Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[Bpb]

Sunlit raceway tanks. Man I loved that thread early on. Didn't he get nailed by some form of acro eating nudibranch or black bugs or something?


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[karimwassef]

and as for the PAR of sunlight...

Originally Posted by Spslvr

Par regularly hits 2400 and even higher, natural sunlight..

[karimwassef]

in contrast, here is my PAR map for my MH 400Ws



new bulbs top, old bulbs bottom.

I peak around 1700... I would have to drop from 12" up to 8" to break 2400

[karimwassef]

Originally Posted by Bpb

Sunlit raceway tanks. Man I loved that thread early on. Didn't he get nailed by some form of acro eating nudibranch or black bugs or something?


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he did but he recovered... the heat bleaching is wrecking the GB reef though now

[karimwassef]

since others have shared their tanks... here's mine with 3 x MH 400W @ 14000K

[jda]

I could get 1200 to 1600 PAR (apogee meters, so who really knows...) in Missouri in the summer months from about 10 AM (1200) to peak about 1-4 (1600) and then until about 6 PM. The acros thrived outside under the sunlight - I had a frag of PM go from about 3/4 of an inch to just smaller than a tennis ball size in 4 months under that light and had to drive a Korallin reactor as hard as I could to keep the corals fed. Amazes me that people think that the 300-400 PAR that their fixtures put out is "too much" light.

[karimwassef]

well.. I am running at 2 x 5 gal buckets of kalkwasser a year... so it's like a factory.

[salty joe]

Where do you get buckets of kalkwasser?

And how high does your pH go?

[shred5]

Originally Posted by jda

I could get 1200 to 1600 PAR (apogee meters, so who really knows...) in Missouri in the summer months from about 10 AM (1200) to peak about 1-4 (1600) and then until about 6 PM. The acros thrived outside under the sunlight - I had a frag of PM go from about 3/4 of an inch to just smaller than a tennis ball size in 4 months under that light and had to drive a Korallin reactor as hard as I could to keep the corals fed. Amazes me that people think that the 300-400 PAR that their fixtures put out is "too much" light.

Couple problems with his thought.
Par and spectrum drop off rather fast once they hit the water.
Corals in shallow water might hit over a 1000 par but not corals deeper and a 1000 par might kill a coral from just 25 feet of water.

The other issue is the sun moves so basically it is lighting one side of the coral for the first half while the other side is shaded and then evening the other side is getting the light. Plus light is being reflected off the surface especially with wave action and being bent. Our light do not move and are at high noon all the time..

[karimwassef]

I make all my PAR readings at the water surface. The rest is math.

My pH runs at 8.4 and I've been using a very expensive two fishes from Amazon. Just about to order a new bucket from BRS.

My Alk is 7.5 ... If my growth rate goes any higher, I'll have to switch to two part or start adding vinegar to my kalk to help keep my pH under control.

[Bpb]

I'm amazed you can keep up with that level of growth from kalkwasser alone


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[shred5]

Originally Posted by shred5

Couple problems with his thought.
Par and spectrum drop off rather fast once they hit the water.
Corals in shallow water might hit over a 1000 par but not corals deeper and a 1000 par might kill a coral from just 25 feet of water.

The other issue is the sun moves so basically it is lighting one side of the coral for the first half while the other side is shaded and then evening the other side is getting the light. Plus light is being reflected off the surface especially with wave action and being bent. Our light do not move and are at high noon all the time..

You know this has me thinking maybe this is why leds are so hard. They are a point source which creates shading.. To me T-5 has been the easiest light for keeping a reef and it is basically a wall that lights up the whole coral on all sides.. Halides might provide the best color but they are more of a point source and on their own they can be a little harder but with supplementation they get easier.

Look at the led tanks that do really well with large colones of sps and great color, they have tons of led lights and some are usually angled and they are angled from the front back. We look at the fronts of the corals mostly in the reef aquarium. I just wonder if they just appear brown from the fronts and if we lit the fronts with leds we would see more color.. I have seen tons of frags and smaller colonies that look good but as they get larger they brown out. This keeping lights at high noon may be the problem with leds and sps because the sides do not get enough light while we are torching the tops and maybe from the top they look fine.

