So Why Should I Switch To LED Lighting? Convince me....

[FaviaFreak]

Other than the typical argument for the change over to LED from the other proven lighting schemes in the hobby ie. more cost effective, less heat, no bulb replacement for years, less energy, easier options for producing sunrise to sunset and Kelvin temps, it's greener so better for Mother Earth, fixtures have a sleeker sexier look, etc. why should I make the switch to LED?

Can anybody truly tell me they are absolutely glad they made the switch to LED because it has proven to be a better way to grow and color corals?

I get the idea behind it being more cost effective and user friendly but I'm searching for testimonials as to why? other than the obvious. With all the hype and people switching over there has to be a few of you who can make a good argument for switching

 

[BluegrassReef]

I think you answered your own question in your post....those are all great reasons to switch.

 

[FaviaFreak]

I think you answered your own question in your post....those are all great reasons to switch.

I figured I did lol but I wanted to see if there was something I was missing..Thanks

 

[spscrazy]

I got my leds in Feb. I switched from a 250w MH on my 95 36Lx24Wx24H my corals right under the mh about 1/2 way down in about a 12" circle were doing ok get any farther out of the prime area & sps wouldn't grow or get any color hammer & frogspawn did ok I was always on the search for a better bulb. after getting the led even tho I only got one not the 2 that were recommended I see much better color also put some birdnest & a millie almost to the very side of the tank about 15" down & they are coloring up pretty good I had a ricorda that was sorta a muddy red that I've had for over year it's on the sandbed about 3" from the front about in the center it is now a beautiful orange & yellow with a neon green mouth. I got mine from Luke very happy with it & the color it's more a purple tone rather than the heavy blue

 

[gar732]

A lot of people seem to have different experiences with LEDs and I'm sure yo will get a mix of people saying they are great and that they suck. In the end I think you will have to take a leap of faith and see I they work for you. A buddy of mine has had good results with LEDs so I tried them over my frag tank. It's been six months now and I've had some corals color up like never before, I also have some corals that looked better under T5s. I have some corals that have had very little growth under T5 and are taking off now under LEDs. Although its possible that placement can be affecting the corals that are not responding well. All in all my experience has been positive enough for me to want to put LEDs over my display however I will be running a couple of T5s along with the LEDs. The most important thing I believe is to start off with a low power level on the LEDs and bring it up very slowly. I've had no problems with burned corals at all doing it the way I did. Good luck and be sure to let us know what you decide.

 

[jaytizzle]

If you have to be convinced, don't do it. It really is as simple as that.

Have you seen LED systems in person? If you're not impressed by them on other peoples' tanks, you won't be impressed with them on your own. Don't bother making the switch unless you know that is what you want.

That being said, I have LEDs on all of my 3 tanks. Chinese boxes (like most everyone else) on two of them and a full Cree DIY on the third one. The Cree system absolutely BLOWS away the cheap Chinese boxes and I really didn't spend that much more ($300 +/- on the 120W box vs. $500 on my Cree with all bells and whistles including dimmable drivers, solderless connectors, sexy black anodized heatsink, XP-E Blue and Royal Blue and XM-L White diodes to make three adjustable color channels, etc.). I've done the math and I will be selling two of the 120W boxes near the end of the year and replacing with DIY fixtures as I can build what I need for under $600 for a 4' long 120g tank.

 

[FaviaFreak]

I got my leds in Feb. I switched from a 250w MH on my 95 36Lx24Wx24H my corals right under the mh about 1/2 way down in about a 12" circle were doing ok get any farther out of the prime area & sps wouldn't grow or get any color hammer & frogspawn did ok I was always on the search for a better bulb. after getting the led even tho I only got one not the 2 that were recommended I see much better color also put some birdnest & a millie almost to the very side of the tank about 15" down & they are coloring up pretty good I had a ricorda that was sorta a muddy red that I've had for over year it's on the sandbed about 3" from the front about in the center it is now a beautiful orange & yellow with a neon green mouth. I got mine from Luke very happy with it & the color it's more a purple tone rather than the heavy blue

