Evergrow D120 Advice

[tank41]

Hey guys am thinking about pulling the trigger on the evergrow D120 fixtures for my 180 mixed reef. 72x24x24. Been doing alot of research and see alot of people having success with these fixtures. I do however have a couple of questions before doing so. One of the specs that i am unsure of that is posted on the website states this-- (The rated power of our chip is 3W, but actual using power is 2W) Is this good or bad?? This led venture is all new to me. One more thing is they are sold as a full spectrum fixture. I am a metal halide guy currently utillizing 3x250w pheonix 14k bulbs supplimented with 4x39w t5ho ati blue plus bulbs. I love the amount of blue i get from this setup. Will i be able to achieve this using these fixtures without swapping out bulbs? If i cant achieve the look I want can i later add more blue to the fixtures without much hassle. Will 3 of these fixtures be enough for my 180 or should i go 4. It's a mixture of softies and lps with a few birdsnest colonies Thanks everyone for your time.
John

[Mark Bianco]

I have looked at these online. There is two channels to be dimmed manually unfortunately they do not list what led's are on each color. So adjustability to meet a certin spectrum to match what you want is anybody's guess. The reason they run the 3 watt led's at 2 watts is it will run cooler and last longer. Three fixtures will cover the tank. You will NOT ever get the same effect using led's as you do with MH and T5's Not saying its bad as we all see color differently. I had a similar combination before I switched to led's Even though I have now migrated to Hydras 52 and it has six or seven channels to adjust I still run two T5's for supplemental lighting..

[unitedbga]

I have a pair of them over a 60 gallon display. The colors are not going to be as crisp as you are used to. The whites look a little bit washed out. You can get good growth and depth penetration. However if you have sps you may run into some problems. Not immediatly but 6 to 12 months later they might start fading. I lost serveral acans.

For a 180 gallon you will need 4 of them. It is best to mix LED's with either T5 or Metal halides. Why? Because even though the LED's are sold as full spectrum they really aren't. Metal halides when filtered created light from 380nm to 750nm or higher. The LEDs will generally have 420, 450, 460, 480, 520, 660, and white LED's. They are missing 380 to below 420 and above 660. They are also missing the strong 550nm peak that most metal halides have. Like I said mixing technologies is good.

If you are looking for a really good LED setup and have money to burn check out Orphek. Their LED lights are cutting edge. http://orphek.com/orphek-atlantik-v2-wifi/

[bdsage]

check out reefbreeders.com...

[Guygettnby]

Tank41,

Seems like you like the same kind of look to your tank as me. I run 2 250w Phoenix and 4 54w blue plus t5's over my 72g tank. I absolutely love the look of my tank with this setup. But recently I had been more driven into looking at LED's. I had tried to keep up on the progress of LED lights over the years, but I was always a MH/T5 guy. I had seen a bunch of LED tanks and ended up liking them more and more every time a saw them.

I looked around and talked too a bunch of friends, as well as vendors here on reef central. In the end I chose to go with some fixtures from OceanRevive for several reasons. You might want to take a look at the OceanRevive Arctic S026 or the upcoming Arctic T247 fixtures.

I ended up choosing to go with the Arctic S026 fixture until I saw the new Arctic T247 in another thread. But I figured since you were looking at the Evergrow d120, like I was in the beginning, you might like to take a look at those lights as well. They are a RC vendor so if you have any questions about the lights you could just pop in there section and ask.

Hope this helps you out in making your leap in to LED lights. I know it was a hard choice for me to make, seeing as I am such a huge MH/T5 fan.