What's the verdict on LED lights?

I saw the LED setups and they're extremely expensive, and from my, admittedly basic, electronic knowledge, they're expensive for absolutely no reason.

In any case, I decided to try it out, just to see how it looks.

It's BRIGHT ;D
The water shimmers like MH, the rays are defined like sunlight ;D
It's cool. No heat, atleast in the few mins I ran it. ;D
Very low voltage, (4.5v) ;D

I think I'm gonna do an array with an intensity control (variable resistor) for the hell of it.

All that aside, what's the verdict on these official LED setups?

 

i think PFO went tits up. i think the solaris systems they carried may have had a part it that.

 

yeh its hard to say the problem is finding someone that has bought them and then seeing over a period of time how well corals grow or don't grow with them. nobody wants to be the guniee pig at that price.

it would be cool to see someone get them and log there results.

 

What size tank, what coral do you keep, and what LED light setup is it?
Pics...or it didn't happen!

 

LOL @ POIDT


Tank size:

55gal, 48 long x13x20h.

Corals:

Star polyp x 2
Frog spawn x 2
The LEDS are from one of those cheap flashlights. Regular white, bright as hell, LEDS.

 

Lets see some pictures!!

 

LED's have a long ways to go yet, We had a 36" $2,900.00 set at the shop and the boss wanted to put a 48" 4,000.00 on a clients system I told him I'd go M/H and add a exhaust fan in the room behind the tank to get rid of heat as I did not put alot of stock in the LEDs at this point . But hey who listens ? And heat was the main concern with the heat building up in the little tank mechanical room as it is a built in wall system , The LEDs have failed several times and since I have been out of there and still laid up for over 1.5 yrs now That Guy can add more info as he is the one who had to try and keep them running LOL maybe have been closer to 6,000.00 for the set of lights ? The client was considering T5's also but when he found out the heat from T5's was not not much less then M/H he went with the LED's ): education always cost LOl and lesson learned is LED's are not there yet . PFO I think was busted for patent infringements and went belly up as I recall it ?

 

my LFS has changed out all their 400W MH for LEDs and boy its amazing to see the difference in his corals in the month he has had them running (much faster growth)
LED is the future IMO.. but remember not all LEDs are created equal.
Ps 265gl full sps reef at LFS

 

Still no pics, boys.

Went to help my GF move to her new apt. On the way home, I bought 4 jumbo LEDS, that's supposed to be super strong, and by the look of pics I've seen of those $3000.00 official reef lighting set ups, it's what they use. In any case, I got home, tired as I was from moving all that furniture, I plugged in the soldering iron, ran showered, came out ready to try make a little array, to find, I forgot the bag in her car. Looks like it's on hold for a couple days.

In any case, from looking at how slim the lighting cone is on LEDS, it's going to take a ton of them to get equal lighting distribution.

The next step will be to find the right spacing between each diode that will be minimal amount of diodes needed to cover a given area.

I have a strong feeling this is going to become a massive headache very quick.

 

What about a series or array of LED flash lights above your tank, you get those massive torch with a million candle light and are only 12v-24v. Although the lighting would be very white/yellow, also I'm not sure what K rating they would be.