Thanks for your input!and congrats on the success with using the LEDs

A lot of people seem to have different experiences with LEDs and I'm sure yo will get a mix of people saying they are great and that they suck. In the end I think you will have to take a leap of faith and see I they work for you. A buddy of mine has had good results with LEDs so I tried them over my frag tank. It's been six months now and I've had some corals color up like never before, I also have some corals that looked better under T5s. I have some corals that have had very little growth under T5 and are taking off now under LEDs. Although its possible that placement can be affecting the corals that are not responding well. All in all my experience has been positive enough for me to want to put LEDs over my display however I will be running a couple of T5s along with the LEDs. The most important thing I believe is to start off with a low power level on the LEDs and bring it up very slowly. I've had no problems with burned corals at all doing it the way I did. Good luck and be sure to let us know what you decide.

Yeah, I'm old school pre MH days so I wanna make sure the technology is advanced enough to get the results, when I worked at Unique Corals we had experience with the first gen LED systems coming out and I was not impressed at all, I know that was 2+ years ago and things are advanced but how far..Thanks for the input

 

[GR808]

I've been happy with my DIY Cree LED setup and besides what u have mentioned as far as benefits, I u DIY u can change emmitter color setups very easily. for example if your not happy with the common setup of just royal blue and cool whites u can add more of one or the other and even throw some reds or greens in ther as well. Alot more flexibility is apparent with DIY fixtures.

 

[Snprhed]

I have both. Multiple halides, Sol blues, a chinese box etc. I think lps grow really nicely under LED's and they have all those great benefits. Even my ORA purple stylo looks good and is growing like a weed. However if it requires any more light then that I'd personally stick with the MH

 

[FaviaFreak]

If you have to be convinced, don't do it. It really is as simple as that.

Have you seen LED systems in person? If you're not impressed by them on other peoples' tanks, you won't be impressed with them on your own. Don't bother making the switch unless you know that is what you want.

That being said, I have LEDs on all of my 3 tanks. Chinese boxes (like most everyone else) on two of them and a full Cree DIY on the third one. The Cree system absolutely BLOWS away the cheap Chinese boxes and I really didn't spend that much more ($300 +/- on the 120W box vs. $500 on my Cree with all bells and whistles including dimmable drivers, solderless connectors, sexy black anodized heatsink, XP-E Blue and Royal Blue and XM-L White diodes to make three adjustable color channels, etc.). I've done the math and I will be selling two of the 120W boxes near the end of the year and replacing with DIY fixtures as I can build what I need for under $600 for a 4' long 120g tank.

I worked at Manhattan Aquariums/Unique Corals in NYC when the first wave of LED fixtures and strips were coming out and we used them over our display tanks but I wasn't impressed at all, that was about 2.5 years ago so I know technology wise things are a bit different now and I am more intrigued by the programmable photoperiods more than anything

I've been happy with my DIY Cree LED setup and besides what u have mentioned as far as benefits, I u DIY u can change emmitter color setups very easily. for example if your not happy with the common setup of just royal blue and cool whites u can add more of one or the other and even throw some reds or greens in ther as well. Alot more flexibility is apparent with DIY fixtures.

Thanks for your input, you make a some great points

I have both. Multiple halides, Sol blues, a chinese box etc. I think lps grow really nicely under LED's and they have all those great benefits. Even my ORA purple stylo looks good and is growing like a weed. However if it requires any more light then that I'd personally stick with the MH

Thanks!

 

[ReefMP]

I'm planning an upgrade and the plan was to upgrade my T5 lighting to LEDs as the primary with a few T5s supplemental bulbs....so I decided to run some tests on a smaller scale before emptying my pocket on LEDs


The tests were performed with 3 small tanks (they were about 12" tall, all plumbed to my main system sump so parms were the same).

