Upgrading away from black box LEDs - suggestions?

[Ninsha]

Hi all, I'm upgrading away from my Mars Aqua 165w LEDs that are hanging over my 110g 48l 30h tank, and have been for about a year.

I'm doing softies and some LPS, probably won't be doing SPS any time soon.

My current setup doesn't provide much growth, been up for about a year and I'm ready to start put some more cash into lighting. Any ideas for a 30 inch depth?

[ca1ore]

Lots, but you'd have to give some sense of your budget for suggestions to be useful.

[Ron Reefman]

Sorry, I'm going to disagree. New/different leds are extremely unlikely to make any difference. The MarAqua is just as capable of making light that will grow zoas and lps as any other fixture. Looking for a new fixture to grow your corals faster is a fool's errand IMHO!

You need to concentrate on other issues that affect coral growth. Lights are just an easy change, but it won't make much difference. You get more than enough PAR or PUR from MarsAqua leds. Just because they cost $100 and a Radion costs $750 doesn't make the light they produce any better or grow coral faster. They just have more controls to play with. And that's fine if that's what you want. I enjoy the controls on my 6 channel controller run led fixture. But does it grow coral better/faster than a MarsAqua, I have very, very serious doubts that it does. And my frag tank has an inexpensive 2 channel fixture with manual dimmers!

One last point, everybody here will tell you the brand that they own is the best. The problem is, how can 10 or 15 different brands all be the best? The fact is they all make almost the same light but have different levels of control! And the light is ALL your corals care about. Save your money.

[Ninsha]

Thanks so much for the replies! I am battling a Phosphate issue right now, and I think that is probably the biggest contributor to slow growth in my tank, but I feel like I cheaped out on my lights, and I want to remove any doubt that it is a contributing factor, know what I mean?

I also worry a lot about the depth of the tank and if it is limiting growth as well.


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[ReefCowboy]

If you want to see change, get an ATI T5. You will see all you are not getting with those chinese Led boxes. Youll see it soon too..

[f3honda4me]

LED isn't as user friendly as T5/halide. But the more expensive brands like ecotech help with color templates, so you just have to figure out intensity.

[Ron Reefman]

Ninsha, what power settings are you using on the MarsAqua fixtures?

I know your tank is 30" deep, but at 100% blue and 50% white; I'd wager you get a PAR of 100 at the sand. I don't have experience with the MarsAqua, but I've done PAR measurements on lots of light fixtures in our local club. The only really weak ones are the Current Orbit and Marineland that use 0.5 watt leds.

I promise you, if your corals aren't doing well under the MarsAqua the odds are 100:1 that more expensive fixture isn't going to solve your problem... IMHO. But then I only have 6+ years of experience with led fixtures.

[f3honda4me]

More expensive fixtures can help make it easier to dial in on the right settings with prebuilt color templates.

[Ron Reefman]

That means you trust a fixture manufacturer to know more about your aquarium than you do. Personally, I don't trust any manufacturer that far. I make the decisions for my tank, not some unknown marketing guy in California or China.

[BlindZide]

Ron makes a very valid argument. There are plenty of people on this forum alone that have MarsAqua or similar products and are getting great growth. Something else is limiting it. If you are really feeling the LEDs could be the problem, before you drop hundreds, maybe get the SBReef upgrade kit for the MarsAqua and go from there.

[TonyB13]

Originally Posted by ReefCowboy

If you want to see change, get an ATI T5. You will see all you are not getting with those chinese Led boxes. Youll see it soon too..

I like the look of t5 much better than any led u can get.

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[f3honda4me]

Originally Posted by Ron Reefman

That means you trust a fixture manufacturer to know more about your aquarium than you do. Personally, I don't trust any manufacturer that far. I make the decisions for my tank, not some unknown marketing guy in California or China.

But you'll trust a Chinese sweat shop to pick all the right LEDs for you? Marketing guys aren't programming these lights. If the light programs didn't work, people would report that and no one would buy them. Fortunately not everyone is so cynical and many have used the lights and their pre programmed templates with tremendous success. I'm one of them.

You can get just as amazing growth with the $100 Chinese boxes. I've used them over frag tanks. But it's not as user friendly and that's why some struggle with them.

