LED light buying help!!!

T

Thorsbeans

Amphipod
#1
#1
Alright so I am on the fence for purchasing LED lights. Specifically the ones from china. I don't really understand spectrums and all that so I'm getting feedback on here. From what I have heard the lower the number the more coral growth but less color. I would like more color and decent growth. I'm not a huge propagator so growth comes second to me. so heres the options. There are different light setups for each, like being able to add red lights and all that but the biggest difference is one is at 6500k and the other is at 12000k

Light #1 - $180 Each
120W
2 dimmers for white and blue
20k spectrum
22 - 6500k whites (dimmable)
20 - 460nm blues (dimmable)
13 - 450nm blues (dimmable)
90 degree optics

Light #2 - $225 each
120W
2 Dimmers for white and blue
LCD timer
90 optics
27 - 12000k white (dimmable)
15 - 460nm blue (dimmable)
10 - 440nm dark blue (dimmable)
3 - 420nm UV/purple (non-dimmable)
 
sethsolomon

sethsolomon

Hammerhead Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
#2
Here is kinda a breakdown of kelvin ratings:

14k kelvin will look amazing but not optimal growth rate. better for a matured tank with fully grown colonies

But the color is just all preference. This is just from my personal experience. I would like others to chime in on this as well to provide insight from others.



The second light seems like a better deal.

UV light helps the blue, green, and pink corallites in coral. There is a study that shows as the amount of UV light increases, the corallites become more predominant and their natural colors show more.

Layman's terms: More UV light = prettier coral


Now if you want to best of both worlds, you would want to do a DIY fixture.

I have some pics from my DIY build in this link: http://www.marinecolorado.org/forums/showthread.php?19575-Seth-s-Over-the-Top-60g-Cube


Hit my up if you would like to know a bit more about DIY.
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
#3
What do you want to keep? The answer will depend. Mixed tank, fish only, SPS, Clams, everything, zoa garden?

This is a complicated question and answer, but the shallower types of corals can handle more yellow/green emitted by the white LEDs since they are not deep enough to have had the water filter away that kind of spectrum. The deeper corals will suffer with too much white LED. This is not a "too much light" issue, rather a "too much of the wrong kind of light" issue. Some will be fine, some won't... so considering what you do (or want to) keep is important IMO.

There is a good thread on RC about this and it appears that the next generations of LED will have very few "white" LEDs, lots of blue and the rest of the spectrum made up with a few red/green/yellow/whatever to make them bright enough for our eyes to be happy with the tank.

UV 420 LED is not really UV. Other true full spectrum light sources go much lower than this that the coral responds to. I am pretty sure that UV LEDs don't do as much as people thing that they do - although I am sure that they do something.
 
T

Thorsbeans

Amphipod
#6
#6
And I know there are better lights and all that but for the price these are pretty good. So just want to know between these which would be better deal and more beneficial to the tank

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
#7
I don't think that there are better LEDs. In the end, if you keep some deepwater stuff, you will either struggle or have to turn down the white side anyway. With the SPS, this is tricky... if you are into branching, encrusting and plating Montipora, Pocilipora, Seriatopora, Stylophora and the like, they are shallower coral and won't care - most acropora will care.

If it were me and somebody forced me to use LED, I would buy either of those, keep the whites low and use a few T5s to cover the higher end of the spectrum (over 500).

The UV put out by like a 14K Phoenix and 20K Radium goes well below 350 and at some points with an intensity as much as from 500 to 600... if you can believe the charts - I have not seen any LED that goes that low, let alone enough of them. I do think that UV matters, but I did not even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I know nothing...

What do you have now? How do you like them? Good? Bad? Why are you switching?
 
