I'm the best LED ... No, I'm the best LED ...

[MarlinHooker]

Ok, anybody aware of any reviews that compare the Aqua Illumination Sol against the Orphek PR-156? I've read in-depth individual reviews of each but they both come out basically saying the same thing " ... this is a great high end LED system blah blah blah ...". Something that highlighted the differences would be nice since they both appear to be great units ... then I could probably figure out which would be best for my system.

[Acrotrdco]

Does Orphek even have dimming?

[JPMagyar]

O.K. let me say straight up I'm an LED hater . . .


BUT, having said that I will add that I'm running a basement experiment that I intend to publish in a year or so and I'm not impressed with LEDs. I think they look terrible, cost a fortune to buy, and only work well for a select set of corals. My answer is stick to T5 or MH until you see a tank that grew up from frags like ReefBum. I do believe LEDs will ultimately win out, but the current crop of available fixtures does not yet cover the full spectrum necessary and cost way too much, but I'm an old grouchy curmudgeon so take that all with a proverbial "Grain of Salt".

JP

[hpfunk]

any body have experience with the exotic 50watt LED cannon? exotic told me they are coming out with a 100watt cannon next month. The cost is offset buying bulbs in like 3 years so...???

[b16drag]

I'd get the AI any day. Orphek is alot of hoopla! LOL! Use the "SEARCH" button in the menu above!

[Acrotrdco]

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

O.K. let me say straight up I'm an LED hater . . .


BUT, having said that I will add that I'm running a basement experiment that I intend to publish in a year or so and I'm not impressed with LEDs. I think they look terrible, cost a fortune to buy, and only work well for a select set of corals. My answer is stick to T5 or MH until you see a tank that grew up from frags like ReefBum. I do believe LEDs will ultimately win out, but the current crop of available fixtures does not yet cover the full spectrum necessary and cost way too much, but I'm an old grouchy curmudgeon so take that all with a proverbial "Grain of Salt".

JP

Shrugs...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1991180

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Acrotrdco

Shrugs...
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1991180

Exactly my point.

BUT in the end lighting is all about personal preference and what makes you happy



Radium Grown





LED Grown





Radium Grown



LED Grown





Radium Grown



LED Grown

[LargeAngels]

I think if you are going to publish Radium vs. LED growth you need to elaborate a little more about what types of LED's and the setup.

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by LargeAngels

I think if you are going to publish Radium vs. LED growth you need to elaborate a little more about what types of LED's and the setup.

If you click on the above link, you will see where all the LED grown pictures come from. That will then answer your question of what LED setup was used.

Acrotrdco has no problem letting you know about their lighting. I have enjoyed the different threads I have seen. It sheds some light on LED's for me. (Pun intended)

In the end I draw one conclusion from the LED threads I see. Corals start with full vibrant color or gain the color very quickly. They then start to lose the color throughout the body but keep it in the tips. Look at all of the pics from the above mentioned link. The full, deep vibrant colors are gone. The corals are still colorful but in an LED sort of way.

No, I am not an LED hater. I have a RapidLED PAR38 bulb over my 7.5g cube. It looks great but there are no corals in the tank right now. The disco ball effect on my sand it totally retarded but I can't do anything about it. The shimmer from LED's is not like the shimmer from any other point source lighting. It actually is a drawback to have so many point sources in a small area.

Anyways, only time will tell how corals do under this LED setup. I ran LED's for about 8 months at one point and it was a total failure.

[MarlinHooker]

thanks all but I really wasn't trying to debate LEDs vs MHs/T5s, etc. What I was hoping to do was compare the Aqua Illumination Sol LED system to the Orphek PR-156 LED system. And to answer Acrotrdo's question ... No they don't. That's one of my big issues because since I have a canopy I have a fixed limit on how far away I can get the LEDs & being dimmable seems like a very useful capability. I think I read a post here earlier where someone who bought the Sol to replace his 250W MHs had to dail them down to 50% to get the same PAR reading ...

[snorvich]

Well, when push comes to shove, the "patent" issue of all but AI makes me nervous. Full disclosure, I do have AI on order. And yes, you have to dial them down in the beginning because they do produce more PAR than MH.

[AcroporAddict]

never mind.

[MarlinHooker]

ok, what 'patent' issue are we talking about?

[snorvich]

Originally Posted by MarlinHooker

ok, what 'patent' issue are we talking about?