[AaaRr]

How many Mars Aquas do you have over your tank? You should not have an issue growing softies and LPS at that depth depending on how many units your using.

Like most have said the fixture is more than capable but lacks the bells and whistles. Are you wanting to stay with LEDs? T5s have been very reliable cost more over time with bulb replacements but other than that they're meant to be setup and forget.

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[nashorn]

Get yourself a used radion g1 in the $200-250 range and upgrade when u have more $$
I really like the sunrise and sunset feature.
But if you're having problem with growth you should concentrate on your water quality first .

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by nashorn

Get yourself a used radion g1 in the $200-250 range and upgrade when u have more $$
I really like the sunrise and sunset feature.
But if you're having problem with growth you should concentrate on your water quality first .

Why shop for a well used $200 to $250 fixture (and they'll need 2) and spend the money if the fixtures they already have aren't the issue!

And just because you and I are willing to spend the money for sunrise/sunset control doesn't mean others need to. Not to mention that it has nothing to do with coral growth or health!

[Dans85]

While I do agree that the less expensive lights can and will grow corals, you aren't necessarily just buying a name or features with a more expensive light. You are buying components that are much higher quality, a warranty, customer support, R&D, and engineering to name a few. Without the name brand companies the hobby would nearly stall and no new advances would be made. Take ecotech for example, they done just stuck a bunch of LEDs on a board and call it good, countless hours of research and engineering go into each new fixture to suit the needs of the intended livestock and the consumer alike. Look at their coral lab write up with the pre programmed settings and the people that use them. They get great results, and a great template to follow. If you want to use a less expensive fixture go ahead, but don't try to compare apples to asparagus.

[Kaiser699a]

I draw parallels between LED lights and F1 cars. As Dans85 says the expensive development and feature set design are done by the name brands and therefore cost ££££. Those developments are then taken and reverse engineered/copied/redesigned to get cost out and make the technology more accessible (for me). That doen't make them "bad". A bit like F1 car developers at the very sharp end of motor racing develop new features (ABS brakes, seat belts etc) that are then costed down for general use. Seat belts work perfectly well in my Ford. My point is not everyone needs the F1 top of the range latest tech LED fixture to get what they need.

[jason2459]

I stopped trying to go with bare minimum number of fixtures and LEDs. People always point to Sanjay's setup to show that LEDs are very capable of growing corals. People tend not to point out how MANY LEDs he has and how freaking expensive those LED fixtures are. Have you also seen Slief's Mitras fixture setup. It's awesome and he has a ton of them up there.

I'd say keep the black boxes and just get more of them.

I went with more and the results are awesome coverage everywhere. PAR readings with very very little variations through out the tank at each level.

My new Photon V2 setup.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...3#post24982833

[jda]

If you are thinking of moving to a different kind of light, then check out a 4/6 bulb T5 or even 150W HQI Metal Halide.

If you are checking out new panels, then you probably won't get too far. Those should be good enough to grow what you have up to 20-24 inches deep for most stuff. Even though I think that other lights will get you to the 85-100 percentile over most panels, you can should be able to get that 80-85% with what you have - if not, then look elsewhere for the solution.

[jason2459]

BTW, you can see Slief's setup here. It's beautiful and amazing. One of the best lighting setups I've seen.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...783476&page=85


Going with a "name brand" fixture may cost a lot more but you usually get a lot more features. So there are trade offs. Me personally am an on and off person and the Photon V2s I got have more then enough control with 1% ramping and I wouldn't want more then 6 channels to confuse me more.

[ReefCowboy]

I went from MH to Leds, and really liked the change. Like others stated, more units will lead to success, coverage is key. In my experience, softies and Lps will do absolutely fine with leds , and not taking advantage of blue leds and the pop they give with those type corals is crazy.

With Sps, some corals do well with leds, some don't look as good long term as lit with other traditional methods. Greens do well, pinks look purple and some sps like strawberry shortcake develop amazing colors under leds.

I have saved leds for an office tank, and while I build a new upgrade tank decided o use T5 (ATI) i got used in my main display . Lets just say after using T5's i will never care to use other light methods. The corals look better than I ever imagined them. I will use T5's and will add blue leds for dusk dawn, the only real reason I would need that over my tank to be honest.

