6500k T5 Bulbs - Important Spectrums Missing in LEDs?

[dantimdad]

I believe densely packed lower wattage LED panels with a diffuser that include a wide spectrum (like the Orphek Atlantic), are likely to be the best solution in the future. Even light spread and PAR distribution, even color blending, high efficiency, controllable, long lifespan, etc.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out why no company has made an affordable light like that. LaniLED and LupyLED are ridiculously expensive and I question the LED choices, and the Phillips coral care isn’t widely available and I’d like it to have a wider spectrum like Orphek. Pucks like Kessils and Radions are appealing because they look nice and work pretty well, but we can do better for our corals.

Part of me just wants to get some capitol and invest in building the dang light myself, with help from Dana & whoever...by reefers, for reefers. lol

I'm in. Been building fixtures for years .

 

[ReefInskeep]

I'm in. Been building fixtures for years .

I’m seriously tempted. lol I imagine the capitol required to fully R&D it and make a serious quality product, start a company and manufacture it, market it, etc. would be beyond my ability to obtain. But I’m tempted... Maybe I should start a thread & feel it out.

 

[ReefInskeep]

Started a thread to talk about it instead of using this thread...

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...build-the-light-reefers-actually-need.449604/

 

[A. grandis]

At one point I thought LEDs came to stay because of the great market strategy.
I'm not sure about that anymore, seriously!!
What I don't understand is why people get so defensive when we publish our preferences for halides or T5s.
The preferences are followed by real facts of wonderful growth and colors! Please face it!
We still deal with taste and budget (electricity/cooling excuses), but the results are real.
People publish them every day!!
Just my personal opinion.

 

[ReefInskeep]

At one point I thought LEDs came to stay because of the great market strategy.
I'm not sure about that anymore, seriously!!
What I don't understand is why people get so defensive when we publish our preferences for halides or T5s.
The preferences are followed by real facts of wonderful growth and colors! Please face it!
We still deal with taste and budget (electricity/cooling excuses), but the results are real.
People publish them every day!!
Just my personal opinion.

I don’t think many people would invalidate that experience. Just like I hope those who love & use halide/T5 wouldn’t invalidate the experience of those who love & use LED fixtures.

 

[ReefInskeep]

I have a question for @Battlecorals . If you have an LED fixture with adequate spectrum and spread, would you tune them to match the T5 Tropics’ spectrum for growth & color?

It seems a lot of people have anecdotal evidence of 6500K bulbs producing superior color and growth. Then again, Jason Fox, WWC, Mike Paletta, etc. use a heavy blue spectrum and achieve great results...

 

[Lasse]

At one point I thought LEDs came to stay because of the great market strategy.
I'm not sure about that anymore, seriously!!
What I don't understand is why people get so defensive when we publish our preferences for halides or T5s.
The preferences are followed by real facts of wonderful growth and colors! Please face it!
We still deal with taste and budget (electricity/cooling excuses), but the results are real.
People publish them every day!!
Just my personal opinion.

And as @ReefInskeep state - the opposite should be valid too.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[A. grandis]

I have a question for @Battlecorals . If you have an LED fixture with adequate spectrum and spread, would you tune them to match the T5 Tropics’ spectrum for growth & color?

It seems a lot of people have anecdotal evidence of 6500K bulbs producing superior color and growth. Then again, Jason Fox, WWC, Mike Paletta, etc. use a heavy blue spectrum and achieve great results...

"Great results" comes from opinions or comparison. You need to choose what you want as a guide.
Not to flame the question. Just a thought.

 

[A. grandis]

I don’t think many people would invalidate that experience. Just like I hope those who love & use halide/T5 wouldn’t invalidate the experience of those who love & use LED fixtures.

And as @ReefInskeep state - the opposite should be valid too.

