Who is running a BB LED

[Tft12]

@BoomCorals thanks a lot for such a detailed response. Since I don’t have any heat issues in my basement I have been considering MH/T5 in addition to BB LED. You, @redfishbluefish, and @happyhourhero provide some great info for consideration.

So that I don’t accidentally derail the thread, I’ll start a new one to get your input on preferred MH/T5 combos and fixtures, etc.

 

[domination2580]

Sb all the way. You can't just limit growth to lighting. You have to consider the parameters. Higher alk with higher nutrients got me extreme rapid growth.... as in anemones split, my zoas doubled in about 2 to 3 weeks, birdsnest grew so fast I was taking about 10 to 15 frags to lfs a month....I've had t12 when I first started....then got on the sb bandwagon when they first appeared and haven't looked back.

 

[ReefInskeep]

The major deficiency with LED lighting now seems to be spread/distribution. In all other areas, spectrum, available PAR, efficiency & controllability, they’re hard to beat. But light spread/distribution & maybe even color mixing seems to be a huge factor with supremely successful SPS tanks.

The Orphek Atlantic V4 seems to be close to ideal right now as far as widely available LEDs. But they ain’t cheap. Radions with the diffusers seem to be pretty solid. But you need a lot of them over larger tanks to achieve the even light distribution.

I don’t get why more companies aren’t trying larger panels with lots of diffused LED light, like LaniLED, LupyLED, or Phillips CoralCare. Those seem like they’d be game changers if they were made significantly more affordable and were distributed more widely.

 

[EW_Fish]

The thing is I can buy a BB unit and run retro t5s and still come out cheaper then any other LED unit and have the best of both worlds. I have the money for any LED unit but I feel that it is wasteful to spend money on something you really don't need.

 

[dantimdad]

The thing is I can buy a BB unit and run retro t5s and still come out cheaper then any other LED unit and have the best of both worlds. I have the money for any LED unit but I feel that it is wasteful to spend money on something you really don't need.

This has to be one of the wisest statements ever on any forum!

Thank you for saying it .

 

[madweazl]

My only complaints with the panel type LEDs is that they largely look like fluorescent lighting when being viewed; what I mean by this is that they generally have little shimmer so you get that T5 look (and some disco-ball unless they're mounted pretty high). Adding T5s mutes what little shimmer they create even more. If you like shimmer and plan on augmenting/supplementing with T5s, perhaps a more point/puck source LED would be desirable (Hydra26, Radion XR15, Kessil, etc. like designs)?

Just something else to consider.

 

[JRAD]

Please excuse my ignorance but what does BB stand for? Bare Bones? Bargain Basement? Bubble Butt?

 

[jda]

Black Box, or generic ever-brand-changing Chinese LEDs.

I do not use BB, nor have I spent so much money on other LEDs that I feel like I have to justify my purchase by bashing a BB to make myself feel better. My general opinion is that they are OK and an give you fine results, but you will have a ceiling. I have only ever seen one or two outstanding tanks with black boxes and they were recently switched over. The general tank that I see with them and happy owners is a mixed reef that might be SPS dominant, but most of those SPS are Montis, Birdsnest, Poci and Stylos along with some stags and easier acropora... or young tanks with frags that have no encrusted the plugs. I have never seen a reef anywhere near Ed's, Copps, etc. with them. I put that ceiling at about 75% of what you can do with other lights. Considering that most people never even get to bump their head on that ceiling, then this works for a lot of folks.

I guess that my advice would depend on your goals. If you want to have a tank that is the best of the best, then do what they do... which is not black boxes, or even LED at all (except for one or two). There are all kinds of threads in this forum of the advances that tanks have taken when they went away from black boxes - Schnitzel has one that is probably pretty recent and easy to find... he wanted to get above that 75% ceiling, and he did.

FWIW - I infuriate people with this statement, but also get thankful PMs from people who have found a new insight and "get it".... so here it goes. The "best of both worlds" actually ends up being the "worst of both worlds." In all areas of life, going all-in and knowing and accepting limitations will get you farther along that trying to walk down two paths... it is the same in reef keeping.

 

[Ken101Ward]

Please excuse my ignorance but what does BB stand for? Bare Bones? Bargain Basement? Bubble Butt?

BB = Black Box.

 

[jda]

I don’t get why more companies aren’t trying larger panels with lots of diffused LED light, like LaniLED, LupyLED, or Phillips CoralCare. Those seem like they’d be game changers if they were made significantly more affordable and were distributed more widely.

