SPS and LED - Can they be a show stopper?

[1979fishgeek]

I run mixed reef of sps, lps and softies. Use LED and a halide, its nearly 700w in total but I don't run them all the time together. The halide is only on 2 hours at high noon. Ai Hydra + Kessil on for 8 hours and have 2 ai sols and a cheap Chinese black box on for 4 hours. Get good growth with the combo.

 

[Bbaz123456]

BOOM! ! Is right

 

[Bbaz123456]

Wow, that is amazing!

I find this topic so confusing. I see so many comments that say LED's aren't enough. Then I see a ton of comments saying that LED's being set too brightly washes out corals. My brain can't comprehend how both could be possible yet I see it in thread after thread.

I am trying to convince myself that the difference in opinion has to do with the depth of the tank but even that doesn't seem to always hold true.

Leds are more than enough to grow any coral. Led + t5's =better

 

[Bbaz123456]

And if you really want to get silly go with led+t5+halide= (maybe the best...idk) but you will definitely have all your bases covered. Certainly not necessary, but could be great if done right

 

[Elleuckyreefs]

Running all led. One reefbreeders photon24 and one ocean revive.

 

[seastar]

Running all led. One reefbreeders photon24 and one ocean revive.

Great looking reef there! Are you seeing better color or growth out of one or the other?

 

[Elleuckyreefs]

I'd say that the light that gives off the most appealing color would be the photon but better growth with the ocean revive. Though origionally had photon as sole lighting and it did pretty well with coloring up acros and growing all types of birdsnest and monti.

 

[Acro maniac]

Here's a top down of mine before I rescaped and fragged all the corals. All Rapid led, with no lenses. I found better spread without the lenses.

 

[Acro maniac]

My new reef has many more acros and less monti's, birdnests and lps.
Also everything was grown from 1-2" frags.
90g DT incase you were wondering

 

[ECreefer]

If nobody has mentioned it yet, check out @Reefnjunkie
Amazing example of what cheap value fixtures can do.

He has a few threads of his collection and then a build thread as well.
Highly recommend

 

[Acro maniac]

Imo color has more to do with water quality then lighting. I have seen a red plant acro go from a bright pink with burgundy polyps and deep green base, to rich burgundy with red polyps and a pistachio base. All due to nutrients, lmo I'm not sure witch version I liked better.
Fwiw I have a couple of ora pieces that are grown in shallow bins under sunlight that have maintained excellent color with led

 

[Knapp870]

How is this even a discussion?! LED's are proven and have been for a long time. I actually achieved huge color shift changes (in a positive direction) when I switched from Halide (radiums) to fairly cheap full spectrum LED's. People have problems when they try to run either cheap marineland LED's (not enough power) or CREE's or other high wattage LED at too high an intensity or do not acclimate their corals (bleach out). I run 2 LED fixtures over my 48" 75 gallon system and the full spectrums never go above about 50% whereas the blues go up around 100. In my 40 gallon frag tank I run the whites at like 20%.

 

[ShawnSaucier]

I just recently added 5 Radion XR15w pros to my tank 4 weeks ago. I was using an ATI Powermodule LED Hybrid that broke after 3 years. The tank is 60"X 30"X 24" with the lights 14" above the waterline running at 50%. I'm hoping this should be enough coverage. I will say that the tank does look dimmer, but I know the light is more focused. And after a month, I have not seen any abnormal changes as of yet

 

[seastar]

How is this even a discussion?! LED's are proven and have been for a long time. I actually achieved huge color shift changes (in a positive direction) when I switched from Halide (radiums) to fairly cheap full spectrum LED's. People have problems when they try to run either cheap marineland LED's (not enough power) or CREE's or other high wattage LED at too high an intensity or do not acclimate their corals (bleach out). I run 2 LED fixtures over my 48" 75 gallon system and the full spectrums never go above about 50% whereas the blues go up around 100. In my 40 gallon frag tank I run the whites at like 20%.

Some helpful notes in there for sure. Original question was just for people to share their successful images because there are so many people that argue the opposite. I'm about to go all in on LEDs.

 

[Knapp870]

Good choice! This was a fairly similar thread that also showed successful LED growth.


https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/black-box-led-sps-tank-where-is-the-success.261893/

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I just recently added 5 Radion XR15w pros to my tank 4 weeks ago. I was using an ATI Powermodule LED Hybrid that broke after 3 years. The tank is 60"X 30"X 24" with the lights 14" above the waterline running at 50%. I'm hoping this should be enough coverage. I will say that the tank does look dimmer, but I know the light is more focused. And after a month, I have not seen any abnormal changes as of yet

You can chek with a par or lux meter. Percent is just guessing

 

[Vaughn17]

BOOM! ! Is right

Yeah, Squamosa's BOOM broke the sound barrier!

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Yeah, Squamosa's BOOM broke the sound barrier!

Ban hammer! A jealous jealous petty ban hammer.

 

[Payson]

All this negative talk on other threads about 'pop' when we should really be talking about 'BOOOM'

But seriously, here's a shot of my system under Radion Gen 3 Pro's and 4 x 54W T5 supplements!

Excuse the dirty glass

I dont even know where to start with the complements on this tank, stunning. I am building out an acro tank and am trying to get some leads on blue acros. You have a georgous blue in the back center of your tank. I dont mean to ambush you on here im new to the forums, any advise on how to get a frag of something with that deep true blue?