Not Quite Sold on LED Lighting

I am not saying you can't have amazingly fantastic growth with M or t-5 or probably even the right compact fluorescent setup (joking). What I am saying is that my experience has been when a coral is placed under the right LED's more colors pop and they typically react as if the lighting is "brighter".

Mr. Bill- I purchased 44 Dimmable 3 Watt Cree LED's with dimmable drivers and a Typhoon Reef controller for 400 bucks shipped. I then spent 20 bucks on wire, 6 on solder and made my own hanging kit for about 9. I am only at 30 percent on the output and my corals are loving it. I am saving 70 bucks a month, with as long as you have been in this hobby that would add up quickly to any LED setup out there.

p.s. my last thought on this issue, aren't you the guy who JUST gave in to online ordering as well? =-p just saying

 

As promised- HAHAHAHAHA

 

The main reason I went with LED's is the fact that they are pretty much hassle free...just set them up and you're done. You don't have to worry about timers, night time leds, heat etc etc. I spend so much time working on other parts of the tank it's nice to have 1 part that just works without me doing anything.

The side benefit is that fact that they keep energy cost down (although you spend a lot more up front so it takes a while to even out). Another benefit is the fact that when I open my canopy I can actually fit my hand in the tank without removing and MH first. They are so compact that they don't get in the way at all.

I have the AI Sol Blues and I think they are worth every penny we paid for them. Corals seem to love them, the light they produce is amazing and they are modular. So as LED technology advances I wont have to purchase a whole new unit just swap out the bulbs.

 

I opted out of the LED's. I'm sticking with my t5ho's for now...

 

As always a passionate discussion when it comes to LED vs T5 or MH.

I think you could almost substitute Ford vs Chevy for MH and LED or T5.

No I have never had LED and have seen some spectacular tanks that use them, cough Grimguy, evolved.....

What seems like a constant is that if you buy Radium, Phoenix.....any well known MH bulbs you will get results but you will get heat and increased energy use.

With the newer T5 combos you get some stunning combinations as well, tried and true results.

And lastly I see too many threads with issues involving loss of color, burning that are users of LED. The learning curve is just too much for me to be convinced of LED, I do not feel the same uncertainty with MH or T5.

JM2C and from someone that has never used LED.

 

Not to get off topic or start an argument, but he was obviously doing another one of his plugs for EcoTech Marine.


What I wonder is with all this new LED craze how much room will be left for T5?
There will always be halides for diehard tried and true type reefers but T5s seem like they would become phased out.

 

There are several reasons that people have failure with LEDs, and it depends on the quality of LED fixture they are using, and user-understanding of how to use the arrays.

Here are the reasons I see LEDs fail at times.

1) Extreme intensity causing RTN and quick crashes. Both manufactured and DIY LEDs have a tendency to crash tanks if you put them on the tank indiscriminately and run them at anything over half-power. A well made LED (using quality Cree or Rebel LEDs, the most efficient we have right now) will put out the same light/PAR levels as a halide at 1/2 (sometimes 1/3) the power consumption. Always dim your LEDs down to about 20% of their total and eeek it up just a little every few days.

2) Overdone intensity over longer periods of time, causing STN and slow fading colors. Over time, you might have "almost" the right intensity but you miss the warning signs of photoinhibition. The corals fade, some STN, and we start blaming the LEDs when in fact it might be user error---- just dim the thing down to about half, and work your way back up to the right intensity.


3) Poor color white LEDs used. Any white LED over 10,000K isn't likely going to give you the right "full spectrum" that many of our shallow water corals like. This is very common on some of these chinese 'bridgelux' manufactured lights--- they use 10K, 14K, or 20K whites, in combination with 2-3X the number of blues. These lights were used at UNC Wilmington over some of their corals, and their radiometer showed that this chinese import light (a clone of the common "evolution" branded light) was spiking so high in the blue and putting nearly nothing else out, that they suspected the blue light was photoinhibiting the corals. PAR levels were similar, using a LiCor PAR meter.

