I still puch MH over t5s, ect.. but I have been exparamenting with LEDs and reasearching it a lot over the last couple years. well started playing with them on tanks in 2002/2003. the reason I am going so hard and building some myself now is I retired and moved and downgraded.. so I will be running at 30 gal tank with a 30 gal sump. I was planing on setting up a 250 gal tank but the house we bought can't support a tank that big soooo... anyways. I still want the tank to be a very high light SPS tank with massave amount of water flow, but heat is going to be a killer as to get the light I want I have to put two 250 watt HQI over a tank that has a surface area that is 12" X 30" so I would be looking at a 1/4hp chiller just to handle the heat from the lights. now the tank is 17" deep with 40 degree optics I calculated I will be pushing about the same PAR or a little higher than I would with the MH, but I will get non of the heat radiation to the water, the top of the tank will be cleaner, and if I don't like the color of the light.. I don't have to wait a year till I buy new bulbs, I just adjust it.

So to put it plainly I don't nessasarly push MH, I push what is best for the situation. now for some one who doesn't want to build there own light or spend the initial setup costs, I will still recomend MH with T5 for suplmental color. in the last 10 years I think I have spent clost to 13K on different lights.. and I don't think thee is somthing out there I haven't tried but this was because 10-12 years ago there was no info on lighting.. VHO was the standard, PCs and MH new. and a lot of people still using HO, T8s and no T12s.
my first setup was two 96 watt PC (10K) and two phillips 03 photocopyer tubes overdriven at 3X the normal current. it only got crazy from there on:mrgreen:

Steve

Well regardless of how effective these are in practice I am very interested to see what you guys can do with them. I'm always one to go with what is tried, tested and true only because I can't afford to experiment. To be honest the LED craze doesn't really interest me all that much for my own tanks but that doesn't mean I won't be watching closely just in case.

Ya, IIRC, PFO had more power supply issues then burnt out LEDS. But, these high power LEDS NEED cooling. Just cause they don;t heat your tank up, doesn't mean they don;t make alot of heat.

they make a fraction of the heat a MH or T5 do because of the efficiency of the LED chip its self, so a very small amount of the power supplied is turned into heat. the cooling they need is for the actual die of the LED chip, if it gets to hot it decreases the life of the chip. if you keep it cool the chip is happy. so they are mounted to a heat sink, with a couple fans blowing air into the fins of the heatsink. so yes there is a small amount of heat produced, but it is put into the room the tank is in instead of the tank.

Steve

Guess I should have specified, Alot of heat for their size. yes, it's not as much as MH or T5, but heat still kills LED's

Another maker coming to the US market. Just read on Glassbox

http://glassbox-design.com/2010/tmc-...quarium-light/

The reviews on the TMC fixtures aren't great. They may also be paying Orbitec a royalty on US sales.

I also came accross this which shows some side by side pics of 2 months of coral growth under LEDs (post #9). Looks alright to me :smile:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...owtopic=220198