What lights are you running and what's your experience with them?

[Xavier613]

Just trying to get a feel for the overall situation of the club and where everyone stands with their lighting. Personally I've had experience with halide, double and single ended, t5, and led both pre built and custom made.

For the newest tank, I'm looking at doing a t5/led hybrid fixture using a tek 6x39w foxture I got for cheap off a buddy. Going to be gutting it, replacing a few bulbs and endcaps with strips of leds, and making a control box for it. Also will be adding both top and side fans (blow into fixture from the side and out on the top) and an acrylic sheild to cover the entire bottom.

Hopefully this gives me the coloration I've had with t5 and the growth I've sustained with led...

What about YOUS GUYS?

 

[saltkreep88]

Have ran double and single ended halide, t5, and now LED. I have been using a reefbreeders light for over month now. I love the LED for the control, no heat and less power however I feel the color is lacking. T5 being my personal favorite for color, and LED for function and power savings.

 

[Mike S]

On my 120 I initially ran leds but eventually added a pair of T5s after a year. I felt my tank really start to do much better but its hard to pin on just the T5s. It could have just been the stability that came with my tank starting to mature.

Ive started with a pair of ATI 4x80 watt T5 fixtures on my new 315 gallon tank. Its only been a month so its hard to draw any conclusions yet. I still need to play with the bulb combination a bit as Im not really happy with the color yet.

This weekend I threw up my old led fixtures between the T5 fixtures. Eventually I'm going to add a more permanent led setup. Im thinking diy leds strips between the T5 fixutures or modifying the T5 fixtures with leds down the middle of each. Ill be interested to see what you come up with. Keep us updated.

 

[jgraz]

Started with T5's and I'm still with them with no desire to ever change. I'm running a 8x54W Tek at the moment. I may change to the ATI 8x but not positive.

 

[dan_k]

I went from MH then LEDs and now have a 8 bulb T5 fixture I will never go back I'm getting great growth colors pop and when I start my 180 I'm going T5's

 

[Xavier613]

This weekend I threw up my old led fixtures between the T5 fixtures. Eventually I'm going to add a more permanent led setup. Im thinking diy leds strips between the T5 fixutures or modifying the T5 fixtures with leds down the middle of each. Ill be interested to see what you come up with. Keep us updated.

Ill be making a documented build thread for the light. Basically im going to run Aluminum U channel attached with C brackets where the endcaps would be located regularly. Just going to run a mixture of blues and whites probably on each, say 2 runs of 14 LEDS. Thinking 6 Royal Blue 4 Cool Blue and 4 Cool White, Driving each channel to roughly 750mA. Each strip will have a seperate driver and potentiometer to dim them seperately. I have a few other colors (red, UV, green) that i might throw into the mix because i really dont need any more white light. So one strip might contain a few of them with no optics on them.

I had a thread for my last fixture where i did roughly the same thing, so it is going to be similar, but im going to make it a lot cleaner being that it is going into a fixture and isnt a standalone this time. One thing is for sure, with leds if you do not have an enclosed fixture (prebuilt) you MUST have some protection over them. They will get destroyed from spray and salt in no time if not.

 

[Spideybry]

You already know what I run X, but for others, I run 2xAqua Illuminations Sol Blues on a 48x21x19 mixed reef. The highest my percentages get is around 75% white, and 100% blues. SPS do great on the top, softies do great on the bottom.

 

[ThatGuy]

I run one reefbreeder value led fixture w/ 90 degree optics. As of now I'm running whites @75% & blues @100%. Tried going higher on the whits but my sps at the very top of the tank started to look pale so I brought it back down. So far I'm happy with the colors I'm getting.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I will not go back!


I originally ran IceCap ballast T5’s, and the yearly bulb change and energy consumption was getting to me. I switched over to two Apollo fixtures, and cut my energy consumption in half….virtually no heat….and no bulb changes.


I’m getting growth like crazy, but I will admit that some corals have changed in color…most noticeable with some of the chalices I have…..but I’m OK with that (being that I’m colored blind… )

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

On my 55, I have running two Maxspect Mazarra P-Series LED fixtures. I use the default settings and I am getting great growth. I had a metal halide/power compact fixture and my corals didn't do as well with that fixture as they do the LED's

 

[Empire]

i ran MH over 4 tanks, t5's over 2, and leds over 2. my new build is t5's. i get growth and color with led, but not the growth i've gotten with t5's. i will switch out a few t5 bulbs once someone makes a sufficient led strip that fits into my fixture.