............Just to add to #3. Many corals will grow and thrive wonderfully in a tank that is almost entirely blue light, while others die, RTN, STN, or shrivel into oblivion. I've seen these "Evolution" lights used over successful tanks but they were mostly soft corals and LPS that likely came from deeper waters. Put it over a tank with lots of corals that tend to come from shallower water and you may have a different, sad, story. Corals can sometimes be picky about their spectrum if you don't shoot for a balanced 10-14K OVERALL look, and using 10K-20K whites in combination with blues is NOT going to give you that. It's going to be almost all blue.



The post I am linking below has been used very well in this thread but I wanted to link to it again in case anyone wants to huff and chuff about LED spectrum. From every angle I can look at it, LEDs in that thread (even the cheap chinese ones at lower K values) are actually quite superior to halides and T5s. Just look at the graphs. They don't look like Sonic the Hedgehog's haircut. They have a nice, even distribution, spiking in the blue just where we want it.


http://www.3reef.com/forums/led-aqu...elux-few-chinese-leds-129292.html#post1284630

 

BTW I do not blame anyone for being cautious--- or even skeptical-- of LEDs. They have their drawbacks-- the worst (other than the above mentioned "intensity-bomb")-- is that disco effect.

However, statements like "LED technology isn't here yet" or "LEDs are not as good as halides/T5" are just fallacious comments that have no standard of reference, just empty statements that can only be defended with anecdotal experiences and stories. Not with data.

 

Glad you mentioned the disco ball effect redfish. When I had my leds it wad hard to look at the tank because of the shimmer. Gave me a migraine if I was doing my daily half hour stare. Some may like the led shimmer and I'm sure it depends a lot on optics/height/surface agitation, but for me it was to intense. When I switched back to t5s I was like ahhhh much better.
Guess you could call me a shimmer hater

 

Just to clarify one thing with regards to lighting. There is intensity and spectrum. PAR by definition is a measure of intensity, so, if you have the same PAR, you have the same intensity. Then there is spectrum. You can have the same PAR, but have output at very different spectral ranges.

However, LEDs DO NOT PUT OUT MORE LIGHT PER WATT. From page 43 of the Sept/Oct issue of coral, Sanjay has a nice table. Remember visible light is the range of light corals can potentially use for photosynthesis (this is why PAR is constrained to the visible spectrum).

So, from the table, LEDs are 15-25% efficient with regards to PAR, halides 27% and fluorescent lights 21%. So, really, in terms of total light output, LEDs are not more efficient. They are however better at focusing light, and in many cases can produce PAR numbers of halides and occasionally T-5s, with less, even significantly less wattage, because, of their ability to direct light into the tank, where it needs to go.

Maybe, but this can also be a sign of too little light. IME, I think people tend to under-do LEDs often and have these issues because they don't have enough light. People who I know, who are most successful with LEDs tend to use quite a lot of LEDs.

I don't quite agree with this. The most popular halides these days are the Phoenix and Radium. These are far from full spectrum and corals do fine.
If anything, looking at the plots, it would seem easier to make an argument that white LEDs are "too full spectrum". Whenever you have light at a given spectral range, the coral may not have protective pigments. So, long acclimation can be required, to allow the coral to shift pigment production.

Radium:


Phoenix:


From your data, take the first graph Rebel white and 2 royal blues. The spectrum, too me, looks more identical than not- If I ever get to it, I can calculate the exact discrepancies though LOL:


as is the spectrum for the CREE neutral white and 2royal blues:


Most popular halides are dominant in 450nmm light, as are Royal blue LEDs.
I've never had to acclimate when going from Radiums, or Phoenix halides to LEDs of similar PAR. Going from a 10000K Ushio however, caused corals to bleach quickly. However, using a very slow acclimation overcame this and I now have these corals under intense LED lighting and they are doing quite well. IMHO almost all the issues people have with LEDs are simply acclimation issues.

I have an EVO200 on my frag tank. It isn't heavily stocked yet, but hard soft ect... do great. I think the issue with EVOs is that they don't have optics, so, no penetrating power. People use them, thinking PAR from LEDs is somehow magical and more efficient than PAR from other sources and they corals slowly wither away from lack of light.

Corals are very adaptable too. For example, see this article from Dana Riddle :
Feature Article: Lighting the Reef Aquarium - Spectrum or Intensity? — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog