Success with LED and SPS
 

I'd like to see pictures, and any posts, of tanks with success with LED lighting. I've made the switch, from MH/T5's to LED, and it's been a couple months, and things are not as nice as i hoped for. My LPS and softies are liking it, but my poor SPS.... Not so nice. (Opening Can of Worms). Would just like to see sucessful applications with LED and SPS. Just to know my investment was worth it.

what kind of Leds?

made the switch about 3 years ago and could not be happier
I can send you a video of sps growth if you like that I have been making
I fragged my red digi and take a photo of it everyday for the last ~30 days and string them together into a video
http://fragbox.ca/my-aquarium/

I'm using a 4 foot F series Sunbrite. On my 72 gal/18x18x48 mixed reef. I like the clean look of one fixture.

GHL Mitras looks like it has promise, follow the thread below, I think he's had it the longest - but I'm like you, I don't want 2 or 3 modules hanging over the tank attached to some make shift hanger.

I like the one fixture look, clean , like the vertex or sunbrite.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...2097957&page=8

what do you mean sps not liking it?
bleached?
not as vibrant? less growth?

Not as vibrant, less growth, less polyp extentions, some browning. I did have a bit of a water quality issue. (traces of phosphates) which i have hopefull figured out. But what i've seen so far the sps did like the MH/T5's better. Time will tell. Patience is the key, i guess.

dam
really not happy!
that happened with me when I was using AI Sol
everything browned out and I lost alot of sps
sounds like they are not getting enough light. You have the lights turned down?

This light has the ability to increase up and dim down, over the course of the day. I have it maxing out, at about 90% right now. And I have also illiminated the red and green colors from the light. I have found that those colors cause excessive algea blooms, and don't really look very nice, to me. It's heart wrenching to see full colonies, that have taken me more than year or more to grow, turn brown, just because i wanted to keep up with the trends, or save a few bucks on power and bulb replacement.

I posted a few pics of my SPS in this thread

http://96.31.76.198/vbulletin/showth...005#post773005

While I lost a little "pop" in my colors, on a very few pieces, overall I'd say LEDs can successfully grow SPS. My growth has not slowed, polyps are the same, colors are mostly the same. This is with 6 x AI Sol blues. Either your light doesn't have enough power/intensity, or the water quality issues you mentioned are affecting the corals.

GOOD LEDs are perfectly good for growing SPS :)

Maybe you are blaming the wrong thing? You mentioned a phosphate issue. Raised phosphates can inhibit growth, cause browning and kill SPS. In some species it can happen fast especially if they are used to cleaner water. By the time you realized you had elevated phosphates it may have been there for a while? Fixing that problem won't turn your SPS around over night. It could take weeks if not months for SPS to recover.

My $0.02 is I just don't think we fully understand light spectrum demands for many coral species. Or if they are understood (they certainly aren't by me yet, lol), are minimized by thinking corals will grow fine under NW/RB combinations. Many older or cheaper fixtures are only putting out specific wave lengths and are missing some of the wave lengths you get out off natural sunlight or MH/T5 combo's. The production process of LED's is that each LED is made to produce a fairly narrow window of spectrum unlike MH's that give off the full spectrum from UV all the way to 20,000K. Thus the MH's are giving corals everything they need, whereas with a LED that is poorly mixed in colour, would only give the coral part of what it needs and may lose colour, growth etc. It would appear, from my research anyway, that the best results are coming from fixtures with a really good blend of colours. For example:

420nm Actinic blue/violet
430nm bluer actinic blue/violet
445 Blue
455 Royal Blue
6500K Blueish white
10000K Even blue white
20000K super blue white

Some even advocate that wave lengths down to 395nm are beneficial but to an unknown degree. Thus the leaps and bounds we're seeing in LED fixtures as technology and research are yielding either undesirable results, such as poor growth and coloration, or good growth. There are some out there.

No idea if I'm right or wrong, just my opinion I'm starting to develop after looking into DIY'ing my LED fixtures....

Here is a Canreef TOTM that is currently running inexpensive eBay LED lights.

http://i600.photobucket.com/albums/t...e/photo-18.jpg

It's Dez's tank. I believe he's been running LEDs for a bit over a year now? I'm sure he would chime in but he's busy playing on the beach in California.

