Success with LED and SPS

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Reefgoat

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.

[molotov]

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?

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by molotov

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

[mrhasan]

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.

[Ram3500]

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

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by Ryan-b

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


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.

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

[Ryan-b]

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.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by Ryan-b

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.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

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?

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

And this is coming from your experience with LEDs?

Nope. Researches from nano-reef led full spectrum thread

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