Show Us Your LED Tanks

[Madreefer]

I had a discussion with a buddy yesterday about LED lights. He figures that they are the best thing going and bring out the colors more. I'm not sold on them. Those of you that have an LED fixture on your tank (tanks 100G and up) can you please post a FTS for those of us that are curious. The monthly cost savings over MH is huge I know. It's the look i'm interested in seeing.

[sphelps]

The savings are not huge, you may save money in the long run but your payback period will be a few years or more depending on how you look at it. Typically you can use about half the power with LEDs and on a 100 gallon tank you'd probably save around 250W which if run 10 hours a day will save you around $60 a year depending on what you pay for electricity. Your basic LED retro kit will cost around $1200 for 100 gallons and your basic halide retro kit will cost around $600 (ballast, reflector, sockets and cords). Based on replacing bulbs every year and the additional electrical cost you'd be about even after about 3.5 years. So provided you plan on keeping your tank for more than 4 years it may be worth while from a savings point of view.

As for color, I don't think you get better results from LEDs but this tends more to be personal preference. I find that MH's have the potential for a more broad spectrum which gives a better balance for various coral colors. T5s are also really good for coral color for similar reasons and that you can mix and match various bulbs to meet your preference. I find that with only using white and blue LEDs the colors in many corals are not spectacular by any means, you could add other color LEDs for better results but preforming this experimentation isn't as easy as changing a T5 or MH bulbs.

Also pictures can be misleading, I can take a picture of any coral under any light and make it look way better than in person. Cameras can adjust color and light balance much better than our eyes.

[Aquattro]

I agree, savings are not huge. I pay about 25/mo to run my MH, so cut that in half for LED, and it's not a tremendous saving. And since I'm not great with building little things, I'd need to buy a fixture, and at over 4k, it would take me years to break even. And given that I still believe MH will give me the best results, I can't justify going to LED until prices drop way down and they've really proven themselves. The main attraction for me would be the heat factor, but for light quality, I'm likely always going to be a hard core MH fan.

[sphelps]

Yeah the major attractions for LEDs for me is heat and control. Heat not so much because I've never had a real issue using 500W of halide on a 100 gallon tank, a small fan and open top keeps the heat down even on hot summer days without AC. The control factor though is pretty cool but it does add cost depending on what you want to do and whether you already have the controller.

The other problem stopping me is that I've never had the same tank for longer than 3 or 4 years so I don't know if the extra cost would be worth while just for some extra control features.

[mseepman]

I think LED is the way to go if you plan to keep your tank a while. The current pre-built fixtures out there can leave a bit to be desired, although in Canada we tend to look at only a couple of the fixtures and then make our decisions. It seems that the reef conferences of late have been filled with companies bringing LED technology to reefing but when we discuss LED on Canreef, a lot of the discussion is around the Vertex which is crazy money.
I plan on building a DIY fixture which I will attach to a controller for on/off and dimming. I am in the planning stages of my 290G and previously was going to go with MH / T5 combo (again DIY though, not a fixture) and my plans were going to cost me about $900. Now that I've gone with LED instead (purchased half the items already) the cost to light my 7' tank is going to be closer to $2000 but I'll pay that back in 2 years in bulb costs and electricity alone (not factoring in a chiller if it had been needed). If I build it right, I think there is a good chance that I can try to achieve the 10 years of life that these should give you. There is more elbow grease involved but I'm okay with that.
As for coloring, many of the most recent DIY LED fixtures have found that by mixing in some neutral whites and some normal blues, the colors that we really want can be achieved.

[sphelps]

You're going to save $1100 in two years with bulbs and electrical savings? Wow, what were your original plans exactly? If you don't mind me asking.

[Milad]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

And since I'm not great with building little things, I'd need to buy a fixture,

Thats not a good excuse aquattro! Building a LED fixture is dead simple and people on here will walk you through it.

Actually better yet. If anyone in Vancouver area feels that they cant build their own fixture, ill build it for you, no cost to you, just buy the parts + iron. Ill even do some 3d designing for you.

*** actually i better say first couple people just in case i get flooded

[Kevotron]

Originally Posted by Milad

Thats not a good excuse aquattro! Building a LED fixture is dead simple and people on here will walk you through it.

Actually better yet. If anyone in Vancouver area feels that they cant build their own fixture, ill build it for you, no cost to you, just buy the parts + iron. Ill even do some 3d designing for you.

*** actually i better say first couple people just in case i get flooded

*sigh* too bad im from Alberta :P

[KevinK]

Originally Posted by Milad

Thats not a good excuse aquattro! Building a LED fixture is dead simple and people on here will walk you through it.

Actually better yet. If anyone in Vancouver area feels that they cant build their own fixture, ill build it for you, no cost to you, just buy the parts + iron. Ill even do some 3d designing for you.

*** actually i better say first couple people just in case i get flooded

I will hold a frag swap in the last week of feb., maybe a plan to show some DIY lights, I have one running at the time, and have my LED order from milad, and hope to have them ready to run as well at that time, maybe there are othersthat want to show some LED DIY builds as well at that time (in case thy are not above a tank yet.

so far the corals under the LED are going great, and thy arnt even CREE, and are a mix of 50 white and 50 blue, not the 2 part blue and one part white.

I wil put a picture up of it

[KevinK]

se picture