Tanks and Corals with LED Lighting

[dickenscd]

LED lighting has been in the market for a couple years, and many hobbiests like me are curious to see how well it has been doing. Please post a few pictures here if you have tanks with LED lighting. Here is mine,

Oceanic 6 foot bowfront 175G under Solaris I4 , setup in Dec.2007, most SPS grow from frags.

Fortunately the tank is 30" tall or the green slime acro will grow out of the water soon.

James

 

[Simon Clark]

I feel LED will never replace halides as NO.1 lighting for certain types of reef tanks i.e. SPS dominated systems. I do think they can be used along side halides and i do like effect they can give to look of tank

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

My choice is 5 years give or take base on the following:
1)Talked to couple magazine operators and most agreed brand loyalty is very tough to break in the marine world.
2)Early breed of commercial LEDs and not very technical DIY has kind of smeared LED's name
3)LED is not understood by the public and the public continuously think of the old ones relying on information from forums which have very little useful informations. Many aquarists I met bought moonlights(5mms) to test the viability of LED in replacing mainlight. 1W vs 400W. Even if you have 100% efficiency of 1W is still only 1 watt of energy.
4)The current aquarists are not green enough to trade their already successful tanks for new tech. I met a client who ask me to send him a free LED light to test and his argument is that he is also putting a 30-40 thousand dollar corals in the test. As the trend of green thinking grows in the world, in 5 years time new generation will more incline to get greener solutions even if that means more money.
5)As manufacturers of the most developed countries almost completely switched over to LED as witnessed last LightFair in New York(90-95% exhibitors are LED-both manufacturers and retailers including the tradiditonal flourescence giant Philips.) New techs come out from this new in flux will create better solutions to all lighting industry including this super niche market-I saw Europe based lighting company with LED ficture that looked as evena s any flourescent counter part from almost any angle you look at it. Point source glares has been a deterence in interior lighting with LED. Price will drop as usual-look at the introduction of energy saving flourescent bulbs-when the first company who did the LARGE SCALE inroad to Homedepot they were like $8/$9 a pcs. But one year later it's only $3/4 a pcs. Besides price drop and better suited products developed, it also due to the shrink of other manufacturers, avaialbility of the MH and T5 will shrink and adversely affect their market share. Consumers will be stuck with no choice but LED by then.
6)Avoiding the competition, not so successful lighting companies(like me) will have to develope the niche market and thus more aquarium products will emerge. So that why I say not 2 years but 5 years.

Finally, reading my analysis take 5 years too. LOL

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I think the hard part is sifting through the information. Not many companies will answer questions in a straight forward way. If you ask "I want a 20" fixture that will replace my 250w DE sunpod" People start talking technical terms and it gets very confusing.

When I ask that question I want the answer to be "This fixture (whatever it's called) will do the trick" not the technical talk. I am a firm believer in the KISS (Keep it simple stupid) philosophy and the technical jargon just alienates me from the conversation and makes me want to stay with MH.

What would be best is if companies making these lights had the info right there. like a 250w de bulb has a par of 6 at 20" and this led fixture has y par at 20" so you can side by side compare each.

 

[BZOFIQ]

I'd say 5 or even 10 seeing that T5s haven't caught on after 5 years on the market.

 

[Galantra]

I feel there will always be the option for all 3. There are too many methods on trying keeping a saltwater tank for one main item to be adapted. Many new reefers follow what older reefers teach them and there are some that are incline to update there tanks just too broad of an audience to please

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

I think the hard part is sifting through the information. Not many companies will answer questions in a straight forward way. If you ask "I want a 20" fixture that will replace my 250w DE sunpod" People start talking technical terms and it gets very confusing.

When I ask that question I want the answer to be "This fixture (whatever it's called) will do the trick" not the technical talk. I am a firm believer in the KISS (Keep it simple stupid) philosophy and the technical jargon just alienates me from the conversation and makes me want to stay with MH.

What would be best is if companies making these lights had the info right there. like a 250w de bulb has a par of 6 at 20" and this led fixture has y par at 20" so you can side by side compare each.

Very reasonable question!
Unfortunately, it's because niche market issue, no manufacturer is willing to put such an effort to set a test for a very specific question. I tried couple times. At the beginning, they want data from something like your question then, turn to different brands of the MH comparisons, then from 12" to 36" water height, then to their particular 2" to 20" clearance space and end up asking me if there are tanks running them for a period of time(they mean 3, 4 years.) A quick reference from Ushio: Their Aqualife MH spec does not include PAR data nor even water depth variance. Of course, no comparison of a particular scenario even though they have a dedicated division and such a big multi million dollar lighting company.

Only niche marketers will try to address that, but usually fail as most likely they will close their doors before a successful tank can continuously running for 4/5 years without crashes, big or small, whatever lighting technology they are using. How many times a tank have crashed/trashed/moved in 4, 5 years to most members here?

