmls or xtes? Arent they supposed to have a wider spectrum?
Chancereef
Active Member
my friend and i are testing it out with AIs leds on his and ATI t5s on my tank his polyps look pretty good but the sps browned out fast my t5s with the same stuff (we cut from my colony) still look nice i still may go back to MH cause of the color loss i had in t5s not much but noticeable
+1 and sounds like you started too intense
ca2or
Valuable Member
Raise or dim light if possible. Shorten schedule to like 4 hours and slowly build....or put something over the top....like lids to break up some of the light.
I can't do any of these except the schedule...put I do have lower light areas on the far sides of my tank where all new additions that are not from LED go.
I can't do any of these except the schedule...put I do have lower light areas on the far sides of my tank where all new additions that are not from LED go.
ReefLEDLights
Valuable Member
I really like this schedule of lighting. The Pic is from Fossa & Nilsen.
Having 400 PAR for 12-14 hours is not as productive as this is the natural intensity of light.
Multiple drivers on timers or a controller can achieve this.
With a controller Like an APEX or Profilux you can program this and also set intensity for acclimation.
Bill
Having 400 PAR for 12-14 hours is not as productive as this is the natural intensity of light.
Multiple drivers on timers or a controller can achieve this.
With a controller Like an APEX or Profilux you can program this and also set intensity for acclimation.
Bill
