Led tank pictures, horror, and success stories

[terancevan88]

I would love to see and hear about the new way of reef lighting. And really wanted to start a thread to see a bunch of tank pictures so please tag along

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[terancevan88]

I guess no one wants to join this?

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[rudyr03]

I'm interested also in seeing what LEDs they picked and there FTS!!

[MattDiaz]

AI LED SOL BLUE: 6 lamp fixture over 12 inches above a 210 mixed reef.

[rudyr03]

Nice shot.. How long have you been running those LEDs

[MattDiaz]

New set up about 1 year.

[cvilleh2o]

Looks good thinking about going with sols too

[terancevan88]

Love it and thanks I hope more people join and share pictures

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[lowfi]

this has already been done in a million threads BTW...

[terancevan88]

Wk that's God I hasn't seen them if you can direct me to one with alot of pics that would be cool...I'm going to led and want to see what I'm getting into

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[terancevan88]

Can I get a link to another thread like this with alot of led tank pictures?

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[Jamesus]

DIY for over two years. Added the T5s about a year ago but they are only on 4 hours a day.

[rudyr03]

Very nice !!

[katchupoy]

Here is mine.... LED started Dec 2010.



Click here for my website


I think...

I will be doing 1:1 ratio soon with white and blue. My RBTA's or any RED corals in particular suffer when royal blue is at 100% or max. They tend to shrink (not show up) and loose their color. The same phenomena also happened to me several years ago when I was using MH and switched to XM 15k which is very new back then. I believe that they share the same kelvin with these royal blues. So right now Im running 100% white and 65% Royal Blue. Want to add 12 more whites, so that i can balance the RB's at 100% with 100% white. I think, that besides the total intensity of the LED the total kelvin (temperature) is also important and needs to be considered.

If this is true, then my solution was to add more on the red or warmer spectrum. Replaced several Cool Whites to Warm Whites, and this helped me with my RBTA's a lot.

Unfortunately, I really like the blue look, but my corals doesnt like it. They like the Iwasaki look.

On the plus side, 19 months have passed, and dont have to worry about replacing bulbs or tubes for T5's for that matter. Also, the heat that I have to fight every summer, is no more. Plus the electricity consumption/saving on top of that. So Im very happy.

Hope this helps.

[buffalo123]

Originally Posted by lowfi

this has already been done in a million threads BTW...

And its still not clear, so this one certainly can help someone decide. We know eventually leds will be the light to go to ,but the more info the better.
More stories more pictures please

[terancevan88]

Originally Posted by Jamesus

DIY for over two years. Added the T5s about a year ago but they are only on 4 hours a day.

Thank you that is beautiful

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[terancevan88]

Katchupoy thank you you have really swayed me towards led

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[joelespinoza]

Originally Posted by terancevan88

Wk that's God I hasn't seen them if you can direct me to one with alot of pics that would be cool...I'm going to led and want to see what I'm getting into

The problem with LED builds is you usually cant take accurate pictures of them. They just dont turn out right, so you have to see them in person, and of course things like AI radions and most premade fixtures have terrible color ratios, so finding a decent local DIY is almost impossible.

I always suggest nano builds to play with first. Go get a cheap aluminum CPU heatsink and slap on 2 Stevesleds Luxeon Royal Blues and 1 luxeon 2700k warm white and put it on a 5 gallon tank, if you are really a fan of the deep blue look, get 3 royal blues and 1 warm white.

For a driver you can get either of these:
http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lp...urrent-driver/
http://www.rapidled.com/mean-well-lp...urrent-driver/

Or this dimable one:
http://www.rapidled.com/0-10v-dimmab...potentiometer/

Or you can even use a transformer you have laying around the house that is ~700-1000mA and around 3 volts per LED. So like 1amp 4 volts for 1 led, or 1amp 12-13 volts for 4 leds.

[Voxboy]

This is a pic of half my tank with LED. A combo of RB, 6500k, and 4500k LEDs.