Example I have a orange/forest fire digitata and switched out my T-5 fixture for Kessil.. The very next day the digitata looked brown.. I put it in my frag tank and the next day is was pure orange again... Well my guess is under led It was shading the front of the coral so no fluorescing of the orange pigments. There is no way a coral browns that fast and gets 100 percent color back in 24 hrs. I bet if I left that coral under led eventually the front would brown out from being shaded..

I think this is one reason leds lights are so touchy..

[karimwassef]

Originally Posted by Bpb

I'm amazed you can keep up with that level of growth from kalkwasser alone


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If I didn't have my monster skimmer to keep my pH under control, it wouldn't be possible.

[biecacka]

Why do you keep your Alk @7.5. Do you seem to get best results with that number.

Corey

[karimwassef]

Yes. My calcium is consistently 500ppm and with 7.5dKH, I get very fast growth and healthy PE and color.

I also think it's a more natural and resilient state. Natural reefs don't really run at 10+

My biggest problem is new corals that come from low light, low flow, high Alk tanks into my very high light, surge flow, low dKH environment. Corals either thrive and grow very quickly or crash.

Here's one constant: every single SPS coral I've gotten has dramatically changed color and girth / form in my tank.

I'll post some before/after pics

[karimwassef]

the purple Stylo Milka in the center of that picture started out like this:


The Pavona on the top left:


The gold-base, purple-tip acro above the Milka:


a little further down the tank (today's view)...


The purple Digitata on the far right started out like this


The bright pink Birdsnest on the left:


and the green/brown Fungia on the top right started out as:


and another picture from today:


Here's what the green Birdsnest in the middle started as:


that picture also shows the gold and green acropora on the top right today (It's not super clear in the picture from today).

I get a lot of "rescue" corals so that may be why they change color so much

[dz6t]

Originally Posted by davehead86

Most people don't run their LEDs at full strength because it will kill the corals. Not because of savings.


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I found people commonly lump all LED together despite they are not all created equally.
There are plenty of junks out there and may good ones.
In contrast, there are not that many halide and t5 options people use.
For example, most people use Radium, Phoenix halide bulbs and ATI t5.
If people are using high quality LED and run them properly, you will get similar results as halide and t5.

[dz6t]

One area LED still can't replace metal halide is the ability to generate large amount of light that concentrated at one dot. The requirement of cooling such mutichip led plus the lower efficiency diminish the advantage of LED, which is suppose to be energy saving and longer life.

[karimwassef]

That's just because liquid cooling hasn't caught on. One advantage of trained DIY is the flexibility to push the envelope.

[dz6t]

It is just physically impossible to pack 250w or 400w of LED power in a dot that is about a quater of a square inch so far.

[shred5]

Originally Posted by dz6t

It is just physically impossible to pack 250w or 400w of LED power in a dot that is about a quater of a square inch so far.

Why would you want to?

That is what is what is causing shading issues...

[karimwassef]

Well.. First: lenses on high powe LEDs can reduce the shading effect, basically converting the flat LED grid to a virtual point source.

Second: you don't need 250 to 400W. A good 100W multichip LED can generate an equivalent PAR to a MH bulb.

Third: conduction cooling allows significantly more thermal control.

My prediction is that my DIY liquid cooled multichip lens array can get there. But then, I'm biased.

[drummerboyevil]

Seems like if you could pack 250 watts into a small space you might be able to stack an upward and downward facing LED so that you could use a reflector for the upward facing and it'd be more like metal halide spread.


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[dz6t]

Originally Posted by karimwassef

W: you don't need 250 to 400W. A good 100W multichip LED can generate an equivalent PAR to a MH bulb.
.

That just flat out not true. A100w multichip led is more equivalent to 150w metal halide at best.
Use a quantum counter and you will see.

[dz6t]

Originally Posted by drummerboyevil

Seems like if you could pack 250 watts into a small space you might be able to stack an upward and downward facing LED so that you could use a reflector for the upward facing and it'd be more like metal halide spread.


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Some led for home market are just like that minus the reflector.