I thought Dez used Sols?

Last time I talked to him, yes, he was running 3 units

ah, I guess I missed his change over from the eBay LEDs he was running. Still, his tank has had LEDs over it for a while now.

They definitely grow corals here are a couple shots of my tank on a diy led fixture

Mar 2012

http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/...h/March001.jpg
July
http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/...2_edited-1.jpg


November
http://i1054.photobucket.com/albums/...edited-1-2.jpg

The growth has been good, I will be switching over to mh/t5 just after Christmas. I feel like I'm lacking some color that the Diy leds aren't able to provide.

You guys are making me nervous about building my led fixture.


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

As long as you have enough emitters, you should be fine. I'm still convinced that LED is still a ways out from replacing MH in coloring SPS, but it's certainly a close second with many other positives. I miss my MH, but I wouldn't go back because of all the other features. I wouldn't hesitate building a fixture, but do model it after a successful unit.

are you afraid of your tank looking totally awesome like the tanks we posted pictures of? :lol:

The coral in the pictures look fairly healthy but to me the colours look less than awesome. Every time I read a thread on LEDs and SPS there are always people who say that their colours are inferior but the benefits of LEDs outweigh the negatives. If I was keeping an SPS tank I think that vibrant colour would be one of the top priorities.

That being said it may simply be that the pictures are not representative of the actual colours.

The pics I linked in the other thread are close, but are nicer in person. But yes, I did lose some "pop" going to LED. But...I spend less on power and bulbs. I no longer have 5gallons/day evaporating into my livingroom, rotting my house. I don't have to run the chiller 10 hours a day. MH do not ramp up and down like LED, which is a really nice feature. Yes, colors are slightly better under MH, but I'm mostly ok sacrificing a bit of color for all the other pluses. It's a trade-off you need to justify as an individual based on your priorities.

I'm running 4 AI Sol blues over my 5' tank. I would say it's lacking some colour. I'm considering adding some supplemental red/green to see if I can get more pop. You may want to consider adding additional reds and greens. I haven't yet researched it yet but maybe stunner strips have something where you can add reds/greens?

I'm at a point where I'm content, so no more mucking around with it. Just keep the corals watered and watch them grow :)

I believe LEDs have endless options starting from RB+NW ranging to full spectrum, not to mention the cool controls that one can have on LEDs which is not technologically possible with MH or T5s. I have seen people complaining colors in the typical RB+NW mixture since they generally wash away the yellow, orange, red, etc. But with full spectrum, you get killing colors. LEDs are all about proper ratio and spectrum. One wrong placement/ratio and the output gets funky.

I love my MH if you pull up a recliner next to the tank with the sound of the wavemaker in the background. It kind of like lying on the beach in Maui :lol:

What specific colours LED's have you got on your fixture? How many?

I built it about a year ago with 72 3w Cree RB, 24 cw, and 24 high noons. It's a little late to add some of the new LEDs that have came out unless I want to redo it all.

CW flushes out a lot of green and blues. Red looks better but thats all for CW. That's why people started using nutral white (4500k-6000k). 2:1 RB:NW gives 14K look, something for which people moves to MH I guess.

For full spectrum, it should be 5:2:2:1 RB:NW:TV:RGB for full spectrum. True violet (405nm) actually pops up a lot of colors that RB:NW cannot and it triggers a specific region of photosynthesis too. UV (390nm) on the other hand, is actually bad, possibly because the wavelength gets shorter in water from the source.

And this is coming from your experience with LEDs?

Nope. Researches from nano-reef led full spectrum thread :D

And this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDCRxwQj3t4

I've supplemented my AI Sols with 2 Ecoxotic RGB modules. When the reds are turned on it does not pop the reds at all. I find the rdes pop more when the blue is turned up more. I'm waiting for the new controllors for the said supplemental lights and will be adding 2 more for more options to play with.

I've been running a Vertex Illumina for over a year now. Also added UV modules a few months ago with little change. Greens, purples fluores more with the UV's but I don't think they're anywhere near the UV in a MH. My SPS growth and polyp extension is great but the color is just not as good as as MH, not bad but just not the same. Sorry people, MH has better color. Question is, Is it worth the heat, evap and bulbs? I'm sticking with LED for all these reasons. My theory is LED is lacking UV. You don’t get that sunburn feeling under LED like you do from MH. On another note keep your LED whites low. They can really screw things up.