Sincerely Lasse

Of course. That's why it's not worthy to fight against each other taking it too personally. It degrades the forum.
We should be friends.
Let's post our opinions and experiences.
We should be able to discuss but avoiding "LOL" or things like that because some take it seriously as disrespect.
People like to talk about graphics and PAR numbers but they ignore great info from sources like Tullio's video!!!
That is what matters the most in my point of view.
Fact!

 

[A. grandis]

You continue to ignore all of those that have great success with leds only lit tanks. That makes it hard, for me, to take you seriously sometimes. If you want to convince someone that you are right, and they are wrong, you can’t just go around completely ignoring the success others are having, dimssing it as them having some God like, pristine, water conditions. Great for you that you like t5 and MH, but stop acting like the rest of us are just idiots that will eventually think like you.

I started off with t5 and found dull colors and only moderate growth. Switched to a diy led setup and saw a completely different experience. Not to mention, control of t5 completely sucks and bulb replacement is very costly.

Face it, leds are here to stay. People have great success with them and don’t have perfect parameters to explain it otherwise.

Edit:
This is just a hobby anyways!!! Relax and please don't be so defensive/agressive...
We don't want the mods to close this thread.
We don't think LED people are idiots!

 

[Rakie]

Many members of my club are old school SPS keepers. They always ran halides and T5/VHO's. And they all experienced the same thing; An increase in growth, color, and density from switching to LED.

I will say the difference being most of these guys more than twice as many LED fixtures as suggested. 1 Radion for every 1x2 section (facing the long way, front to back) will definitely rival Halide/T5. The problem is people are told a single puck can light a 3x3' area. I think this is false. IMHO, a single puck can light a 12"x12" section.

 

[A. grandis]

That is one of the problems with pucks.

 

[Rakie]

That is one of the problems with pucks.

Yep. I think the staunch T5/Halide people wouldn't dislike LED's as much if they weren't touted as having this enormous spread, which they may 'technically' have, but not have in a truly useful sense.

 

[A. grandis]

Another thing T5/halide people really dislike, besides the fact that the LEDs really lack in spread is the poor quality/number of diodes, specially pucks, and some hype with the marketing diminishing T5s and halides to promote their products in an unfair comparison. When people change and see the results they really understand what we are talking about: not only distribution and uniformity, but also quality of light and the difference in the nature of the sources.
Still a matter of choice. Some people just like the look of LEDs and to play with the buttons.
All good. Just a hobby.

 

[Rakie]

When I had a G3, my ATI fixture was an upgrade. When I got a G4, it was an upgrade over my T5. This is my personal experience at least.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Diffusion, spectral blending, spectral composition. IMO those are the main factors LED systems lag in - listed in order of importance. The manufacturers are finally figuring out diffusion is actually important these past couple years. They have been working on spectral blending and overall composition for some time to varying degrees of success. The inherent nature of LEDS make them very good at targeting specific spectra, and very tough to shoehorn into a broad spectrum, blended, diffuse form factor.

To describe why diffusion reigns king for me: Early in the days of LED I had a new service customer who couldn't find any success in his new tank that he'd spec'd with 4 x AI Sol LEDs. So about 70W output each with 60 degree optics hung about 15 inches off his 30 inch deep tank. He ran them at 80 percent peak on a 3 hour ramp with a 6 hour peak and 3 hour ramp down. No issues there right? Well every piece of LPS he added got roasted to oblivion and most of his other corals were bleached on their upper branches. 2 sheets of of cheap lighting diffuser panels (not eggcrate, but solid panels) and his tank exploded with growth. We were even able to run the lights at 100 percent peak since the diffusers reduced the hot spots so substantially. Wish I had taken photos back then as he's long since moved onto more complete lighting solutions. But that taught me right off the bat that my hunch about corals not liking laser beams, especially in narrow spectral bandwidths, was correct. Fixed a number of other ppl's issues with simple DIY diffusers in the early days of the LED craze where clients were spending thousands on gen1 radions/ai sols and throwing out T5 and halide systems left and right to get sunrise/sunset/thunderstorms and, gasp, savings of maybe a couple hundred dollars a year on their electrical bill. Nevermind, their ongoing tank costs often exceeded 400 per month, but hey it's new and hip and LED!!!. The power of marketing eh?

