Have we been wrong in our understanding of PAR this whole time??

[djf91]

Looks like a milka stylo

Agreed. It is harder to see corals though in blue light tanks.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Looks like a milka stylo

It is not as thick as it looks in the photo and is in pretty hard flow. It was almost dead when I got it from the LFS so I mounted it on its side hoping to get a bit more broader spread quickly. The left "Y" was spindly and barely alive when I mounted it. To that end it is def more rounded than any of my other digis but nowhere near as beefy as any stylo I have ever had - but it very well could by stylo no matter what it was sold as. LFS is an ORA shop for sure, and it was labled blue digi.

Anyway - full disclosure - fish, coral, cars, or any other taxonomy is not my thing. It goes in one ear and out the other. I just don't care. Sure I can tell most torches from most hammers and a branching acro from plating monti. Any more than that... meh, no interest. Moreover, I couldn't tell you the made-up name of a single coral that I own other than a homewrecker that I just tossed in recently, Frankly I don't even know what it actually is, maybe tenius? The only reason I know it is a homewrecker is because that is what everyone was drooling over at the store, but I am not sure why. To me it is just another coral.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Agreed. It is harder to see corals though in blue light tanks.

It is not as blue as the photos make it out to be. I am running the same basic spectrum as ReefBum and Telegram (same fixtures and very similar settings). I much preferred the Phoenix 14K bulbs that I ran for 10 or more years, but gave in to the LEDs for several reasons.

 

[areefer01]

For some of the posters on this thread, they are not guessing, they have experienced what they have posted about.

I'm not sure the meaning behind this statement. It doesn't matter as I'm sure I am reading too much into it.

I do wonder though how a business like WWC manage to grow corals at a fast enough rate to stay in business if LED's are so poor at it.

 

[JoshO]

FWIW ORA Blue Digi under Mitras
Sorry - way too lazy to white balance.

Under what sort of spectrum?

 

[jda]

I do wonder though how a business like WWC manage to grow corals at a fast enough rate to stay in business if LED's are so poor at it.

Is this some sort of a joke? I cannot find anybody on this thread that said that LEDs are poor at growing "corals." They are just not as good and cannot grow everything. Do you lack the mental capacity to understand what people are saying, or are you being cheeky? What you said has no basis in the truth of what was posted. It looks like your feeling might be hurt, but come back to this in a year or two and read it again - you might start to see that what some of us said made some sense.

You know that shops like WWC and Vivid are for noobies and mostly a joke with longer-term hobbyists, right? They get corals the same way that other shops do. They trade for a lot of them, the do grow some and they also import a lot, chop, give a quick name and resell. If you price them as high as they do, they can tend to build up and you can have a decent inventory. I just looked at what was on their site and most of it is pretty normal stuff at 2x normal retail. There is not a single coral in their WYSIWYG section that you will find in a collector type of acropora tank - just run of the mill type of stuff. Tim does a better job of actually growing all of his corals under LED - you should use him next time. He is not as high of volume, but he also does not import and chop nor rely on the locals for stock. High end growers like Tim, Adam at BC and many others put WWC to shame.

 

[jda]

There - a bit better

Bad photo snapped while walking by. If anybody wants this, they can have it if they come to my house. Stuff grows like a weed for me. It does not for everybody and I consider it a medium-hard montipora.

If you want to know the spectrum, then look at the diode cluster... I just plug it in and use the buttons. I would rather not reef again than use their app.

 

[jda]

The only reason I know it is a homewrecker is because that is what everyone was drooling over at the store, but I am not sure why. To me it is just another coral.

To me, it is one of the truly good trick-light tenuis because you don't need any trick light. It is a legit coral with colors that have not been seen elsewhere. You can get something very similar maricultured now and the names and lineage is likely to get mixed up in time. HW is up there with Jared/RMF Lucky Charms, MattV Rainbow Envy, OG Sexy Corals OP and Tyree Superman as one of the great corals for of the late 2010 and early 2020 era. You can sometimes find one cheaper - if you do, you will probably like it in time... hard to explain what some want to charge for it. The mari knockoff is really nice too.

Under 14k Phoenix only. No supplement, no editing. You don't need trick lights to make this one look great if you know what you are doing. If somebody wanted to put this photo in Lightroom, it would shine. I just don't care. The pinks and purples are amazing in person. You an see the red stag in the bottom left for reference on the color contrast.

 

[areefer01]

Is this some sort of a joke? I cannot find anybody on this thread that said that LEDs are poor at growing "corals." They are just not as good and cannot grow everything. Do you lack the mental capacity to understand what people are saying, or are you being cheeky?

Tongue and cheek.

What you said has no basis in the truth of what was posted. It looks like your feeling might be hurt, but come back to this in a year or two and read it again - you might start to see that what some of us said made some sense.

I would say between both of us you seem a bit more upset based on your replies. Maybe I needed to add an emoji.

You know that shops like WWC and Vivid are for noobies and mostly a joke with longer-term hobbyists, right? They get corals the same way that other shops do. They trade for a lot of them, the do grow some and they also import a lot, chop, give a quick name and resell. If you price them as high as they do, they can tend to build up and you can have a decent inventory. I just looked at what was on their site and most of it is pretty normal stuff at 2x normal retail. There is not a single coral in their WYSIWYG section that you will find in a collector type of acropora tank - just run of the mill type of stuff. Tim does a better job of actually growing all of his corals under LED - you should use him next time. He is not as high of volume, but he also does not import and chop nor rely on the locals for stock. High end growers like Tim, Adam at BC and many others put WWC to shame.