 

[jose7878]

On my 1st tank 55 gal I ran pc's then switched to MHL. 90 galI ran MHL. 150 gal I ran MHL and T5's . 60gal cube T5's


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[falconut]

Metal Halide & VHO for me. I've got (2) - 250 Watt SE MH's and (2) 110 Watt VHO's. My ballasts are just the cheapo DIY Advance Magnetic ballasts, I got from the hellolights with a standard 46.5" reflector. I've played around with bulbs, started with 10K XM, then each year tried a different brand - 14K Hamilton, 15K XM, 14K Artemis, 14K Plus-Rite and now 20K Plus-Rite. Plus-Rites have been for the past 3 - 4 years. The VHO are mainly just supplementation. My MH's are on from 3:30 - 10:30, while the VHO's go on around 7 and off around 10:45. The VHO's are (1) AquaSun and (1) Actinic bulb, like the pinkish color from the Aquasun with the blue from the actinic.

My opinion, the best colored corals have been under T5's, but I just don't have the $$ to spend on changing lights. Plus, I get decent colors with my MH/VHO combo. I can't really beat less than $40/year for bulbs. Of course unless I spend hundreds for LEDs.

 

[NikkiT]

We have run compact fluorescents and metal hallides in the past.
We currently run Maxspect Mazarra LED fixtures over the display tank, a 6 bulb T5 fixture over the frag tank, and a stock JBJ LED hood on our 12g nano.

The compact flourescents ran over our 12g, and we kept LPS pretty successfully for 3 years with them. I liked them, but wanted to try the LEDs so we upgraded to the JBJ LED hood. I do like the way the tank looks better, and so far my corals in the 12 are doing pretty well with the change.

We ran the hallides over our 30g cube, and we got color and growth under them, but the temp in the tank did swing, and it was an energy hog.

We have done great with T5s over the years. Yes, the bulbs are expensive to keep replacing, but we have done better with LPS under t5 lighting than we have with LEDs.

We have also run AI Sol Blue LED fixtures and we just won an AI Hydra LED fixture which I plan to set up over our frag tank in the near future.

 

[REEFLECTIONS]

i run 3 ai vega's over my 72" 125g tank... the hydras were not out yet when i got my fixtures i think i might have liked them more because of the frosted lenses, the different white diodes, and the added uv. also alot of the controllability options are wasted on me and how i use them. i run mine at: 45%white, 35%red, 27%green, 60%blue, 100%deep blue, 100%royal blue. i've grown to like them more as time goes on. but def. wasn't love at first sight. also nikki, congrats again... that was a nice win. did you get the new "hydra 52" or the standard one?

 

[NikkiT]

also nikki, congrats again... that was a nice win. did you get the new "hydra 52" or the standard one?

Thanks! I believe I won the standard one, but an LED from a free raffle is an LED from a free raffle, I am very excited to set it up.
I didn't love the Mazaras when we set them up, and they have grown on me too

 

[REEFLECTIONS]

prob for the best winning the one you did. i think the other one would be too powerful for most set-ups. especially a smaller one

 

[Chrisgarrick]

Apollo sunbursts. 3 over a 150 gal tank

 

[Xavier613]

Seems like a lot of people have switched over to LED's, and mostly with all positive experiences... Anyone with led's unhappy? or switched back to T5 or MH?

Like i said, im in between so for now im going to just make my own version of the ATI Powermodule and save myself about 1,200.00 lol.


If anyone wants to add an actinic bar of leds to their tank or onto their fixture, let me know. I have a ton of free time since i graduated and the job market blows and would be happy to throw some fixtures together.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Seems like a lot of people have switched over to LED's, and mostly with all positive experiences... Anyone with led's unhappy? or switched back to T5 or MH?

I know a couple folks who have switched pack to T5’s, or at least have supplemented with T5’s.


There are some corals that color up differently under LED than T5’s (or MH). I’ve simply accepted that and am happy with less heat, reduced operating cost, and no bulb changes. I still have pretty corals….just different than under T5’s (orMH).