BTW, 100W SolarPod5 will be similar to most 250W MH DE. No data of Sunpod.
Some one did a comparison of 14K 150HQi Sunpod vs Pheonix

 

[cybermeez]

I'd say 10 years now that a patent lawsuit has put the makers of the Solaris out of business. There will be fewer manufacturers to compete with each other and that will keep the price prohibitively high for most reefers.

 

[cali_reef]

I'd say 5 or even 10 seeing that T5s haven't caught on after 5 years on the market.

I am not no so sure "T5's" has not caught on yet..

There are two general camps of reefers.. One that try to do the hobby on the cheap, they buy stuff used or the lower end priced products. these people will not use the latest technology as price are typically high for these newly release highend products. The other smaller group may be willing to spend the money but opportunities to do the upgrade must present it self, ie, they don't like what they currently use or what they are using failed and a new technology is available. Than there some minority equipment whores that like to try the latest and the coolest...

 

[jejton]

I think the hard part is sifting through the information. Not many companies will answer questions in a straight forward way. If you ask "I want a 20" fixture that will replace my 250w DE sunpod" People start talking technical terms and it gets very confusing.

When I ask that question I want the answer to be "This fixture (whatever it's called) will do the trick" not the technical talk. I am a firm believer in the KISS (Keep it simple stupid) philosophy and the technical jargon just alienates me from the conversation and makes me want to stay with MH.

What would be best is if companies making these lights had the info right there. like a 250w de bulb has a par of 6 at 20" and this led fixture has y par at 20" so you can side by side compare each.

Isn't that why we have Deano and Pedro?

 

[dickenscd]

I feel LED will never replace halides as NO.1 lighting for certain types of reef tanks i.e. SPS dominated systems. I do think they can be used along side halides and i do like effect they can give to look of tank

I thought the same when I bought 72" Solaris I4 in Dec. 2007, but after observing and comparing the growth of SPS in the other tank under 72" Giesemann 250W HQI + T5 with the same water system and similar flows, I think differently.

I feel the growth rates for SPS are similar, but more unexpected or unknown death of SPS under MH + T5 than the LED if I did not put the corals at the correct height under the light.


James

 

[dickenscd]

Please Post Your Pictures Here

for your tanks and corals if you have LED lighting.

Hope this thread can provide an easy reference for members who are interested in LED lighting.

You are welcome to put a link to your thread for more details.


James

 

[cozer]

This is the thread of my 50 gal reef tank with LED lighting fixtures.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/tank-threads/58856-cozers-dream-reef.html

Two 36" fixtures with totally 72 Hi-power LED lamps (1.25W/lamp) are used.

Any new update pics of corals and fishes in this tank are posted here. Any question about the LED lights are welcome to be discussed in this thread!

 

[jerl77]

i would switch but led way to much cash for me

 

[dickenscd]

SPS growth under Solaris I4

Whole tank view to show the growth under LED.

175G tank (24"D x 30"H x 72"L bowfront) and Solaris I4 were setup in Dec. 2007, 2" or smaller frags for SPS green slime, blue tip acro, purple tip acro were planted within 3 months.


Picture taken on 09/10/08

Picture taken on 02/05/2009

Picture taken on 09/11/2009

I found that SPS grows in different form under LED, and the intensity of Solaris I4 is possibly the minimum requirement for growing SPS. Any new LED with less intensity than Solaris I4 will be a problem.


More comparisons for coral growths between Solaris I4 and 250W MH + T5 can be found in the following thread.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1639666&perpage=25&pagenumber=3



James

 

[Reef Reaper]

Great tank, James!!! The sooner the price drops, the sooner the switch over will be!!

Philip

 

[SevTT]

I am not no so sure "T5's" has not caught on yet..

I think they're catching on rapidly, in the US. More and more people I talk to are using T5 systems instead of MH, unless they've got a really deep tank. From what I hear, they have greater penetration in Europe.

I think that once LED lights have some more concrete examples of how well stuff grows under them, and the price comes down somewhere in the range of an expensive T5 fixture, they'll mostly replace MH and possibly T5 systems.

 

[bizzarro]

When LED is more mainstream expect the prices to drop significantly. Only now are they more usable in commercial applications that can help reduce their costs.

In about a few years time hopefully the units will be more affordable until that happens it'll still be the best bang for the buck.

The question is that doesn't someone hold the patent for using LED for aquariums? I hope someone actually fights this because this is no different than using any lighting over aquariums.

 

[Imbarrie]

Is anyone putting together LED retro kits?

This could reduce some of the cost and data overload.

I think the time intensive part of LED assembly could be defrayed by people willing to make their own thereby saving a fraction of the initial cost. But, only if they could rely on reliable assembly guide.

 

[albano]

The question is that doesn't someone hold the patent for using LED for aquariums? I hope someone actually fights this because this is no different than using any lighting over aquariums.

I believe the 'patent dispute' you're referring to, involved PFO (maker of Solaris LED lights)...From what I've read, the patent violation, was not about aquarium usage, but actually, about some electronic controls, possibly for dimming the LEDs, that PFO had used without permission.