Orbital Technologies holds a patent on LED lights for usage in aquaria. AI is the only company currently licensed under that patent. PFO went belly up because of this (remember Solaris?)

[pmrossetti]

Reeftech from what I've seen looks like the best led fixture.

[jrsevy]

I did look a long time before figuring out that my only option for led reef lighting with a controller to automate the dimming was AI. Unless you want to DIY, no other companies can sell led lights that have this function in the US without the risk of a lawsuit. So I broke down and ordered 4 blue SOLs for my 48x24x29.

I also looked at a lot of opinions and came away that today, AI is the best PAR option as well. Hope to get them this week.

[jmchzn123]

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

O.K. let me say straight up I'm an LED hater . . .


BUT, having said that I will add that I'm running a basement experiment that I intend to publish in a year or so and I'm not impressed with LEDs. I think they look terrible, cost a fortune to buy, and only work well for a select set of corals. My answer is stick to T5 or MH until you see a tank that grew up from frags like ReefBum. I do believe LEDs will ultimately win out, but the current crop of available fixtures does not yet cover the full spectrum necessary and cost way too much, but I'm an old grouchy curmudgeon so take that all with a proverbial "Grain of Salt".

JP

Seems to be way too much hard data stating exactly the opposite. Calm Sea Quest has some pretty intense data with up and running tanks showing and documenting pretty spectacular results. Don't mean to be confrontational but Reefkeeper 180 gal tank of the month I believe was 10 AI Sol Blues and ALL SPS and well.....tank of the month.....in fact rarely have we seen a nicer tank anywhere....so I think LEDS have arrived and MH are dead and buried....just saying

[jmchzn123]

Originally Posted by LargeAngels

I think if you are going to publish Radium vs. LED growth you need to elaborate a little more about what types of LED's and the setup.

yes and frankly photography has EVERYTHING to do with how things appear in our tanks. OMG there is so little science going on here it's making me crazy. lets take same camera and same settings under exactly the same conditions and time frames. TYPE of coral and AGE of coral and then water parameters etc....I mean so much goes into how corals grow in a captive reef lets forget this argument and take total tank pics every qtr and see whose looks the healthiest....oh wait thats subjective isn't it........lol

[MarlinHooker]

snorvich & jrsevy ... thanks for the info ... the patent thing could be a big impact

"Reeftech is the best ..." why? Need a little more info than that ... Are you running these LEDs on your system? Are they dimmable? Are the LEDs modular? Etc, etc ...

[pmrossetti]

Originally Posted by MarlinHooker

snorvich & jrsevy ... thanks for the info ... the patent thing could be a big impact

"Reeftech is the best ..." why? Need a little more info than that ... Are you running these LEDs on your system? Are they dimmable? Are the LEDs modular? Etc, etc ...

Fully programmable, modular, larger spread than AI.
No, but if I could afford them, I would.
See slief build thread .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFeOUZjBRyM

[tbo]

From my research, it seems like the Reeftech is an awesome unit, just crazy expensive. I would love to see some straight-up side by side comparisons on the top 3 units available (whatever those are, seems like the AI Sol, RT Prometheus, and I don't know what else).

From the pictures I see, it seems like some units give a very dingy blue effect to the water/corals. Is this the way it really looks in person (for those who are actually running LEDs)??

[BluScrnOdeth]

All that i know about orphek is that they designed their own LED to produce a more "complete" spectrum of light compared to CREE and others alike. Plus they are designed to penetrate waters up to 48". Other than that, i havent really seen any reviews as of yet on how they actually perform in real life.

[slief]

Originally Posted by pmrossetti

Fully programmable, modular, larger spread than AI.
No, but if I could afford them, I would.
See slief build thread .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFeOUZjBRyM

Thanks for the plug in.. I still have not installed them yet as I am waiting for 2 custom 90 watt fixtures to arrive from Reeftech to go along with the pair of 180 Watt ones I already have.

My criteria was pretty simple. I wanted full control of the LED's. Dimmability was a prerequisite as I want the ability to adjust not only the color but also the par levels. The other nice thing in my opinion about being able to dim the fixtures is that during the ramp up and ramp down period, less wattage is used. For somebody with a single fixture on a small tank, the savings would be negligable. For me, I will be starting with 540 watts worth of LED's and that savings will be more appreciable. That coupled with the fact that I will likely never run them at 100% really brings the value of dimming into perspective.