If you ask them at MACNA or another show, they will tell you. They told me that there is not enough market share. Most LED purchases are from newcomers and they usually do not have large tanks. Most large tank people are not all that interested, and the few that are will live with buying multiple smaller panels. I am not going to MACNA this year, so somebody needs to ask them for me. However, you can nearly certainly bet that if there were money to be made, then they would be made.

Usually the answer that you get at first is some BS about coverage. ...something like "the XR15 (or whatever) can replace a 250w Halide over a 2x2 area, so your 8' 240g would only need 4 of them." Then, when you let them know that you know better, you can get some better answers.

 

[JRAD]

Thanks everybody! I read through this whole thread without knowing what BB means! Reef lighting is expensive and it is nice to have a wide range of choices! I have been keeping saltwater tanks for 30 years. Have used T12, CF,t5,MH, t5+ MH and now LED. I think LED keeps getting better and I like less heat and less electricity use. Also in the past we had to swap bulbs out if we wanted a different look / color temp! MH and t5 combo was great but forced me to buy a chiller!

 

[DancingShark]

@jda what are hard acroporas?

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Please excuse my ignorance but what does BB stand for? Bare Bones? Bargain Basement? Bubble Butt?

Lol love that reply. For us reefers when we are talking LED lighting BB is short for Black Box, like the Mars Aqua being the most common of the basic units. BB can also mean Bare Bottom as in a tank with no substrate on the bottom.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

You can get the best lighting of all for way less than thousands. Halide.

I totally agree. MH/T5 combo is the best lighting option for sps and is the the golden standard. I currently have 2 oldschool PFO 250w DE MH with Phoenix 14k bulbs to light my currently coral-less reef. Temp, high power costs and changing tech may force the MH users to switch. MH fixtures are becoming fewer and fewer, ballasts are limited and bulbs are getting harder to find. Many ballasts and bulbs are not even being made any more. Icecap not longer makes their awesome 250w ballast and XM bulbs are no longer being made. I predict that in about 5-8 years there will be no MH lighting being made for reef aquarium applications, everyone is jumping on the LED band wagon.

 

[trevormass7]

Obviously there are haters out there. I think they are mad that they spent way too much money on their fancy named high priced lights, so they have this need to bash the BB's. I've been running BB's for about eight years. When they first came out, the quality wasn't the best...I think $300 per fixture that had aluminum foil thin cooling with only blue and white LED's. But today, you can't beat the quality....finned thick aluminum cooling portions and a nice combo of spectra with a choice of controlling options. My corals grow so fast, I'm throwing them out because I can't find folks to take them. (They claim they're coming to get them and never show). I've just switched to SB's, and expecting no issues.

You can ship those you're throwing away to me. I'll pay shipping

 

[JRAD]

Lol love that reply. For us reefers when we are talking LED lighting BB is short for Black Box, like the Mars Aqua being the most common of the basic units. BB can also mean Bare Bottom as in a tank with no substrate on the bottom.

Thanks!

 

[jda]

People have been promising that MH stuff will "not be available soon" for about a decade. What has happened is that new product offerings (fixtures and bulbs) from Hamilton, Giesemann, ReefBrite and a few others have happened in the last few years with so many figuring out that there are better lights than the front-running crowd recommends at the LFS and on message boards. Heck, Hamilton has had to step up production to keep stuff from being backordered.

There could possibly be a lot of reasons not to use MH, but lack of availability is not one of them.

 

[Dilan Patel]

I run a total of6 sb reef l;ights over two reef tanks. Love them. I get great color and great growth!

 

[happyhourhero]

I love my easy acros.

 

[Pmj]

I started with black boxes and changed diodes out to be more like reef breeders/sbreef as well. They work very well, are cheap, and fun to play with. They generally need to be higher up unless you are taking off the lenses.
I switched to GHL Mitras and now to the Aquatic Life T5 hybrid, in both cases purely to see if the results were an improvement. The Mitras are definitely better, as I'm sure Radions and Kessils are as well (and I may test those in the future too), but the improvement is not game changing in terms of growth and color. I honestly hate the lack of shimmer with T5, and liked the look of tank just the Mitras better without the T5, but at this point I'm stopping changing much. Black boxes are also very flat, t5ish look without much shimmer. For anyone on a budget though, especially new reefers, there is just not a better cost/results option for LED than two $100 bb leds for the average 4 foot tank.

And for the halide proponents, I'd gladly try those too if and when I move to a house that isn't struggling to cool itself already (live in S. FL and house got to 77 F today AC running full blast ).