S

saltySamurai

Blenny
#8
#8
like the others have said, what are you after? then it's about preference. Generally speaking, or probably more like IMO, you have too many whites to blues. I find that 2 blues to 1 white is plenty of white. My first LED build using solely Luxeons from china I did a strict 2:1 ratio and was running 9 separate circuits (12 LEDs each); none of them were dimmable, but I could unplug any of the circuits to perform a crude mix. I found that full on was too white. My viewing preference was to only use 1 of the 3 white circuits and all of the blue - IMO. Not the best for overall growth of the SPSs, but things were still healthy and growing. Last weekend I finished my second build and installed - MUCH happier with the prettiness factor. I used the ratios that RapidLED uses for their Onyx fixture. The prettiest that I like so far is to take half of the whites offline, but this setting is not white / daylight view, but it's pretty! The Onyx uses (http://www.rapidled.com/onyx-by-rapid-led/)
14 royal blue
8 cool white
4 violet
1 green
1 red
My build was double this number and instead of 2 green / 2 red I used 3 green / 3 red because of the length of my tank (6ft). Actually I lied - I'm not complete with the build - I still want to put my 2 white strings on dimmers. I expect then that I will be able to use both strings but dial them back from full.
The biggest lesson I learned from my first build was to not skimp on the cooling / heat sink. I was loosing 1 LED about every 2 weeks because I mounted my LEDs on, more or less, an aluminum plate. Worked great initially, and especially since I wasn't dimming, I think I was close to their heat limit and I would lose one every couple of weeks. Of course this would take the entire string of 12 down, and then you gotta get in with your solder iron again. This time went with a quality heat sink - 6 one-inch fins per 2 inch width (http://www.heatsinkusa.com/1-813-wide-extruded-aluminum-heatsink).
Oh, and I originally had chinese drivers but switched to meanwell .700amp - I originally had too many LEDs per driver (they said you could drive 20, but this burned them out over several weeks; that's when I rewired everything and went to 12 per circuit). That made them last longer, but something about how I was using them and they eventually burned out as well. The cost difference to go with the meanwell (non-dimmables) was negligible (especially with shipping from china), and none of those have burned out.
 
J

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
#9
Also, figure out what you need and run them at 100%. The spectrum shifts (lower) with less power and some think that the life is shortened and the shift can start to become permanent (I have no idea if this is true, but the spectrum shift is). Dimmable is not all that good, IMO.

Keep this in mind too - there is no cost-benefit that you can do to make this worthwhile. Most people have bought new LEDs since the last time that I bought MH bulbs. I would plan on about a 18 month life out of these fixtures before you WANT to upgrade, even though they could last a lot longer than that.

Whatever you get make sure that they are cooled with good fans. LEDs get hot - ask the scar on my arm.

Whatever you do, don't listen to me. I will warn you right now that I think that LEDs are mostly toys that you can have decent results with over some reef tanks, depending on what you want to keep. I think that you will struggle for excellence in other scenarios. I know that I am probably wrong and very dogmatic here, but dimming, playing around with them, dusk-dawn, etc. is all a bunch of garbage that the coral does not care about and I don't need just for me to feel better. I also don't care that I am a dogmatic dooocher - I have accepted my dooochiness over the years. I pay attention because I think that some day, when somebody makes a real reef LED and not reuses LEDS in taillights and switches and stuff, LEDs will be awesome, so I want to be ready for that moment so that I can switch. ...so pay attention to these other guys more if you really want LEDs.
 
T

Thorsbeans

Amphipod
#10
#10
So much more to lighting than I expected. I really dont get the lighting and I'm upgrading to a larger tank. I have 2 old Chinese LED's and they are just way too blue. Plus I'm upgrading my whole system so was just gonna stick with what I know when it comes to lights since I don't really understand them. And for the price they seem good.

I want to keep more LPS, a few easier SPS and some softies. Including clams and anemones. Basically a whole reef system with a light beneficial to all. If I understood lighting I would do a DIY but since I dont I'll just buy it outright.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk 2
 
CRW Reef

CRW Reef

Blue Whale
M.A.S.C Club Member
ex-officio
#11
#11
I would keep the Chinese lights you have and add T5s if you arent going full on sps crazy. Plenty of people in the club keeping sps successfully with leds alone, so adding the T5 supplemental will certainly allow you to grow anything you want. LMK if you want examples of awesome tanks running all leds or all T5s or combos.
 
Dr.DiSilicate

Dr.DiSilicate

Administrator
Staff member
M.A.S.C Club Member
M.A.S.C. B.O.D.
MASC Vice-President
#12
#12
CRW Reef;261955 said:
I would keep the Chinese lights you have and add T5s if you arent going full on sps crazy. Plenty of people in the club keeping sps successfully with leds alone, so adding the T5 supplemental will certainly allow you to grow anything you want. LMK if you want examples of awesome tanks running all leds or all T5s or combos.
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