 

[DSC reef]

Edit:
This is just a hobby anyways!!! Relax and please don't be so defensive/agressive...
We don't want the mods to close this thread.
We don't think LED people are idiots!

Maybe you should take a note from your own quotes. As soon as someone has an opposing opinion you begin to flame and preach about how led lighting is bad somehow. I've been a solid halide user for many years but understand what all lighting has to offer. It's awesome when you share facts and your right, we should all be friends but you also should heed your own advice. It gets old to hear how someone's awesome led tank is only 80% of what it could be, or how led isn't good for coral. Sorry but led is here to stay and I cant wait to give it a try. I personally like kessil. I love reading opposing opinions and fact sheets but I also like making many trips to stores and friends houses to see these different lights in action. I'll always love halides but I cant deny what leds can do. We still kept a chiller just incase.

 

[oreo54]

Might want to change your sig then..

METAL HALIDE reins king, T5 is the queen, but we have also a joker!

 

[Lasse]

Light for us are the visible (for our eyes) part of the electromagnetic radiation of photons. It corresponds to wavelengths between 380 – 740 nm and with an oscillation frequency between 770-430 THz. Colours from blue to red

Photosynthetic Active Radiation - total amount of light between 400 – 700 nm. But this is not the whole truth because some of these wavelengths will be more adsorbed than others depending of the actual chlorophyll (or similar substances active in the photosynthesis)

This means that a PAR of 300 of a full colour source – like halides is not the same as a PAR of 300 made by two monochrome sources (as LED) at 450 and 660 nm because the later is more effective in the photosynthesis. All organisms that practise photosynthesis have one common problem – get rid of produced O atoms. If the photosynthesis is to high and not enough of O2 gas Is transported away – the produced oxygen radicals will damage the organism – it will burn as we say. This is the same with “White” LEDs – their spectrum often content much more blue and red at the same PAR as a halide – especially if it is “low Kelvin white LEDs”

INO - A PAR of 300 for the combination 450 nm and 660 nm may respond to a PAR of 5 -600 for a halide that is more “all spectra light” in context of real photosynthesis because the Led combi is more effectively used in the Photosynthesis


According to green wavelengths. There is no chlorophylls that have their optimum in these wavelengths (520-565 nm) however there is 1 photosynthetic pigment that have it optimum around 565 nm – it is often connected to cyanobacteria if I remember right. This do not means that it is not used for photosynthesis at all but in one sense it is rather ineffective as its energy package needs to be transferred to more favourable wavelengths (read energy packs) But in another way – it has some significance because the photons can go through living tissues and in a way promote photosynthetic deeper in the tissues and in plants – to leaves further down in the canopy. In my build thread – there is a very good example of green photons going through a leaf. Post 745.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lasses-dream-build.246188/page-38#post-4365299


There is much more to write according to colouration of our corals and I will come back to this later.


Sincerely Lasse

 

[A. grandis]

Maybe you should take a note from your own quotes. As soon as someone has an opposing opinion you begin to flame and preach about how led lighting is bad somehow. I've been a solid halide user for many years but understand what all lighting has to offer. It's awesome when you share facts and your right, we should all be friends but you also should heed your own advice. It gets old to hear how someone's awesome led tank is only 80% of what it could be, or how led isn't good for coral. Sorry but led is here to stay and I cant wait to give it a try. I personally like kessil. I love reading opposing opinions and fact sheets but I also like making many trips to stores and friends houses to see these different lights in action. I'll always love halides but I cant deny what leds can do. We still kept a chiller just incase.

Maybe you should go full LED and prove that you can keep your system as is. Just maybe.