Acros (and other SPS) lit by LED only. What do you use?!!?

[dhalderman]

There is limitless info regarding LED, quality, wavelength, intensity and so forth. Pushing that technical research to the side for a moment, I figured another way to gauge what is possible and what works is a type of "poll" thread here.
This is for those that successfully grow acros mainly, but other SPS also. That is, those that have good growth and maintaining decent color and PE, and all doing it strictly using LED lights. If so, please tell me what LED fixture you use!!!

[billdogg]

My 120 DT uses 2x AI Sol blues, my grow out tank is set up with 2x kessil A360W's

[Kies1]

90 gallon maxspect razor 300 watt

[Ron Reefman]

180g sps/lps reef, 3 years under EverGrow (ReefBreeders Photon 32) and great growth.
65g very mixed shallow reef under the same fixture by another seller
25g frag tank under an OceanRevive T247 (didn't care about sunrise/sunset ability over the frag tank)

[Wazzel]

AI hydra52's on my display and hydra26 on my frag tank.

[GimpyFin]

I use two hydra 26 hds.

[vhuang168]

AP700s on a 40b right now as a holding system while my 190 is being readied. Will have 2 AP700s on the 190.


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[moatdaddy]

Matts coral connection in Fort Walton Beach, Florida was a huge proponent of kessils when they hit the market 5 years ago or so. He promptly swapped to an all kessil system in his store. In his display tank that has had them for numerous years the lack of shading and directional nature of even great leds is prevalent. The bottom of every sps colony, were talking softball sized pieces, was dead. As the colony grew, which it did grow well in his display tank, it shaded the lower portions of the sps. I never got this far on my personal tank, so all i can do is gauge from one of my LFS display tanks. This did however really effect my lighting decision going forward with my new tank. Currently i run T5 because if i want to grow corals for more than a few years leds alone will lead to shading. This is also brought to light in a recent set of videos made by BulkReefSupply. Week 18-22 go over lighting and it illustrated the downfalls of LEDs as a solo light source. If i had the extra money i would buy the ATI powermod, or a comparable. And a good, decent priced LED/T5 combo fixture along with an all in one digital 24/7 water tester are on my most desired list.

I do have a separate frag tank ran by leds only where its non colonies. I run chinese blackbox, before mars aqua, they are tao tronic full spectrums. Also i am running the kessil ap700 knock offs. the 169w chinese cob lights that im not overly fond of due to they are overly white. both grow frags just fine as long as my chemistry is spot on.

[Hentz]

I ran an ATI 6x24 over my 36" SPS reef. I told myself I wan to be strictly LED ans nothing else. After reading and reading for about two months, I finally pulled the trigger on Hydra 26 HD's. Couldn't be happier. My corals grew very quick, my polyp extension was nuts, colors changed a little (T5 > LED; as to be expected), all went really really well!
My tank is still being transitioned to autopilot mode again, I moved not too long ago so much working on finding its sweet spot again, but it's doing solid!

Ps; I used Wazzel's hydra profile for my lights. Toned it down and it has worked incredible.

[slay]

I'm running Radion XR30w G3 Pros. Coloration is great, as is polyp extension, but honestly I couldn't tell you about growth except that they are growing, lol. I don't take pictures of my tank (don't even own a real camera) so I can't make comparisons. Growth feels slow but I suspect it's because a few softies and a nem in the tank are growing faster than weeds, so SPS growth feels slow by comparison.

As a side note, I'm cheating the spirit of this thread a little - I do run two T5s as well to get rid of shadows.

[Reef Frog]

It seems some LED owners have overcome the shading issue by using multiple strip or canister fixtures at different angles so all parts of the coral colonies are receiving some light.

The BML strips used to have a mounting bracket option that allowed you 20 degrees of movement for this purpose.

[FirstContact]

Had Orphek PR72s on my last build. This new build is with V2 Pendants.

[slief]

I run eight Kessil 360WE's over a 4'x8' display. Shading is not an issue for me as all my lights are setup in two rows running length wise down the tank. All are angled towards center and or where they are needed to eliminate shading, reduce light bleed onto the viewing panes while also maximizing the coverage where it's needed most. My aquascape also runs down the center of the tank which is setup as a peninsula. I don't run any additional lighting over the tank and all my SPS and other corals are growing like weeds. That said, I do have an area along the back 4' wall where I would like better lighting due to the way my top is on my tank which covers that area so I have been considering adding two more Kessils to shine through the acrylic top as well as through the openings since I have SPS corals growing on that back area of the peninsula. To clarify, my tank has two 24"x24" openings and the rest 1" acrylic. The last pair of lights aren't directly over that end and while I do get decent lighting on that back wall, I could use more there since I have placed corals on that end.

It's the very left side of the photo below that I am talking about and adding to more Kessils would allow me to shift the end two lights further left on my light rack which would result in better intensity across the entire tank. As it sits now, I have great coverage across the entire tank but the left and right sides get the least intensity and I have SPS on the left, a couple giant hammer corals and some SPS on the right side. The additional lights would allow me to spread them out more towards both ends while increasing the light density. I coudl also lower my intensity a bit. I now max at 80% which is sufficient.

[alton]

Build My Led, but they have moved on to only make Pot Lights

[reefkeeper2]

Eight Hydra 52 and five Vegas

[vhuang168]

@reefkeeper2 did you start the tank on LEDs or did you switch?


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[reefkeeper2]

I switched years ago from halides.

[bif24701]

Just installed two AP700 from Kessil on my 180 and very happy. It's a new system a few SPS.


Aaron

[vhuang168]

Originally Posted by reefkeeper2

I switched years ago from halides.

I'm sure the tank has changed since you switched from MH, were these acros added after or in the tank before the switch?

[reefkeeper2]

I sort of misunderstood. This tank has only been up for 2 years. Although the same as the last tank, it never had metal halide lighting. These acros have been grown under LED only.

[vhuang168]

Awesome! Thanks!


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[Wazzel]

Originally Posted by Wazzel

Two year progress
May-14

May-15

May-16

[Wazzel]

A top down

[dhalderman]

I definitely see a Kessil and Ecotech trend here, something that I've already seemed to notice and this serves to confirm. I'm also pretty impressed though looking at those Aquaillumination models. It's just good info to see what out there is actually working successfully "in the field", and to see which brands seem to be getting it right. Awesome replies everyone good info thanks so much!!

[ca1ore]

Originally Posted by Reef Frog

It seems some LED owners have overcome the shading issue by using multiple strip or canister fixtures at different angles so all parts of the coral colonies are receiving some light.

That is essentially what I did. I'm using a line source light, a pair of photon 32, along with a number of point source Kessils (both 360s for broad coverage and 160s as target lights). Ended up spending more than anticipated, but they look great and perform very well. Also, FWIW, any colony that grows large will go pale at the base regardless of the lights used.