• I fragged corals (SPS, LPS & softies) from my main tank, I tried to start with same size frags.
• On 1 tank, I ran a BoostLED PAR30 bulb. On another tank I ran a diy CREE XR-E setup. On the 3rd tank a Ecoxotic PAR38 bulb.
• All frags were placed at the same approximate height in the tanks
• I also placed similar sized frags in my main display tank under my T5 lighting (mostly ATI bulbs)
• After my ~8 months experiment, I found that:
  • SPS colored up better under the CREEs
  • Soft corals results were pretty much the same across the board
  • SPS initially gained color but then browned out under the PAR30 and PAR38 bulbs with minimal growth after about 6 months, LPS seemed to do OK
  • Almost 50 '%' more growth under my T5s, but colors weren't as bright as under the CREE LEDs
  • I don't think the LED shimmer is as cool as MH shimmer, for me it's too busy
  • I can't seem to get great pics under LEDs, they all seem to come out too blue or too white (maybe I just suck at photography)

From the results of my little experiment and the corals I keep, I decided to stick with T5's as my primary with supplemental LED for my upgrade.....at least for now.

I think you'll get mixed reviews on this. I'm hoping to see responses from reefers that have been using LEDs for a year or more. Good luck.

 

[GR808]

Great test... I think you did everything you were supposed to do when testing different lighting techniques..
one question, did you have fresh cut frags in your main tank to compare with as the ones in the test tanks?

 

[diane21]

The key strength of led lights is reduced power consumption. When designed properly, an LED circuit will approach 80% efficiency, which means 80% of the electrical energy is converted to light energy. The remaining 20% is lost as heat energy.

 

[FaviaFreak]

I'm planning an upgrade and the plan was to upgrade my T5 lighting to LEDs as the primary with a few T5s supplemental bulbs....so I decided to run some tests on a smaller scale before emptying my pocket on LEDs


The tests were performed with 3 small tanks (they were about 12" tall, all plumbed to my main system sump so parms were the same).

• I fragged corals (SPS, LPS & softies) from my main tank, I tried to start with same size frags.
• On 1 tank, I ran a BoostLED PAR30 bulb. On another tank I ran a diy CREE XR-E setup. On the 3rd tank a Ecoxotic PAR38 bulb.
• All frags were placed at the same approximate height in the tanks
• I also placed similar sized frags in my main display tank under my T5 lighting (mostly ATI bulbs)
• After my ~8 months experiment, I found that:
  • SPS colored up better under the CREEs
  • Soft corals results were pretty much the same across the board
  • SPS initially gained color but then browned out under the PAR30 and PAR38 bulbs with minimal growth after about 6 months, LPS seemed to do OK
  • Almost 50 '%' more growth under my T5s, but colors weren't as bright as under the CREE LEDs
  • I don't think the LED shimmer is as cool as MH shimmer, for me it's too busy
  • I can't seem to get great pics under LEDs, they all seem to come out too blue or too white (maybe I just suck at photography)

From the results of my little experiment and the corals I keep, I decided to stick with T5's as my primary with supplemental LED for my upgrade.....at least for now.

I think you'll get mixed reviews on this. I'm hoping to see responses from reefers that have been using LEDs for a year or more. Good luck.

That is a great test! thanks for sharing your information it's much appreciated

 

[Onedesign1]

I'm planning an upgrade and the plan was to upgrade my T5 lighting to LEDs as the primary with a few T5s supplemental bulbs....so I decided to run some tests on a smaller scale before emptying my pocket on LEDs


The tests were performed with 3 small tanks (they were about 12" tall, all plumbed to my main system sump so parms were the same).

