Reef Lighting - Old School vs latest tech....thoughts

[Faurek]

Old = turn on/off, consistent, proven by time and full spectrum from uv to ir, specially on mh
Led = controllable, you get the itch to change it constantly and less spectrum, still work well if you set and forget.
But if you could replicate with led the exact same spectrum, intensity and coverage of let's say a 250w 14k phoenix you would have the same exact growth and color as4 the phoenix. LED's can work really well but companies keep not using uv, ir and growth LED's on the fixtures because they are cutting costs on 400+ lights.

 

[Michael71]

Here is photon 48

I get great coverage, color and growth on my corals

Ignore pics with surface reflection. Look past that and at the sand below. It’s uniform color

Thats looks great vintage, thanks for the share

 

[Michael71]

Okay so gotta look at meridians now.. lol

 

[twiatr2001]

I love the radions myself, I have had good luck with them, they are all on mobius platform and have never had an issue with the app, but that's me, I run all gen4 radions on all my tanks. I'll include some recent pics.

 

[twiatr2001]

Both of these tanks have been running almost the same amount of time which is 2 yrs

 

[twiatr2001]

@VintageReefer where did you get those black frag racks, are they magnetic?

 

[twiatr2001]

Here's one more, don't mean to over crowd your thread, apologies in advance.

 

[Michael71]

Here's one more, don't mean to over crowd your thread, apologies in advance.

Dont apologize, kick but tanks... impressive growth as well

 

[VintageReefer]

@VintageReefer where did you get those black frag racks, are they magnetic?

The singles? I designed them and had a 3d buddy on the forum make them for me. I initially wanted them for torches. To keep them far from the glass, and angled inwards. And I used double magnets vertically so snails can’t rotate them, and also thinking long term when torches become top heavy. The plug spot is also locking so frags can’t fall out.

I had 6 made to relocate my torches but after they arrived I found they are perfect for acros

If you are interested let me know and I can put you in touch with my buddy

 

[Michael71]

The singles? I designed them and had a 3d buddy on the forum make them for me. I initially wanted them for torches. To keep them far from the glass, and angled inwards. And I used double magnets vertically so snails can’t rotate them, and also thinking long term when torches become too heavy. The plug spot is also locking so frags can’t fall out.

I had 6 made to relocate my torches but after they arrived I found they are perfect for acros

If you are interested let me know and I can put you in touch with my buddy

Thats pretty sweet vintage

 

[VintageReefer]

Thats pretty sweet vintage

Thanks! I was told one magnet is more than enough and they are super strong but…not for me! I wanted double magnets - not for strength but to prevent rotation from my giant clumsy turbos. one magnet might not fall, but it can spin. Not in my design!

 

[Michael71]

Thanks! I was told one magnet is more than enough and they are super strong but…not for me! I wanted double magnets - not for strength but to prevent rotation from my giant clumsy turbos. one magnet might not fall, but it can spin. Not in my design!

So what was your worry about the torches being mounted closer to glass. I have used frag mags in the past with frogspawns and never had issues with those being so close to glass. My curiosity is up now. Lol

 

[VintageReefer]

So what was your worry about the torches being mounted closer to glass. I have used frag mags in the past with frogspawns and never had issues with those being so close to glass. My curiosity is up now. Lol

I wanted them farther away to allow room for growth, so the mount could hold it as a frag, and as an eventual multi head colony. I didn’t wasn’t any part smushed against the glass, so all sides could get proper flow and lighting.

 

[Michael71]

I wanted them farther away to allow room for growth, so the mount could hold it as a frag, and as an eventual multi head colony. I didn’t wasn’t any part smushed against the glass, so all sides could get proper flow and lighting.

I never kept torches...hammers and frogspawns. So was curious whether they would branch horizontaly or not

 

[VintageReefer]

I never kept torches...hammers and frogspawns. So was curious whether they would branch horizontaly or not

They split in Y shapes

A head begins to grow from a circle shape to an oval, and then will begin pinching inwards in the middle, and eventually it splits and forms two individual heads

 

[56longroof]

Im in the minority on this but,my pick would be halides with T5 filler. It's been ran and proven for decades and I'm getting great results. Here is a corrent pic of my tank. It's been running since September.

 

[twiatr2001]

@VintageReefer I would definitely be interested in those frag racks.

 

[X-37B]

The current quality leds all work if you know what your doing, lol.
My old 80 running 4 xr15's blue and my old 18" nano cube running 2 16hds. The nano is the system that convinced me to remove my halides and go all leds. Never looked back.

 

[twiatr2001]

I agree, the current LEDs are out of this world if you ask me, extremely high levels of par are achievable, you just have to simply know what channels to ramp up and what to ramp down, I turn all my red and green channels completely to zero and not only does this help with algae control as far as not feeding too much of this light spectrum, but it also allows more power to be distributed to other channels as well.

 

[VintageReefer]

I agree, the current LEDs are out of this world if you ask me, extremely high levels of par are achievable, you just have to simply know what channels to ramp up and what to ramp down, I turn all my red and green channels completely to zero and not only does this help with algae control as far as not feeding too much of this light spectrum, but it also allows more power to be distributed to other channels as well.

I also run red and green at zero. No reason to have them at all