Here is a picture of my tank, sorry for the crapy photo. Colors are better then this.


http://www.calgaryarea.com/aqua/reeftank.jpgHere

I agree with you. You cant get the same results as you can with MH. Theres just that one thing that seems to be missing in everyones tank. Could be color from one coral to the next, browning, bleaching etc. On another note when I played around with my MHs or T5s it never really affected my corals. In Sept I decided to turn my Sols intensity down from 100% to 80% it was a bad move. Brown corals and slow growth. I have since turned them back up and corals are now starting to color up and grow again. I do like LEDs and will not be switching back but man have they been a pain in the a$$

You cannot make the same color pop with the same color supplement. The theory goes like this:

To pop something "black", you will need "white" background and vice-verse.

Let's look at the RGB spectrum:

http://www.novaprinting.ca/images/RGB.gif

Basic rule, you have to have the contrasting color to make coral color pop. If you look at the RGB intersections, the best pop for red will be when you put in cyan. SO you will have to mix the RGB strip accordingly to create cyan blend.

Sorry, my corals decide what color they're going to be. You can't color them the way you like and expect them to do well.

Yah I know that. I was just referring to Madreefer's post regarding the red for red pop.

I have the Sunbrite F Series as well and I have been working to fine tune my LED's since I got them.
They are an ok light. One of my reds has burnt out already. In the future I will only do custom builds. I have seen quite a few done locally and the colors are absolutely amazing.

I am slowly increasing the intensity on my LED's. You need to start the UV off really low and move it up very slowly.

I have several types of monti cap, digi, and pink birdsnest that are all doing very well. I am trying some milliporra and acropora too.

I think some of the problem when talking UV is there really is no standard. What's being used in LED's when they say UV isn't really UV, it's true violet or some form thereof. I've read of TV LED's ranging from 395nm to 410, 410-420, 420-whatever. But because these LED's are putting out only those wavelengths you have to have a mix of them all to really call it a FULL spectrum build. That's pricey. It's why you're not seeing it being done in commercially available products. Heck, I still haven't seen DIY builds doing all the spectrum, there's still arguments about which ones are even being used.
But with MH, just turn it on and you at least have some amounts of everything.
Even if a specific coral uses only .5% of a certain spectrum in the wild, that .5% is still going to affect it's coloration and growth to some extent if it's not provided. It may still be able to live and grow, but not as well. Until someone comes up with an LED or fixture that incorporates everything that a coral needs for a certain look an individual wants, you won't get the "pop", florescence etc. you're looking for. And it's going to take someone with the time, money and perseverance to try and try and try again to figure it out. That's how anything progresses.

Would you be so kind as to give a quick summary as to why this is so, 390nm falling in the UVA spectrum? I don't wish to watch a 20 minute video about full spectrum just to find out about the bad UV. A quick search on the UV spectrum seems to indicate that anything above 400nm isn't really UV, but simply a violet. So what's so harmful to coral @ 390nm? Thanx!

Sure I will try my best to explain it :)

So here's the photosynthesis wavelength figure:

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/...psfb3247be.png

The main purpose of full spectrum is to hit the spikes in the graph. So as you can see, the two spikes occurs at 410nm and 428nm.

Now from sun, 390nm hits the water but since ocean have much more depth and much more volume of water, 390nm doesn't actually get in water since the wavelength increases when UV gets into water. Possibly the corals get something 410nm to 428nm (will have to do calculations but I don't know the formulas; forgot optics a long time ago :P) On the other hand, our tank is not that deep, its more clear and so on. Hence using actual UV a.k.a 390nm would actually give more or less that wavelength to the corals and according to claims (I am not sure though), they can be damaging to the coral. Hence, for example, LGB suggests using 405nm which, I am guessing, will get inside out tank at that wavelengths. Anything above 400nm will look purple but will also be very dim since our eyes cannot catch those wavelengths properly.

That's my understanding. I am not saying is 100% right since its more like learning from others and compiling my own logic to support them. :D