Originally, I had it narrowed down to 3 vendors. AI, Vertex Illumina or Reefkoi.
I researched alot and due to the fact that the Reefkoi's were not dimmable they were eliminated from my list.

AI looked nice but I would have needed 6 to 8 of their fixtures which gets stupid expensive. That coupled with the fact that many have illuded to hot spots due to the optics, I was on the fence. One thing I really liked about the AI is that they can be controlled by my Apex. That was a big bonus but not a necessity.

I really liked the Vertex lights and from what I saw, they packed the most punch for a small fixture with a 12" unit lighting up a 36"x36" footprint with evenly spread lighting. The downside was that the Vertex 12" fixtures were not networkable. They would each need to be programmed individually. Their larger fixtures (24"+) wouldn't have worked well for me as my footprint is 84" x 96" and I have my overflow dead center. Also, they didn't have any controllable fixtures that would work on the sides of my overflow.

In my research, I came across the Reeftechs. Like the Vertex, Reeftech uses no optics. Their LED layout is similar to the Vertex in that they have several CRE LED's layed out in close proximity on a PCB board. This makes servicing easy as boards can be swapped in the event of an LED failure. They also have slightly more LED's and higher wattage than the vertex.

The Reeftech's are fully networkable. That means, I can set several fixtures up to work like a single large fixture allowing me to create a dimmable sunrise/sunset effect that will travel from east to west across my tank. It also allows me to program things easier as I dont need to program several fixtures individually and can set my LED output by color to not only create the color effect I want but also the par level.

I don't really have plans for SPS corals though that could change in the future. My tank currently is mostly soft corals and my tentative plan is to keep it that way although I might add some SPS frags down the line to see how they do.

That said, best is subjective. I wouldn't say Reeftech is the "best", but they certainly were for my needs and application. Especially considering they were able to make me a custom version with less wattage for the sides of my overflow. That was very compelling as 180 watts would have been way overkill for that part of my tank.

It really comes down to cost vs function. LED's are not cheap and the jury is out on how effective they are for growing corals over the long term.

I have run a pair of 20K 400 watt halides for years and I am really looking forward to switching them out in the coming weeks for my new LED's. Not just for the electrical cost savings which should be substantial but also for the lighting effects that you cant get with a halide bulb.

[tbo]

How many Reeftech's would it take to properly light a 24" x 24" x 60" tank? I would be curious to get other's opinions as to whether 2 or 3 would be needed? Also, Slief, what do you mean that you got a custom version for the sides of your overflow? Do they make different sizes?

[slief]

Originally Posted by tbo

How many Reeftech's would it take to properly light a 24" x 24" x 60" tank? I would be curious to get other's opinions as to whether 2 or 3 would be needed? Also, Slief, what do you mean that you got a custom version for the sides of your overflow? Do they make different sizes?

I would think 2 would work great on your tank but you would need to adjust the elevation of the fixtures above the tank in order to get the correct light spread. I can raise my lights up to 27" away from the water so I have plenty of flexibility to achieve ample spread.

Currently Reeftech only offers the standard 180 watt version. I think they are launching some other fixtures as well in the near future that will be lower wattage.

As for the custom version, they are making me 2 fixtures with 2 less LED boards mounted length wise in the fixture instead of their normal mounting. If you look at my light rack above, the 2 lower wattage units will mount under the aluminum plates in the middle of the rack. The fixtures will be mounted to articulating ram mounts so I can tilt the fixtures towards the center of my tank to help eliminate light on the glass while helping to focus the lights on my aquascape that surrounds my overflow.
This picture will give you an idea of how the overflow is situted in my tank.


The way the leds are arranged in the fixture coupled with the lack of Optics, the light spread is very similar to a metal halide fixture. When I tested these in my living room, the light was absolutely blinding and the spread was rediculous. Some will contend that optics help increase par levels which I am sure is true, especially with lower watt fixtures like the AI's, however, the cost is not as good of spread and more fixtures required for larger tanks. Given that nobody is really running their fixtures at 100% power, I think I will have plenty of Par to spare while not having to go crazy with an exorbitant amount of fixtures.

This is what the LED boards look like in the fixture. This is with 4 boards and a total of 180 watts. The ones I am waiting on are identical but will have 2 boards oriented length wise in the fixture instead of the four boards and be 90 watts.