RapidLed DIY 90g Kit vs Reefbreeders Photon 48″

[atcray]

Hello all!!! I'm new and just joined. I have made up my mind to go with LEDs. I have been running T5's and my fixture is at a point of having to replace. I have a 90g with mostly soft corals. I want to venture to SPS/LPS corals. I've been doing some reading and can't find if the Reefbreeders Photon 48" are to good to be true. It sound to good to be true. Specially if you compare the number of leds to one another (RapidLed 90g kit vs Photon 48"). On the same note I've read really good things about RapidLed but wonder if the number of LEDs are to low (48 total) for the 90g Kit for SPS/LPS corals. The Photon has a total of 102 - 3 watt LEDs. That's a big difference in number. Which makes me think that Photon has cheaper quality of LEDs lights. Yet still I'm leaning to DIY from RapidLed. Any advise and help or ideas are highly appreciated. Thanks Ray.

[bundybear1981]

I have the photon 48, only running bout 50% atm. Im quite happy with it. Biggest difference I can see is the photon runs the bridgelux chipset and rapidled runs the better quality cree leds. The photon is plug n play, rapidled requires assembly, housing and controllers.

[Sloanhaus]

Can't seem to find much recent info here on LEDs. All the info is from more than a year ago. I too am going with Rapid Led and can't figure out which colors I should go with. Rapid Led says just royal blue, but others have said two types of blues are best but they don't say which ones. Than the white lights I am completely lost as rapid led recommends just cool white, and from what I have researched, these do nothing for SPS corals. Hopefully your thread will get more info.

[atcray]

Thank you for the reply bundybear1981. What kind of corals are you keeping with the photon 48s and how are they reacting to the lights. Thanks.

[atcray]

Originally Posted by Sloanhaus

Can't seem to find much recent info here on LEDs. All the info is from more than a year ago. I too am going with Rapid Led and can't figure out which colors I should go with. Rapid Led says just royal blue, but others have said two types of blues are best but they don't say which ones. Than the white lights I am completely lost as rapid led recommends just cool white, and from what I have researched, these do nothing for SPS corals. Hopefully your thread will get more info.

Sloanhaus, I agree with you. I imagine the technology on LEDs have change a lot from a year ago. I just want to make sure I don't make a dicision I later regret.

[bundybear1981]

At the moment I'm keeping aussie elegance, duncans, corallimorph and a number of button polyps. All hace nice extension and are growing.

[mos90]

i have 2 custom photon 48's on my tank. ive run them for about 3 months. so far they are a great light. lps/sps corals have responded well. good colors and growth. i have them hung 17" above the water. right now i am at 90% blue and 70% w. par at the surface is about 500 and 100 on the sand. i am still increasing intensity weekly.

photon 48 run all 4500k white leds and 2 reds. im my opinion they are a little to pink/purple for me , so i removed the red leds and 1/2 the 4500k chips and replaced them with a mix of 7500k cool white and 14k cool whites. 4500k neutral whites have more then enough red and green in them and the cool whites have some green and more blue. i like the colors much better then stock.

as far as the blues. a mix of 450 royal and 480 blue is best.

[atcray]

Originally Posted by bundybear1981

At the moment I'm keeping aussie elegance, duncans, corallimorph and a number of button polyps. All hace nice extension and are growing.

Thanks for the info.

[atcray]

Originally Posted by mos90

i have 2 custom photon 48's on my tank. ive run them for about 3 months. so far they are a great light. lps/sps corals have responded well. good colors and growth. i have them hung 17" above the water. right now i am at 90% blue and 70% w. par at the surface is about 500 and 100 on the sand. i am still increasing intensity weekly.

photon 48 run all 4500k white leds and 2 reds. im my opinion they are a little to pink/purple for me , so i removed the red leds and 1/2 the 4500k chips and replaced them with a mix of 7500k cool white and 14k cool whites. 4500k neutral whites have more then enough red and green in them and the cool whites have some green and more blue. i like the colors much better then stock.

as far as the blues. a mix of 450 royal and 480 blue is best.

Thank you for the help. I guess when you order the fixture you could make the change on light spectrum? The change you made was it for looks or benefit to the corals. Thanks

[mos90]

i would have to say it was more for looks. too much red and green can be a waste and cause more algae problems. the change should not effect corals. there is still enough red and green with the cool white chips added.

yes they can change some leds for you when u order. i did them myself.

im more of a 20k guy. i dont care for 10 and 12k lights. so i switched leds out i removed 4 of the whites and replaced them with 480 blues.

[buffalo123]

Originally Posted by Sloanhaus

Can't seem to find much recent info here on LEDs. All the info is from more than a year ago. I too am going with Rapid Led and can't figure out which colors I should go with. Rapid Led says just royal blue, but others have said two types of blues are best but they don't say which ones. Than the white lights I am completely lost as rapid led recommends just cool white, and from what I have researched, these do nothing for SPS corals. Hopefully your thread will get more info.

Leds color recommendations are still changing , moved from blue and white to full spectrum and some moving away from too much white. Check to see what some of the high end Led fixture are running and try those. Lots of info on advanceaquarist website. Pacific sun been using some interesting led color setups.
As much as we have move from blue and white more or less, some are running these fixture with success.

[mos90]

Originally Posted by buffalo123

Leds color recommendations are still changing , moved from blue and white to full spectrum and some moving away from too much white. Check to see what some of the high end Led fixture are running and try those. Lots of info on advanceaquarist website. Pacific sun been using some interesting led color setups.
As much as we have move from blue and white more or less, some are running these fixture with success.

i do agree . im only running 20 whites out of 102 leds. most of my spectrum is between 410-480 with small amounts of green and red.

some pacific suns new leds dont even use whites.

[atcray]

Originally Posted by buffalo123

Leds color recommendations are still changing , moved from blue and white to full spectrum and some moving away from too much white. Check to see what some of the high end Led fixture are running and try those. Lots of info on advanceaquarist website. Pacific sun been using some interesting led color setups.
As much as we have move from blue and white more or less, some are running these fixture with success.

Thank you I will definitely look into it.

[Sloanhaus]

Atcray, what did you decide to go with?

[atcray]

Originally Posted by Sloanhaus

Atcray, what did you decide to go with?

I was waiting for the ReefRadiance to come out with there new fixtures to see if they were changing the spectrum lay out. But, it appears they stiil have close to a 1:1 white to blue. the photon have more blues than whites. So probably going with the photon by ReefBreeders. I will order in a couple of weeks and update on the product. Thanks all for the help!!!