I was not aware that there is a litmus test to separate which aquaculture and/or small business meet your criteria. This seems rather elitest to me.

Note: I do not collect SPS corals and couldn't tell you one name from Sally. I do, however, have one or two corals from BC. BC Efflo 2.0 (no idea if there is a 1.0 nor do I know the meaning behind 2.0 but I'm sure I could ask). The only other named coral I will buy at some point is an ORA pearlberry. No other reason than the name makes me laugh and the multi page thread here asking if theirs is the real one...

In any case my comment was tongue and cheek which you appear to have taken offense to. Please accept my apology. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Edit: same coral, two different spectrum settings. I was not aware of the growth pattern and it is shading a lot of stuff below. Noobie, what can I say.

 

[Fredm]

I remember when I started out in the reef adventure almost 15 years ago now. LEDs were just coming onto the market, and we were slowly moving away from T5s and MHs. Our only references were ratios of 1W/L for MH and 0.5W/ for LEDs, with the general idea of setting whites to 50% of blues..... And then came a whole host of strips with a whole host of settings and a whole host of options and a whole host of colors and a whole host of things.... I forgot, PAR arrived too, adding even more problems to manage.... I've never had so much growth as with an old evergrow IT2080 set at 0.5w/l and a 100 blue/50 white. Today, I've got a poor seneye probe, two LX7206 mitras and I'm constantly trying to find out if everything's set up properly because the results aren't there... I don't even know how to set the ramps to 50% power, since it's the brightness that's set.... Anyway, this is all to play the old fart, and that, before it was On/Off, and now too much data certainly harms...
I'm sorry if you find any mistakes, but my English isn't up to scratch...

 

[Lingwendil]

back in my days of MH I couldn't stand the look of 6500k tanks, but they sure could grow coral up to a nice brown, and quickly...

My preference for a display tank or mixed use setup was always a 14k Phoenix, or a 20k Radium. After seeing how corals actually look in underwater photography these days I really like a lot more cyan and ~470nm to my lighting, so tend to build out LED fixtures or their color adjustments to suit that look. less windex than average, but still not quite the washed out too-much-daylight look of cranking up the whites.

I loved my halides, but the technology has been improved upon. The adjust-ability of modern LED fixtures is actually more detrimental to the average reefer in my opinion- they just go for a look and experiment until it does what they want, rather than swap to a bulb that is a more tailored solution. LED can and does do as well as metal halid- when implemented properly. The vast majority are not implemented properly in a consumer application.

 

[Acroguy]

MH is still the king, always will be. I have never seen happier corals than under MH.

 

[Reefering1]

when implemented properly

That means when you use double as many fixtures as recommended by the manufacturer?

 

[Lingwendil]

No, not necessarily. There are so many differnt configurations on the market, with so many varied use cases that there is no real clear or set rule of thumb to easily quote or recommend.

You need to figure out how many you need based on desired intensity/PAR at the height from the subject you will be illuminating- and then choose spectrum based off of it's requirements or any additional considerations. Stuff that isn't necessarily easy for the average Joe at PetSmart to figure out at a glance by reading the label.

Too many variables.

 

[Z Burn's Reefing]

Andrew at Polo Reef in his lab had two grow out tanks (250 gallons each I believe), side by side, same water, shared the same sump, one lit with MH and one lit with all Led. Faster growth on the MH side no doubt he concluded. I mentioned this on other threads and you can check out the video on youtube, if interested.

This is far from a controlled experiment but has someone else on here done something better? It seems to communicate the same message we are seeing among coral vendors that run grow out systems and choose to still use MH. LEDs, T5s, and MH all grow corals just fine, and many of us prefer certain sources, but I think you’ll be hard pressed to find any source of lighting that can grow corals faster than MH. The late great Jake Adams said to give him a 6500k MH if he had to choose a light source that would grow corals the fastest. There are reasons why larger vendors with grow out systems still use MH on some of their systems (Battlecorals, ACI, etc). In fact, it sucks because I now have to compete with these folks on finding bulbs, that are now in very limited supply. Some vendors are hoarding them all!! lol!

I don’t fully understand why these observations that are reported by some, that MH lighting seem to grow coral faster, set people off, but they do. I think we may have some natural instinct to convince ourselves that the light source we chose is superior. I also agree, the evidence isn’t peer-reviewed and lacks rigorous scientific design, but it’s all we have to go off of. I would be happy to be convinced that another light source is better than MH at growing coral, that would be great, but I haven’t seen it anywhere or heard any anecdotes that would support such observation outside of someone sending me pictures of their all led tanks or trying to define a photon using scientific jargon. It would be great if more controlled experiments could be done, but for now all we have to go by is hobbyist experiments and those with the likes of Polo reef with in house coral labs or vendors with grow out systems that need to turn a profit, where growth really matters.

Unfortunately what is driving lighting in our hobby is market and money. I won’t say names, but we all will continue to hear that what is best for our reef tanks is what is the latest and greatest for sale (i.e., generation N+1 led fixture now available).