He was brought on-board to rebuild it for Peter in Toronto.

I've heard the Orpheks that were used in this build differed from the ones available by default when you order them. Custom selection of LEDs or perhaps even the addition of LEDs not available in the standard fixture.

Lossed another SPS colony, that had browned out when I made the switch to LED. It's not impressing me........:neutral:

I'd say it's probably not a direct result of switching to a new technology. Either the light wasn't good enough, or not acclimated properly. I switched to LED, ramped them up to what I thought was the right intensity and everything did great. No browning or dying, so if you're losing stuff, I'd look at all possible causes.

Yes, there could have been other under lining issues. Needless to say, the LED light is still over my tank. But i cleaned up my Infinity, and gave it a hug. (it'll give me another good reason to see the Coral Master in the new year)

Here is what my tank looked like right after the switch. It looks the same today, only more coral..

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...psb6d31b58.jpg

Nice shot Brad... Gives me hope for LED one day. I mostly im scared of the transition as matching the light up perfect is near impossible when changing any lighting.

Darryl, matching the color of the visible light is easy, I have it looking just like my Radiums. However, the corals don't believe it :)
Once technology figures out how to replicate the spectrum AND do away with the disco effect, I think LED will be a no brainer.
Mostly the colors are stable and 95% of what they were, except for a couple of pieces. One is due to spectrum, the other, intensity.
But, if I were to win the lottery and set up my dream tank, it would run MH for sure.

As exiting president of LWL i'm in full agreement there too.

So how have you gotten your SOLs to look like your radiums? What did you add? Out of the box there's no way.

I think they could do this today. Create a unit with an LED pod distribution like the GHL Mitras with each pod housing a tightly packed LED array like the Kessil.

replace LED pods here..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps63714bcc.jpg

with this in each pod..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...i/IMG_2348.jpg

That will be the killer LED light. Unfortunately it is probably cost prohibitive today :cry:

well, they don't physically look like mogul bulbs, but the visible color looks like the color I had with them. I guess it still has that missing piece, but very close. I love the color of the light, just wish the corals loved it as much.

Agreed. I think that would be much closer. And very expensive :)

Oh I thought your issues was coral coloration and appearance of the light to your eyes. It's just the actual coral coloration.

To me the SOLs light output looks a bit flat compared to a Radium but everyone's eyes are different.

The flat look is perhaps the component missing. The color of the tank is almost identical, or my eyes have adjusted and told me it is.
But yes, it's just a bit of pop missing from the coral colors that really gets me. Not enough to toss the lights, but enough that I still miss my Radiums. I have one on my frag tank, so when I need my MH fix, I just go sit in front of that tank :)

get that same feeling you do when warming your hands around a campfire.

While in theory that makes sense in reality it's not necessarily true. The kessil doesn't have the same amount of colors in the GHL so while you may think the kessil is better at color blending it's not really the same. While the pods in the GHL may look pretty basic apparently they were designed specifically for maximum color blending and efficiency.
Also consider the spread, the kessil is pretty tight which probably aids in the blending, if you widen the optic to be more comparable to other fixtures you may lose what you've gained. The Kessil is just a multichip LED which may or may not be the way the industry will go, in the end you're still looking at different colored light sources, packing them closer together may not make a difference and only cost you more in efficiency. Cost wise multichips are available and realistically cheaper than multiple single LEDs in terms of watts/$.

ya I wonder what a kessil would look like with more colours. That would be interesting for sure. Honestly I don't quite understand why there is a red channel ? Is it just to add that particular spectrum? I found (to my eyes) that the addition of the red and green channel made the light look worse and I had to turn them both OFF to make the light pleasing.

I think you really need to spend more time with the LEDs on your hands. I know when I first experimented with them I hated everything about them. After playing around with them they grew on me very quickly. Red and green are key addition IMO and most others who have compared with and without will agree, you only need very little but I found it applies less demand on the white LEDs creating an RGB effect which prevents many colors from being washed out. LEDs are different from T5s and Halides, realistically they shouldn't be compared too closely. If you switched from all halides to all T5s or vise versa you would have much to say as well. That's why MH & T5 combinations exist and are so popular but personally I think the T5 and LED combination idea goes against the main goals from LEDs in the first place.

I haven't read the entire thread - but do you have a PAR meter? Especially if the colors are in the blues on the LEDs... the amount of PAR given off by LED's is very strong on some models and under-rated on the blue colors- so much so that it burns corals. Perhaps the browning is this too?

LED's may looks dimmer to the human eye - but not a PAR meter. Thought I would give that input..

I found deep red really adds "depth" to the color of the tank. It makes the corals stand out from the rock, as well as enhancing some of the coral colors (not necessarily red, strangely).

I just added 4 more deep red for a total of 10 at 450mA 2 weeks ago and I really like the look... I think I'm done now. It remains to be seen if I get algae growth with that much red.

BTW with no optics I get no disco that I can tell.

It's a common misconception that a typical PAR meter can be used to accurately measure PAR of LED fixtures. But your are correct that LEDs appear dimmer than other types of lighting due to being a more focused beam and having a more narrow spectrum. However with more full spectrum LED fixtures you tend to get brighter (to the eye) results similar to other types of lighting.

Yes, this is why I stated that it is under-rated, especially on the blue colors.:biggrin:

Yes and no. A typical meter will present a lower number for blue only but this number will still be relatively high in comparison to other light sources that appear brighter. The narrow peaks from LEDs in general force higher PAR numbers from a meter while not representing how much of the spectrum range used for photosynthesis is actually being filled.

If a PAR meter is used - it should also be put on electrical mode and not SUN I think... it will help a tiny bit - but overall it should be used as a gauge, even with the margin of error. Better than no meter I say.

I have an SPS PAR meter. Very special color changing indicators :mrgreen:

That's the only indicator I would accurately rely on :mrgreen:

Agreed :)