ATI LED/T5 Powermodule Hits USA in March

For what its worth, after two years of trying, I've given up on LED. I think the reason some do and some don't succeed has to do with the impossibly large range of options and the lack of reliable information on how to dial it in. By comparison a t5 or MH bulb made for my reef tank will grow coral (with the exception of very few specialty bulbs). I pick and chose based on what I think is best, but the combination of bulbs that all work still works. I think the problem is more than spectrum though. I think there is wild intensity variation on a macroscopic and microscopic level causing corals to get wildly different levels of light from one point to the next. My corals that were growning under LED's looked fine under LED's. Under t5's, I can see all sorts of damage where they were just not doing well in spots.

Why am I saying this here? Well, I switched to t5 and want an ATI for my next tank. What I can't figure out is why a mix of both is anything other than half the trouble of one. Why not just stick to all t5? The power and heat savings of the combination seems limited.

 

Like I said I see the 8 bulb fixture as a T5 unit with a shimmer. IMO, on this fixture the LED is only about 1/4 - 1/3 of the output.

 

Thats a lot to pay for shimmer isn't it? Couldn't you get the shimmer with 8 of those 10 watt LED bulbs on the Vega?

Hell, after two weeks without it, the shimmer on my wife's tank is annoying me a little.

 

FWIW, my friend built a 6 bulb T5 with LED combo fixture. He stripped the guts of 2 T5's out of a 8 bulb fixture and added the LED's in it's place. You will not see any sort of shimmer when the T5's are running.

These T5's on the ATI being dimmable, may be a different result, but from what I observed with his, you only have the shimmer when the T5's are off.

 

75w of LED packed that close is what will cause the shimmer.

 

He has 90W of Crees packed into the fixture.

 

You are not understanding what I mean. Notice the ATI has 20 leds in an area approx 3" x 1/2" area. This does a good job of emulating a Metal Halide's shimmer. You will notice that many of the fixtures that are highly regarded do it this way. It creates better blending of the LED colors as well as point source lighting. Companies that have done this include Kessil, AI, Ecotech, Vertex, Maxspect, Acan Lighting, ect.

 

Here is a video of a beautiful tank using the ATI T5/LED combo fixture.

My reef - YouTube

 

Very nice, I wonder how long it's been on his tank?

 

I totally understand what you are saying as far as a spotlighting effect by clustering the LED's. But as you can see in this video just posted, there is no shimmer to be seen.