I also just quit my AI LEDs because my corals didn't have nearly the same color. Back to my 250w 14k phoenix, glad I didn't sell my MH. What's the point in saving on bulbs and electricity if I need to slash the prices of my corals due to the subpar color?
Bye-bye LEDs hello mh!!!!!!!
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Redstag
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Any pictures!
johnanddawn
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obviously everyone knows that EVERY coral will look different under different lighting - so I really don't see the point your trying to make
In about 18 years of reefing i have had all forms of lighting NO, VHO, MH, PC, T5, LED and every combination of them and have found each to have their own merits and qualities and they ALL work
currently I have pure LED on my display and T5 on my frag tank and i move corals back and forth quite often - believe it or not in every single case - the corals are happier, as healthy, and look better under the LED set up and the tanks share the same water!
as far as those who are saying LED doesn't work check my tank thread - i'll try to get some new pics up and although I have kinda moved away from sps in favor of zoas and lps types, i still have some and will try to include a couple sps growth shots if/when i get around to it
I have had nice tanks with all of those types of lights so...
TO EACH THEIR OWN, but my display will remain LED
In about 18 years of reefing i have had all forms of lighting NO, VHO, MH, PC, T5, LED and every combination of them and have found each to have their own merits and qualities and they ALL work
currently I have pure LED on my display and T5 on my frag tank and i move corals back and forth quite often - believe it or not in every single case - the corals are happier, as healthy, and look better under the LED set up and the tanks share the same water!
as far as those who are saying LED doesn't work check my tank thread - i'll try to get some new pics up and although I have kinda moved away from sps in favor of zoas and lps types, i still have some and will try to include a couple sps growth shots if/when i get around to it
I have had nice tanks with all of those types of lights so...
TO EACH THEIR OWN, but my display will remain LED
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Troylee
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No doubt they work... I guess you have to experience it to explain it... My corals under LEDs look awesome very healthy and grow great no problems... Take a coral out of LEDs and stick it under a mh it's brown instantly.... Yes I agree corals look different under different lighting etc... LEDs give false colors I should say...
johnanddawn
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ok i kinda get what your saying but still disagree
LEDs do not give false color - the corals reflect that light which is shined on them and do adapt to the light no doubt, but again that is true of all lighting
when i ran mh it sometimes took a month or more for corals to be happy again and look their best after something so common as a bulb change!
a little story for you - a long time ago, i had a birdsnest that had the nicest purple hue to it - i really liked it, and thought i had something special so one day i decided i was going to frag off a piece for a buddy of mine, so I took the piece from the tank and brought it to my bay window (i often frag in the window cause the light is so good) and low and behold my purple birdsnest was really just a plain old pink - glowing pink in the sunlight. the dif between natural light and my tank lights amazed me. i still get a kick out of it every time
anyway corals do apear to look different depending on the spectrum/type of light and ususally if given time will adapt. some will adapt to regain their original color and some adapt to a different color
i think you just became aware of how dramatic some of these lighting effects can be
LEDs do not give false color - the corals reflect that light which is shined on them and do adapt to the light no doubt, but again that is true of all lighting
when i ran mh it sometimes took a month or more for corals to be happy again and look their best after something so common as a bulb change!
a little story for you - a long time ago, i had a birdsnest that had the nicest purple hue to it - i really liked it, and thought i had something special so one day i decided i was going to frag off a piece for a buddy of mine, so I took the piece from the tank and brought it to my bay window (i often frag in the window cause the light is so good) and low and behold my purple birdsnest was really just a plain old pink - glowing pink in the sunlight. the dif between natural light and my tank lights amazed me. i still get a kick out of it every time
anyway corals do apear to look different depending on the spectrum/type of light and ususally if given time will adapt. some will adapt to regain their original color and some adapt to a different color
i think you just became aware of how dramatic some of these lighting effects can be
Redstag
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Troy,
Did you put the corals under 20K Metal Halide? I have no problem at all with the corals from Metal Halide under my ATI T5. The corals are the same, but I do not know about LED since mine is still not ship it.
Did you put the corals under 20K Metal Halide? I have no problem at all with the corals from Metal Halide under my ATI T5. The corals are the same, but I do not know about LED since mine is still not ship it.
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Troylee
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The blues and greens look great coming from led to mh any other color like red, orange, purple there all brown... Makes me think the LEDs I run Cree cool whites and royal blues are missing something ever so slightly...:sad: not sure how I could correct it... Hmmm guess I should have been a little more specific maybe all LEDs don't do it but this set up does..
Redstag
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Have you try to add some Red LED bulbs in there to see a different. I wish I have my fixture here, so I can do an experiment since mine got Green and Red LEDs in there.
I think I am with johnanddawn on this. I bought some acans from Todd Cherry a few months back (some pretty pricey ones). When I got them they didn't look so hot. They were washed out, I could make out some of the rings from the photo, but pretty bland looking. I was running Radium 20Ks. Todd clearly puts out there that he uses T5's and he puts the combo of bulbs he uses out there also. Within a month I could see drastic differences, they were not what the website pics were (yet) but much better. Two months later they looked the same as the pic on the website. Then I changed over to LED. They look even better now. I dont think using LED is any different than any other system. Just let people know what you use.
