[Rice Reef]

Originally Posted by waynemah

It really depends on the coral, I have some stuff that grew like crazy under LED and some that did absolutely nothing. Since switching to T5 everything is growing well, some of the stuff that was stagnant is starting to form growth tips. Other stuff that grew like crazy under LED is slow growing under T5. I think the trick to LED is to have a lot of coverage.

The reason for switching was purely financial at the time. I was almost $3000 into Hydras and found my tank required several more to get the proper coverage. It was cheaper to cut my losses and sell the Hydras and pick up a T5 fixture with some spare bulbs. In fact I pocketed a bunch of money and have bulbs for two years. I was worried about power consumption, but there was no difference, in fact my power bill seemed to go down a bit (pretty sure it's due to me enclosing the top of the tank).

Originally Posted by LoJack

I found the same thing with the switch back to T5 Wayne.

I had certain corals that were growing like weeds under LED, but I had a lot that were stagnant, or lost all of their color.

I switched to T-5 and I was getting growth out of everything again … after about 3 months I started to notice certain stagnant browned out corals starting to sprout new life and morph colours.

That was enough for me … I've never looked back, and I'm planning an 8 foot upgrade in the next few months and It'll still be T-5

Thanks for sharing guys. I'm looking at prob switching to the Ati hybrid and trying to gather as much info before taking the plunge.

Wayne