LED vs Metal Halide

[+acfilmz]

I'm thinking about finally making the switch from my Coralife Metal Halide/PC combo fixtures to AI Hydra LEDs.

I noticed a few ARC members switching back from LED to T5.

My question is how is the coral growth with LED? Has anyone had luck with chalices and acroporas under LEDs?

I mean true growth (not just pretty colors)??

[dshel1217]

I have currently have AI Vegas and I have had my great growth from my two chalices. As far as acros, I switch from t5 to leds over 2yrs ago and have have the same growth from my sps as under my T5s. I have never had metal halides so cant help you out there.

[jestep]

I'm in the process of switching from 500W MH to to AI SOL's. My biggest complaint with halides is that they require a lot of actinic supplementation to get into a bluer spectrum which I prefer. This is speaking from using 20K plusrite bulbs which are more like 14K for mainstream brands.

At this point it's much for energy usage and color control, but I also saw don duncan's tank and SPS growth who's using sol's and that pretty much sold me on the spot. There's several members running LED's with SPS dominant tanks.

[Juiceman]

SOL's are very BLUE!

I have had great growth from SPS under VHO, Halides,and LEDS. With the LED's and Halides coloration being slightly different but the growth rates being the same.

[Sascha D.]

I switched from T-5 to LED a few months ago. I have a review that I update every couple of weeks in the equipment discussion page. I have growth pictures in the thread that show the growth that I've recorded. I'll never go back to T-5's. My tank runs cooler, my corals are more vivid and growing faster and I haven't had any problems so far.

Here's the thread:

http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/30478-led-review-oceanrevive-arctic-s026/

[rockstarwiggle]

My current overseas LED light has done quite nicely over the past 4 months. They are called Intellisun Smart Aquarium LED lights. All of my corals have benefited quite nicely. The red chalice has doubled in size and the duncan coral....well it has just grown like crazy. The duncan has went from 2 heads to 9 plus heads. I don't have any acros, but the other SPS I have are JeeperTy's metal halide born, and while they took a while to grow and color back up, they are now doing just fine growing.

[Euphoric Eulogy]

I love my Metal Halides!

[kingjames]

love metal halides, but as stated, they def need atinics for the bluer look that makes the coral really POP!

[nvrEnuf]

I saw on facebook that Reef2reef had a thread about someone going BACK to MH after having LED. I didn't have the time to read it but it's the first case I have heard of and I would be real interested to know what kind of LED it was; I'd suspect a DIY build.

I'd say my chalice has at least doubled in size in the last 12 months under 1/2 what is reccomended by BML for my tank. As a matter of fact it just took out half a torch coral and I had to move the torch.

I have at least a couple acro species and they stay white at the tips growing well but all have different growing rates. Birdsnest is one of my youngest SPS at about a month and it has almost doubled.

I am running (2) 12' BML reef spec 90 degree over a 46 gal BF. They are currently retro-fitted into a POS Odysea 4 ballast T5 fixture where the white bulbs used to be. I am still running the 2 T5 actinics, but only until the other POS ballast goes out then it will be swaped for BML super actinics.

Good luck!

[victoly]

I'm another case of going from LED back to MH. I did it for my sps. If you're wanting to run a mixed tank with a little bit of everything, LED is the way to go. If you're sps dominant, it's hard to beat MH.

[Neon Reefer]

The highest growth of all lighting is 6.5K Metal Halide. Corals will be brown as in more of a natural setting shalow water. 10K grows well and as you go towards the 20K mark where corals look best under MH without actinmic support your growth slows.

It's all about balancing your wants to your system. Personally I'm at the point where I like healthy growth but not looking for rampant growth anymore. I'm more into coloration at this point. But can't stand the Blue look of too much actinic VHO.

I like the balance of LED Actinic and 12K 50/50 at ~2.5 watts per gallon. I suppliment this w/ wide spectrum spread/ratio of 6RB-2RR-3RG-1UV running at ~.75 watts per gal. This gives me the six colors which seems to be the hot deal these days. Wide spectrum as in the multicolored VHO setups. I get good avg growth and natural looking color from the corals. They don't glow like under all VHO Actinic but have all the colors reflecting nicely.

[Wade]

I've been running a Reefbreeders Photon 48 for almost a year and have seen good growth on all my coral. Several SPS, LPS, and zoas.

[Viet'spride70]

I'm another case of going from LED back to MH. I did it for my sps. If you're wanting to run a mixed tank with a little bit of everything, LED is the way to go. If you're sps dominant, it's hard to beat MH.

+1 agreed...back to the old school, here i go...

[Sascha D.]