A separate argument is that, LED's have proven themselves very viable as a lighting source. I think from the sounds most here who have had them and arent thrilled that some increased spectrum would prob have made you satisfied. That is a pretty easy fix. LED's will continue to get cheaper, prob significantly. That will make them the norm....soon. So everybody will have em and you have no worries :bigsmile:
A separate argument is that, LED's have proven themselves very viable as a lighting source. I think from the sounds most here who have had them and arent thrilled that some increased spectrum would prob have made you satisfied. That is a pretty easy fix. LED's will continue to get cheaper, prob significantly. That will make them the norm....soon. So everybody will have em and you have no worries :bigsmile:
UFreefer
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I'm not surprised that alot of people are starting to second guess LEDs as their primary lighting. Sure it can be done but it's no surprise that people have issues coloring up all colors with LEDs. It's a focused light beam with limited spectrum.
I just got my 4x4 cube up and running and am lucky enough to be able to fit 2 MH's, 4 48" T5's, 2 48" VHO's and 2 48" Reefbrite LED strips. As you can see I believe in getting as many different types of spectrum as possible and with the fancy controllers out there now, like the Neptune Apex I have, I'm able to put them all on different timers to switch up the mix throughout the day(Like in Nature). With all 4 different lights on it's crazy bright and very impressive. I'm excited to see how my corals will respond.
I just got my 4x4 cube up and running and am lucky enough to be able to fit 2 MH's, 4 48" T5's, 2 48" VHO's and 2 48" Reefbrite LED strips. As you can see I believe in getting as many different types of spectrum as possible and with the fancy controllers out there now, like the Neptune Apex I have, I'm able to put them all on different timers to switch up the mix throughout the day(Like in Nature). With all 4 different lights on it's crazy bright and very impressive. I'm excited to see how my corals will respond.
fish&corals
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the more i have read about LEDs i dont think that are all cracked up to what they are .. i have seen 5 different tanks with them and to me i dont see any growth . yea it makes the corals pop and you get good shimmer but i would rather have growth .. im running a 12 bulb T5 right now and taking out 4 bulbs and going with 4 fiji purple and for 460 atc .. and 2 20K MH on my tank .. seems like a lot of unhappy reefers on here that have them are not happy with them .. so i guess i made the right call and saved about 1000.00 on evo leds ..
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Nice man post some pics that is what I just did with my 30x30 cube... I run a 250w phoenix, four t5s and 2 troylee specials with 36 royal blues it's a awesome color man and prolly a little to much light but hey when the corals get used to it watch out!!!!!!:xd: btw there is a link in my signature if you haven't seen mine...
warlock4x4
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OK I was just looking into LED's too, Now not so sure.
UFreefer
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You lighting looks great man! Pretty similar to what I did. I'll be finishing up the woodwork this weekend and mounting the canopy doors....I'll be sure to take a bunch of pics so you can see what I did.
CJO
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If you lose colors going from LED to MH, it sounds like your MH are actually missing something!
Be careful with the reds, they have been shown to cause photoinhibition in corals (see research by Dana Riddle).
I think that the biggest issue that people have is that they underestimate the quantity of light that the LEDs put out. It is very easy to burn your corals with LEDs. Also, LEDs are not focused light beams. You can put optics on them to focus them, but most of them originally have a 120 degree to 180 degree light output.
To each his own. I've had both great growth and great colors with LEDs (in comparison to metal halides).
CJ
UFreefer
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If you lose colors going from LED to MH, it sounds like your MH are actually missing something!
If coral taken from LED's and put directly into a MH tank looks totally different (Like what Troylee explained) then it's not missing something, it just looks different under different lighting which is why so many people are bummed when they put frags in their tank that came from LED tanks.
I think that the biggest issue that people have is that they underestimate the quantity of light that the LEDs put out. It is very easy to burn your corals with LEDs. Also, LEDs are not focused light beams. You can put optics on them to focus them, but most of them originally have a 120 degree to 180 degree light output.
I respect the intensity and know about optics, but the reason they burn corals is because of how focused the light is despite the optics. If LEDS were so strong and weren't "focused", then it wouldnt be necessary to have to put 100 LEDS over a tank to have even coverage.
If coral taken from LED's and put directly into a MH tank looks totally different (Like what Troylee explained) then it's not missing something, it just looks different under different lighting which is why so many people are bummed when they put frags in their tank that came from LED tanks.
I think that the biggest issue that people have is that they underestimate the quantity of light that the LEDs put out. It is very easy to burn your corals with LEDs. Also, LEDs are not focused light beams. You can put optics on them to focus them, but most of them originally have a 120 degree to 180 degree light output.
I respect the intensity and know about optics, but the reason they burn corals is because of how focused the light is despite the optics. If LEDS were so strong and weren't "focused", then it wouldnt be necessary to have to put 100 LEDS over a tank to have even coverage.
Kbra
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Im with you Troylee. I bought the AI SOL fixture to test it out on my frag tank before commiting for my 10ft tank build and ive come to the conclusion that they dont do as good of job as my MH w/ T5s.
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Well..... The thread has went all sorts of ways with valid points every where also.... I'm gonna say it again LEDs can hold there own my sticks color up and grow extremely well with LEDs only so dint let that discourage you!!!! The problem I saw is take a nice colored stick from mh shove it under LEDs it looks great now let it sit for 6 moths take that same coral "buetifull as ever" from the LEDs and stick it back under the mh it's brown with little to no
Color... Yes each coral has to adapt to each tank blah blah blah.... I'm not dissing LEDs and never will I can't live without them now just found it really weird...:tongue: the corals don't show this from mh to led just led to mh..
Color... Yes each coral has to adapt to each tank blah blah blah.... I'm not dissing LEDs and never will I can't live without them now just found it really weird...:tongue: the corals don't show this from mh to led just led to mh..
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