ramsey

First, as I mentioned, I have four over my tank and the light spread is just fine. The specs you listed are for an older generation. They now recommend one every 30" or less. This is because they are using different lenses. "Recommended Tank Width: up to 30" with proper placement of corals. Recommended Tank Depth: up to 36" with proper placement of corals. Power Consumption: up to 75W per module." Of course they say "with proper placement of corals". You wouldn't want to put your lower light corals way up in the tank and SPS at the bottom. I have two clams at the bottom of my tank. They seem to be doing great so far. I'll keep you posted though. Also, $5 a month for bulb changes? What kind of bulbs are you using? You said 1200w so I assume you're using 3 X 400w lights. You may be able to change one bulb for $5 per month. That's if you're using low end bulbs and your not supplementing with VHO's or T5's. A chiller is a HUGE turn off for me. First, I have this ugly thing sitting next to my tank but the real reason is it's a piece of equipment that I MUST have. I could get by without a protein skimmer, an ATO, etc. I would not be able to get away with no chiller. I will give you one thing, for your tank, you may need 5 or 6. I get good coverage but I also have nothing about 4-5" on each side of the tank. With my overflows in each corner, I have very little room. However, the corners of the tank are till lit on the bottom, but there is a darn "triangle" that starts about 8" up and goes about 4-5" on each side (at the top). One more thing I'd like to mention. One of the current themes in this hobby seems to be over-lighting a tank. While I think intense lighting is important, I think it is possible to overdo it. Running 12 of these would be a waste IMO. There is a thread on MAAST that I've been commenting in and one guy is running 8 fixtures over his tank. I will keep updated on how things are doing. I bought an acro SPS a few days ago partly due to this thread. I'm more of a zoa/LPS guy but I want to see how it does under my lights. So far, everything seems to be responding great. The true test will be growth so time will tell.

I have four modules on a 6' long bowfront (two foot wide in the center). I have them hung over the tank about 4-5". The light coverage is great. I don't get any spot lighting or anything. I'm not sure why you'd think you would need 12. I wouldn't put 12 250w mh lamps over my tank. I had a 250w fixture over the tank before going to these. One seems every bit as bright as the 250w light, IMO much brighter. I'd like to get my hands on a PAR meter to test for myself. My point is, I can easily get away with four over my tank. Before I decided going with LEDs, I was gonna do a 400w MH and 2 - 250w MH's with at least two actinic T5s. I was also going to have to run a chiller. So in my case, I'm using far less wattage then I would be using if I had not gone with LEDs. Saying that there's no way of 3 of those fixtures will not outperform 2 250w MH is wrong. I think 3 would GREATLY outperform 2 250w MH's, pretty sure it would greatly outperform 3 - 250w MH's. Now if you wanted to argue if they'd outperform 3 400w MH, you may have a valid concern/argument.

That's not easy to answer. There are a lot of variables that go into that. First, from my research, it seems that quality optics are just as important as the LED's themselves. There are currently two methods, high intensity, high wattage LEDs -or- lower wattage LEDs and high quality lenses. From what I can see, the second approach seems to be the best. So the real question is, do you want to compare a high quality LED fixture VS a high quality MH lamp? If you try and compare a low quality LED, nothing will get proven IMO. Again, I'm no light expert, this is based off the brief research I did when I decided to go LED. LED VS MH was a huge concern for me so I wanted to know a little bit about what I was getting myself in to. If I could, I would love to see a comparison of an AI fixture over a 10g nano and 250w MH with a quality reflector over an exact 10g nano, both plumbed together with the exact water flow, temp, etc, etc. I think that would be a somewhat accurate comparison though I wouldn't submit it to a scientific journal. It be more of a fun pseudo experiment.

Are you using LEDs to grow corals in your tank? Any SPS? How much LED wattage do you have overall? Please post some pics! I just got and set up my LED system about a week ago. They are 90w ( I think) each and I have four modules total over a 175g (Aqua Illumination fixtures). I have one SPS (a monti). Everything seems to be responding VERY WELL to the new lights. There seem to be more polyps on the monit out and all my LPS seems to be opening up more and just looks "healthier". It's important to note that the light system I had before was very underpowered (1 250w MH and a 4' PC fixture), Time will tell. My point was, from what I've read, PAR is a more important measurement than lumens. Lumens simply refer to how bright our eyes perceive the light to be. I'm in no way, shape or form saying that PAR is the end all, be all. I'm saying it's a better measurement and that lumen is somewhat of a moot point. *If* this is true, I encourage you to look at the PAR data for the AI LED module in this link: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/5/aafeature2 Make sure you look at the Aqua Illumination data and not the other cheesy LED fixtures. Then, compare it to the PAR data for some various MH lights in this link: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2010/2/aafeature2 Again, this assumes that PAR data is a decent measurement when it comes to growing coral. There are other measurements that may or may not be better but PAR seems to be one of the first thing the experts look at.

I'm no expert on lighting but I did do some research when I decided to go LED. It's my understanding that PAR is more important than lumens. In other words, you could have high lumens and low PAR and have problems. Is this not the case? Someone care to explain?

Yup, it's hard to capture how awesome they are in a picture. I have one UV and one blue in my 12g nanocube and it looks awesome.