My acros have no problem under led and I like that I don't have to worry about heat or replacing bulbs.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

[Timfish]

I would encourage you to get a light meter, either lux or PAR, and take light readings from your tank and see if you can find somebody with the fixtures you are looking at and get light readings from them. (What I love about BuildMyLED.com is they give you their PAR readings for thier fixtures so you can figure out your light field without having to buy their fixtures first.)

The two issues I've run into converting MH to LED is first the LEDs can be much brighter than MH. Last year I helped a friend replace her Corallife fixture with 2 150watt MH and 2 65 watt PC actinic to one 70 watt BML 12,000K and one 70 watt BML super actinic on her ninety. We went from 100 PAR at the surface 6" from the front with MH to 200 PAR with the LEDs. At the bottom MH was 45 PAR and LED was 60 PAR. There were two spots on top of the rock directly under the MH bulbs that read about 250 PAR but the intensity dropped off quickly, over all the light field with the BML LEDs 50% to 100% brighter than the MH/PC fixture, and this was with roughly 1/3 the wattage. To be fair the MH and PC bulbs were about 8 - 9 months old.

The second issue is spectrum and Iv"e run into this with the different color temperature bulbs MH has but it's usually not as pronounced as it is with LED. The fluorescing proteins corals produce are excited by reallatively narrow spectrum bands. Changing from MH to LED even with the same PAR readings and same color temperature you may still have different spectrum as both of those measurements are composite numbers. Different spectra will stimulate corals to produce different fluorescing proteins giving corals potentially very different colors. This also takes time so it may be weeks or months for coral to adjust. Since white LEDs are using blue light to stimulate phosphors the most common color shift I see with LED configurations tends to be more Green Fluorescing Protein or GFP. I've seen baby blue A. millipora go all green and a bright red chalice go all orange because of this.

[Bpb]

In the spirit of discussion, I'll pose a question. I'm not really in the market but always love learning. Were I to go led, and stay in a reasonable budget, these are the two different models I'd consider for my 90 gallon...but I'm not looking just discussing. For those spectrum and led experts...what are your takes on say...

2 x ocean revive arctic t-247

Versus

1x reef breeders photon 48

Coverage should be similar, price range is within $100 of each other. The photon 48 is nice because it's controller can step up and down intensity, and it boasts a single power cord, whereas the ocean revive unit would be two for equal coverage, yet slightly beefier and nicer housings (based on pics and description).

Biggest question is spectrum. The reef breeder is simpler. Neutral whites, 420 violets, and 660 reds, royal blue and blue.

Ocean revive has a couple cool white colors as well as greens in the mix.

Which appears to be the more potent sps grower and colorer (if it ain't a word it should be)? I've seen the photon 48 in person and it looks great, never seen the ocean revive units.

[Bogdan]

You can custom chose the LEDs for the Photon.

[Bpb]

Oh I know that, but I'm curious as to what is better or worse about the stock config of one vs the other. It seems like there's so much conflicting info. Ocean revive and orphek both boast that high color temp cool whites 12000k-20000k cool whites are best because they reduce the need for excessive blue diodes and are the perfect choice, whereas reef breeders and a lot of DIY-ers are all about the 4000k neutral whites for their higher bump in the green/orange/red range and using dedicated blues for blue.

This is an example of two modestly priced, and highly touted fixtures (reef breeders and ocean revive) that are on opposite ends of the science of led color choice. To me it seems like neutral whites are a better choice because they would eliminate the needs of red green and cyan diodes and reduce disco effect...yet higher end fixtures are really hanging in there with higher kelvin cool whites and adding specific green/yellow/cyan/red/deep red ect. Just curious as to why?

[Sascha D.]

Bpb I had similar questions before I bought my fixtures and the best answer I could find is aesthetics. From my research I've, more or less, determined that the reason LED makers put the different colors in their fixtures is to achieve a pleasing look for the owner. I mean fish don't need the lights to see and you can grow coral under any spectrum as long as it's bright enough. All of the makers want to have a fixture that can be labeled "full spectrum" and so they mix all of the color wavelengths to achieve the these two goals.

I like the 50/50 and 14k look so I went with the OceanRevives.

[Bpb]

You know I guess that makes sense, seeing as the vast majority of photosynthesis occurs in the 420nm-470nm range with a touch of red. I know there's more but from the majority of what I've learned to this point that range in the blue/violet seems to be the most important so as long as that's there, anything else would just be to taste

[Sascha D.]

I think the perfect spectrum is somewhere between The Smurfs and Gummi Bears, but they keep giving us My Little Pony.

I'm just trying to make due with what is on the market. The corals have responded well and they're growing 10 fold over my previous lights that consisted of 6500k, 10k, 420nm and 450nm.