Taking away heat that is much better with leds, I throw in the garbage all other led claims out there as being BS with led advocates. Nobody knows really how long leds keep their par until they drop, so the 50,000 hrs is a guess. Until one uses the same led fixture for 10 years and then tests par, we cant tell for sure.

The savings are easily overturned when you must add another fixture because your corals have shadowing causing lack of color so easily you can be in the hole with money by going leds.

[scooter31707]

My Mars Aquas are during the darn good job in my tank of sofies, lps, and some sps.

[jason2459]

Originally Posted by ReefCowboy

...

Taking away heat that is much better with less, I throw in the garbage all other led claims out there as being BS with led advocates. Nobody knows really how long leds keep their par until they drop, so the 50,000 hrs is guess. The savings are easily overturned when you must add another fixture because your corals have shadowing lack of color so easily yu can be inntge hole with money by going leds.

This is a kind of related exchange I had with Luc Vogels (reefer and Philips employee) in regard to how long these LEDs could last particularly the phosphors in them to make their spectrum if they are not a base spectrum the led gives out. For a base spectrum that doesn't need phosphors you can increase their intensity over time to make up for light loss.

Originally Posted by jason2459, post: 3454925, member: 56516

Can these phosphors burn out sooner and shift the spectrum well before the base direct LED gives out? Is there a guesstimated general timeline on that?

Originally Posted by Luc Vogels, post: 3457168, member: 62337

Hi Jason, you are correct.

The phosphorus material degrades over time.
This depends on various factors... some examples:
The wavelength of the basepump --> The lower the basepump wavelength, the higher the energetic content per photon and the more destructive for the material.
The type of phosphor --> multiple phosphors are used to create white colors (e.g. the 3000K I referred to before). Each phosphor has its own properties and is more or less robust towards aging.
e.g. the phosphor that is used to generate the blueish wavelengths in fluorescent T5 lamps suffers from the mercury peaks (basepump) and degrades much faster compared to the other phosphors.
Therefor the color point of a T5 tube shifts over time (because the blue part of the spectrum is reduces (and slightly shifted). These blue wavelengths are very important for our Corals growth and this is the main reason you are advised to replace your T5 lamps every 6-12 months. You do not perceive a big drop in brightness, but for the coral the most useful wavelengths are reduced drastically.
The overall junction temperature of the LED and operation temperature of the phosphor --> Overdriving LED's or having poor cool will increase the degradation process.

It is hard to set a general timeline (due to the amount of variables). It can be from 10.000 hours (poorly designed) to 100k hours (industrial graded).

Originally Posted by Luc Vogels, post: 3525848, member: 62337

The light output surely reduces during those 5 years of operation.
But the level of reduction is depending on the drive current and operation temperature of the LED.
(And secondarily also on material degradation of the optics).

It is also up to the consumer to decide when to exchange lighting...
Compare it with T5... some exchange every 6 months, others every 18 months.
Due to the many variables it is only verifiable by measuring the PAR values of the light during operation.

But it is good to assure the cooling of the fixture is optimal so you can enjoy the product lifetime as long as possible.

[ReefCowboy]

Originally Posted by jason2459

This is a kind of related exchange I had with Luc Vogels (reefer and Philips employee) in regard to how long these LEDs could last particularly the phosphors in them to make their spectrum if they are not a base spectrum the led gives out. For a base spectrum that doesn't need phosphors you can increase their intensity over time to make up for light loss.

While I agree the Phillips is a good contender out there, I think time will tell as I'm going to stay suspicious with any led claim, especially from the manufacturers. I know some usual cats (he will pop in soon)swear the Phillips led will turn water into wine, but I believe BRS debunked many of these claims written on the light fixtures' box so that fixture to some is not such a miracle.

I love my led, and agree they have their value, but my point is at this time many of us have been lied to with claim after claim that don't hold up as new better lights come out promising more and more.

The technology is still being developed and largely improved, I get that, however led companies place their future goals ahead of the current work and challenges when advertising these units.

[jason2459]

I think my point though was one thing I never hear about are the spectrum of the LEDs lasting and shifting. Just like T5's. The LED may last 5 billion hours but if the light shifts away from the spectrum we want because the phosphors in it are burning out and is more conducive to algae and cyano then corals it's useless. It may still light up and produce the PAR but the PUR is gone...