Has Anyone used LED Supplimental Actinics and Metal Halides?

[Chowder]

Originally Posted by FishyFishy!

That looks awesome! Thanks for sharing! Colors look very nice.

Are those 4 Panoramic units?

There are two older Panaramas and two new Panarama pros.

Chris

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by FishyFishy!

Mine is the new 1W Verson. And I used it on a 131 gallon. My AquaMedic Ocean light that is suspended 12" above the tank with the 10 moonlights makes more light than that LED bar. It's horrible.

Wow ! thx for sharing that i almost bought one...

[RuGlu6]

I just bought two 36" blue LED strips from Onstate Technologies, (Dan Hsu 604-522-7811) for $35. Big Thank you Anthony (SeaHorseFanatic)
Ballast was another $20.
Dan did all the soldering of the connectors free and it comes with double sided sticky tape. I re-atached one strip twice and tape failed but that is easy fix. The other one is fine.

Removed two HO fluorescent T5 's from the 2x250W HQI MH fixture.
Dan told me that LEDs are 140 degrees 470nm. Even though the LED's are only 0.2W and only 10 watts/0.9Amps per strip (50 led'sx 0.2W) it seems insanely bright.
When LED only are "ON" the tank looks only tad bit brighter then T5 actinics only.

I have 36", 65 Gal so it is not a shallow tank.

I accidentally glimpsed at it shortly and I was seeing yellow dots for a few seconds (imaginable)
I noticed that on top of usual green coral color "pop" it seems like zoas are opening quicker to these LED's. Red Gonioparah is glowing red ! But it can only be seen when MH is "OFF" still nice though with MH on as it is still brighter red. As well as superman monti red glow even in the shade.
I have 4 actinics in the fixture and 2 were replaced with LED.
With MH is "ON" I can not tell the difference between T5 actincs and/or LED combined with a MH. When i turn LED's "ON"&"OFF" quickly I can see that with LED's tank looks brighter/bluer. Some people may find that it is too blue, but personally I like it on the blue side.

I tried making pictures but they turned out horrible and do not really represent true likeness of the light and color. Already thinking about replacing the other 2 T5 actinics with these blue LEDs but it may be way too blue, so might go with one extra white strip to compensate (counterproductive), the only thing Dan has only 7000k whites no 10k's.
i asked him if he has any higher power LEDs in stripes but he does not have any.


Other LED's are also in 470+nm range
.
.

[RuGlu6]

Replaced the other two actinics with the same LED.
Quite like the outcome, my bonsai SPS as well as zoas responding very well. I see a better polyp expansion on the bonsai.
So far i spent $100 for 4 x 36" stripes and heavy duty ballast capable of 8.5Amps to drive these lights (3.6Amps total, but planning on adding two whites when they will have 10k whites.)
4xactinics would cost me $25+tax each so i think if these will last for two years or more i am happy

[RuGlu6]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

I just bought two 36" blue LED strips from Onstate Technologies, (Dan Hsu 604-522-7811) for $35. Big Thank you Anthony (SeaHorseFanatic)
Ballast was another $20.
Dan did all the soldering of the connectors free and it comes with double sided sticky tape. I re-atached one strip twice and tape failed but that is easy fix. The other one is fine.

Removed two HO fluorescent T5 's from the 2x250W HQI MH fixture.
Dan told me that LEDs are 140 degrees 470nm. Even though the LED's are only 0.2W and only 10 watts/0.9Amps per strip (50 led'sx 0.2W) it seems insanely bright.
When LED only are "ON" the tank looks only tad bit brighter then T5 actinics only.

I have 36", 65 Gal so it is not a shallow tank.

I accidentally glimpsed at it shortly and I was seeing yellow dots for a few seconds (imaginable)
I noticed that on top of usual green coral color "pop" it seems like zoas are opening quicker to these LED's. Red Gonioparah is glowing red ! But it can only be seen when MH is "OFF" still nice though with MH on as it is still brighter red. As well as superman monti red glow even in the shade.
I have 4 actinics in the fixture and 2 were replaced with LED.
With MH is "ON" I can not tell the difference between T5 actincs and/or LED combined with a MH. When i turn LED's "ON"&"OFF" quickly I can see that with LED's tank looks brighter/bluer. Some people may find that it is too blue, but personally I like it on the blue side.

I tried making pictures but they turned out horrible and do not really represent true likeness of the light and color. Already thinking about replacing the other 2 T5 actinics with these blue LEDs but it may be way too blue, so might go with one extra white strip to compensate (counterproductive), the only thing Dan has only 7000k whites no 10k's.
i asked him if he has any higher power LEDs in stripes but he does not have any.


Other LED's are also in 470+nm range
.
.

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please note LED's are facing down (very bright)


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Full tank shot with MH ON (2x250W DE)

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[martinmcnally]

There are some new LEDs coming real soon from Ecoxotic for additional actinics. They have the power of the Panorama Pro but in a larger and longer format with legs and such. Should be available in a week or two.

[FishyFishy!]

This is what I ended up going with:

8 Bridgelux LED strips (6 X 3W Royal Blue 452nm-455nm LED's each strip).




This is the light rack that I just made up. My 250W halide pendants obviously go in the open spaces.

[RuGlu6]

Dan also built me a LED dimmer that is automatically starts from zero and goes up to 100% in 3.5 hrs, and at night after timer is "OFF" it goes from 100% to zero in 3.45 hrs pretty good feature.
So when MH lights are off at 9pm then blue LEDs start to dimm, it goes down gradually till like midnight and acts as moon light for awhile.
like it so far.

[FishyFishy!]

Originally Posted by RuGlu6

Dan also built me a LED dimmer that is automatically starts from zero and goes up to 100% in 3.5 hrs, and at night after timer is "OFF" it goes from 100% to zero in 3.45 hrs pretty good feature.
So when MH lights are off at 9pm then blue LEDs start to dimm, it goes down gradually till like midnight and acts as moon light for awhile.
like it so far.

Thats a neat feature!

[RuGlu6]

I now have added two more 10k white LED strips (36" inch) because 4x blues are so blue that it was weird to look at.
Now when dimmer starts from zero to 100 in the morning it looks more natural, and also i don't need to have MH DE on for 9 hrs and now i have my MH DE 14K on only for 6 hrs.
I was hoping for Less algae growth on the glass but this is not the case at all.
It's just as much glass cleaning even though MH DE 2x250 is "ON" for 3 hrs less.

BTW Dan from LED place had to modify the dimmer because it was taking too long (8 hrs+) to dimm down from 100% to zero.
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