• I fragged corals (SPS, LPS & softies) from my main tank, I tried to start with same size frags.
• On 1 tank, I ran a BoostLED PAR30 bulb. On another tank I ran a diy CREE XR-E setup. On the 3rd tank a Ecoxotic PAR38 bulb.
• All frags were placed at the same approximate height in the tanks
• I also placed similar sized frags in my main display tank under my T5 lighting (mostly ATI bulbs)
• After my ~8 months experiment, I found that:
  • SPS colored up better under the CREEs
  • Soft corals results were pretty much the same across the board
  • SPS initially gained color but then browned out under the PAR30 and PAR38 bulbs with minimal growth after about 6 months, LPS seemed to do OK
  • Almost 50 '%' more growth under my T5s, but colors weren't as bright as under the CREE LEDs
  • I don't think the LED shimmer is as cool as MH shimmer, for me it's too busy
  • I can't seem to get great pics under LEDs, they all seem to come out too blue or too white (maybe I just suck at photography)

From the results of my little experiment and the corals I keep, I decided to stick with T5's as my primary with supplemental LED for my upgrade.....at least for now.

I think you'll get mixed reviews on this. I'm hoping to see responses from reefers that have been using LEDs for a year or more. Good luck.

I agree this is a great test and thanks for sharing. I purchased a 14g cube and played with that for a little more than a year with Cree builds changing things until I was convinced you could go big with LEDs. While not as useful as your tests it was useful to determine how certain corals responded differently for me. The main thing I determined was we use way too many LEDs in our builds the other more important thing to my corals health was a more blue spectrum. Zoa's were easy but acros more picky until I cut back on total power and less whites.

What you didn't tell us is what the DIY build was comprised of, what type of XREs, ratio, how hard they were driven, etc. Your DIY also was likely much higher quality than any PAR bulb. I think the main beneficial comparison you got was a Cree build vs T5's...which is all that really matters. 3 different Cree builds with different ratio's and spectrum would have been more telling but cost prohibitive.

I built an all royal blue supplement bar for a friend who has it alongside his T5s and its working out super...though he's talking about having me build an all LED fixture for him every time he sees my tanks. I have all LEDs over my 120, my 40B frag tank, and a 29g BC and am very happy across the board.

Back to the point of this thread....the benefits are all well known but without the ones you already mentioned its a matter of preference. MH and T5s are well proven if you're not comfortable with LEDs stick with them for now and let it play out. IMO LEDs are as well but I believe not enough thought has gone into most commercial fixtures on spectrum, optics, foot print, coverage, drive current, heatsinking, etc so I always recommend DIY of you are capable or know someone who can help you.

 

[FaviaFreak]

I agree this is a great test and thanks for sharing. I purchased a 14g cube and played with that for a little more than a year with Cree builds changing things until I was convinced you could go big with LEDs. While not as useful as your tests it was useful to determine how certain corals responded differently for me. The main thing I determined was we use way too many LEDs in our builds the other more important thing to my corals health was a more blue spectrum. Zoa's were easy but acros more picky until I cut back on total power and less whites.

What you didn't tell us is what the DIY build was comprised of, what type of XREs, ratio, how hard they were driven, etc. Your DIY also was likely much higher quality than any PAR bulb. I think the main beneficial comparison you got was a Cree build vs T5's...which is all that really matters. 3 different Cree builds with different ratio's and spectrum would have been more telling but cost prohibitive.

I built an all royal blue supplement bar for a friend who has it alongside his T5s and its working out super...though he's talking about having me build an all LED fixture for him every time he sees my tanks. I have all LEDs over my 120, my 40B frag tank, and a 29g BC and am very happy across the board.

Back to the point of this thread....the benefits are all well known but without the ones you already mentioned its a matter of preference. MH and T5s are well proven if you're not comfortable with LEDs stick with them for now and let it play out. IMO LEDs are as well but I believe not enough thought has gone into most commercial fixtures on spectrum, optics, foot print, coverage, drive current, heatsinking, etc so I always recommend DIY of you are capable or know someone who can help you.

This is exactly the type of info I was looking to acquire..Thanks for your input

 

[FaviaFreak]

I know all about the benefits of using LEDs as far a economics and flexibility go but I want to hear those solid testimonials as to why they are so amazing for growing and coloring corals