zoa's and LED's

[Fish Finder]

Dose anyone here keep there zoo's under LED's? I will have LED on my new reef tank when i set it up. Plain on having a lot of zoas in the tank. Was wondering the pro's and con's about having LED's. And any helpfull advice anyone can give me that currently use LED's on there reef with zoas.

 

[jaytizzle]

I just put LEDs on my nano tank at the office that has a lot of zoas in it. I haven't noticed any detrimental effects... they were under a 150W MH and 36W T5 actinics before. Some had extended their stalks to get more light before but none are doing that now.

 

[Lytehouse]

Only person I know that has zoas with leds has them in a nano. Only thing he has noticed is they don't open up as much. colors are great and growth is fine, just don't open up as wide. He speculates the par is more than they are used to getting.

 

[therman]

I've had 44 Cree XREs (1:1 cw:rb) running over my 29g polyp tank with a load of different morphs since June 2009. Some take a while to get accustomed to all the PAR, but eventually all have done GREAT.

pros:
-fantastic growth
-unbelievable fluorescence
-in 20 years my LEDs will still be putting out 70% of the intensity they are now
-fully dimmable
-fully adjustable color temp
-big savings in electricity

cons:
-high startup cost (though you make it back in bulb replacement and electricity savings within a couple of years)
-all DIY for a quality fixture

I would highly suggest you go for it. I am in the process of replacing all my halides with LEDs after seeing how zoas, palys, tubipora, and a variety of SPS have done under my current fixture

Here's a wide shot of a portion of my polyp tank.

-Tim

 

[Akwarius]

Zoas under blue LEDs look insane! I had no idea how much Hawaiian pe's would glow. Check out the sticky punches in my avatar.

 

[bangoo]

Interesting topic, I went to a LFS recently and we were just playing around with the new marineland LED's (18-24 inch) fixture on top of solana 34. We were able to fit exactly 2 of these fixtures and I thought it looked pretty nice. 2 fixtures will give the tank about 900 lumes. I really don;t know too much about what these numbers mean, but if it works out for zoos, I may get this set up. If anybody has any experience with it please give us an input.

 

[firsttime]

I am on the fence ...and I will make a decision in the next six months. Thinking about changing my 15g frag tank to leds first and then may be do my display....I am hearing all positive stuff, I am not able to make a decision if I should go with the complete led bulbs (looks like a regular bulb but has 6 high power leds)that go into the regular socket or should I got with a DIY fixture set up or should I get the led strips that come pre assembled.

Some part of me thinks I should go with the DIY fixture setup...but just not able to make my mind up...

 

[therman]

Go with DIY. Cree xr-e/xp-e/xp-g LEDs are FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR superior to anything you will get prebuilt into a bulb. I built my first fixture with 9 luxeon K2s and it looks pathetic compared to the Crees.

 

[knockout]

Go with DIY. Cree xr-e/xp-e/xp-g LEDs are FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR superior to anything you will get prebuilt into a bulb. I built my first fixture with 9 luxeon K2s and it looks pathetic compared to the Crees.

do you have build thread?

 

[firsttime]

Go with DIY. Cree xr-e/xp-e/xp-g LEDs are FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR superior to anything you will get prebuilt into a bulb. I built my first fixture with 9 luxeon K2s and it looks pathetic compared to the Crees.

therman, are you in Michigan?, seem to remember your id from MR forum. If you dont mind PM me your contact, would like to discuss.

 

[evilc66]

Dooo eeeeet!! It's fun, you learn a lot, and you save a lot of energy when done right. As soon as you see what colors come out under royal blue LEDs, you will be hooked.

 

[Fish Finder]

Look's like i am going to be doing a 120G tank. 48x21 1/2 (and i forgot the high i think 27). I already have a 48" LED so there is money saved right there that i can use to get some good zoa's off the bat. I would like to hear anyone else that has or has had LED's on zoa's. It is looking very promising so far.

 

[Fish Finder]

Thanks for you input everyone and great pics therman. The colors are really bright on your zoa's.

Anyone here also do bare bottom reef tank with there zoa's and other corals??

 

[650-IS350]

Here's a wide shot of a portion of my polyp tank. Got a front shot of the tank and corals... as always polyp look good and all with top downs but would like to see a side shot or how you'd view it normally.

 

[knockout]

Look's like i am going to be doing a 120G tank. 48x21 1/2 (and i forgot the high i think 27). I already have a 48" LED so there is money saved right there that i can use to get some good zoa's off the bat. I would like to hear anyone else that has or has had LED's on zoa's. It is looking very promising so far.

Will enough lighting reach the bottom at 27"? how about 30"?

 

[evilc66]

The amount of light that reaches the bottom will ultimately depend on the secondary optics used. It is very possible to set up an LED rig to get enough light to the bottom of a 30" tank even for an sps only setup.

 

[Supreme Reefs]

Tim, your zoas look great! Anymore close up pics you have of them?

 

[therman]

Sorry! Got busy and forgot about this thread.

I don't have many shots through the front, as my camera is just a point and shoot and I have a hard time capturing the gorgeous colors. Yes the colors look just as good through the front as from the top...just harder to photograph. My coral photography skills are pretty weak.

spiderman zoas, with eagle eyes in the foreground, CAR behind out of focus

something similar to flaming PPRPE from Tomasz

blue agave (after whacking with forceps), rastas, tomasz red spackles, all from the top

Roughly estimated by the position of the dimming pot, I run the blues ~90% power and the whites at 60-70%. The fixture has 20 degree optics and I run it about 34" above the corals.

Akwarius is right, I just got a big order from Colin at zoacollector, the hawaiian PEs are S I C K under the rb Crees!!!

FWIW, growth is way better under the LEDs than under my 400W 20k Ushio.

-Tim

 

[Fish Finder]

Wow tim very nice looking stuff. I can't wait till i get my tank up. I'm figuring about 1 to 2 months from now it will be up and ready. Picking it up next weekend. Once it is up I'm gonna have to bug u for some of your stuff