I had a 6 bulb T5- 4 ATI blue plus, 1 Geismann 10000k and a Fiji purple. In the 4 months I have been using the new light set up the growth has been amazing. THe T5's were bleaching a lot of my corals. When I initially set up the leds the corals slowly came back within a few months. The shimmer the depth is amazing...I am so pleased.

[D-Nak]

Originally Posted by joelespinoza

The problem with LED builds is you usually cant take accurate pictures of them. They just dont turn out right, so you have to see them in person, and of course things like AI radions and most premade fixtures have terrible color ratios, so finding a decent local DIY is almost impossible.

+10000. I would never buy a LED system based on photos of tanks. They look COMPLETELY different in person. This is true with most lighting systems since simple things like color balance on a camera or the angle of your laptop screen will change the way colors appear.

Go to your LFS or visit fellow reefers tanks.

[terancevan88]

I was just looking at the pics for coral growth and wanting stories to know what I might run into...plus I just love tank pictures

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[joelespinoza]

Originally Posted by terancevan88

I was just looking at the pics for coral growth and wanting stories to know what I might run into...plus I just love tank pictures

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30 gallon freshwater tank with 14 Luxeon 2700k warm whites and 6 Royal blues driven at ~875mA, this looks overly bright in pictures, but in person it was more subdued with a slight purple tint, REALLY beautiful looking, even if it was a bit overkill for this tank.

Oddly enough this color combo looks to me like several of the high end 12000k-15000k MH bulbs I have seen, maybe a 1:1 ratio isnt a bad plan for LEDs, as long as they are Luxeon 2700k warm whites and royal blues!:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2192354





I cant ever get decent pics of my 55 gallon reef tank, so I turned the LEDs WAYYY down. This is the equivilent of 6 3w Cree Royal Blues at 1000mA, and 2 Cree Neutral whites at 6000mA. So it does look a little washed out because its basically 8 LEDs lighting a 55 gallon tank, dont mind the algae, I screwed up my algae filter recently and dumped some nutrients into the tank, but it is recovering now:

[gskidmor]

If this thread is still active next week, I can post pics then (I had to order a new CF card reader for my DSLR). Anyways, I have the Radion and I do say its hard to get a good picture - most I take seem to have the component colors seperated out - to the naked eye the tank looks beautiful. if I take a picture from a distance, it looks good, but any closeups (and I imagine macros,but I dont' have a macro lense yet) you don't see the colors mixed, you see the component colors and it's unsightly.

Additionally, there is a learing curve. I've specifically traded/bought from people that are using 400w MH or at least new 250w MH figuring they should be good to go under the Radion. I've bleached more SPS frags in the first couple months than I care to admit. I turned the Radion down to 70% with all channels on and I still bleached all but the frags cut from the very top of tanks running 400w MH's.

It's only recently that I found out that most have turned off the red and green channels to get any true success...so I'm not sure if they're needed or it's just wasted power/parts. I've turned the red/green off on mine and I'm hoping that slows the bleaching.

My LPS and my carpet anemone (which is on the bottom of the tank) are doing great and growing good under the Radion.

I'm just a bit frustrated since I know how to use MHs - before the LED, I don't think I had lost a SPS frag in at least 8 years following the same pattern.

On the flip side, my energy bills are lower and I don't have to worry about cooling the tank. To they naked eye, the colors look awesome. I just worry that if I get a different LED fixture in the future, it will have a seperate learning curve!

[terancevan88]

Wow so the led are stronger than Mh? They are bleaching coral even when you put them on sand to acclimate?

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[gskidmor]

No, if I do a long drawn out acclimation I don't appear to have the bleaching problem - though I've only had the Radion for a about 2 - 3 months. Prior to this, if someone else had a 250 or 400w MH and I had a 250w, I would put the frag in the same level in the tank as it was in their tank and the frag would thrive.

I can't do that with the Radion. And my new tank isn't that big, so I don't have a lot of space for proper acclimation (especially with a large red carpet anemone on the sand bed). My hope was that if the frag came from the top of a tank with a 400w MH, I could put the frag at the top of my tank, something I've done with great success with a MH setup but something that doesn't work with my Radion.