Went back to halides

[s_kelley]

Ok so I have had the reefbreeders photon 48 over my tank for about two years and have just never been happy with the growth of pretty much everything. So tonight I decided to rehang my dual 250w 20k radiums. I am going to leave em up and see if I get different results than I had w the led's. As soon as I put em on I saw that shimmer again that I've been missing
Will keep ya posted!

 

[fishmommy]

Good luck. I just went to halides from LED for similar reasons


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[this is me]

Very nice!

 

[Pat02026]

I hope it's a worth-while move for you! I'm onto t5's now, still miss the Phoenix 14k's though...

 

[s_kelley]

I love the adjustability of the led's but just wasn't getting the same results that I was with the halides. So I shall see what happens

 

[CoralJunkie]

I've never used halides but i have used t5 and now I've been using led. The growth sucks imo from my led fixture. Acans grow great but my sps and chalice not so much. I'm using the hydra unit, maybe my intensity is not enough...

 

[P-Nut]

Nothing beats Halides and T5.

And in the end, MH costs less or just as much as LED.

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[Nanoreef15]

in my opinion, led cost more than MH or T5. why? because i have been seeing people tosh their led out or upgrade to another and another after a year or so.

there are quite a lot of people in this forum that have gone back to either MH or T5 after trying out LED.

 

[maximo]

Following! I'm really starting to wonder why some people can have excellent results with leds and some people just have flop results causing them to throw in the led towel! Some of the best looking tanks I have seen run only LEDs! It seems these reefbreeders lights have a poor track record!


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[dz6t]

I suspect it is something to do with adjusting spectrum too much.
There are two types of LED have good track record in general, AI SOL and ReefBreeder. As well as the el-cheapo eBay type.
Both of them have limited option for spectrum adjustment.
My take is to set LED at one of the factory preset and leave it alone.

 

[Bobbofin]

I've been back and forth from halides to T5 to LED several times. Each one has it's strong points. I did find that Acros grew the best under LEDs, LPS grew the best under MH and Zoas grew the best under T5. Your results may vary. All my corals grew under various lighting formats so each has it's plus and minuses.

 

[reefstarter]

Halides plus acro power =yowsa

 

[yukyuklee]

Halides is best hands down. Good with supplement T5 lighting but I think T5 just look flat in color. Bring the shimmer!

 

[maximo]

Halides is best hands down. Good with supplement T5 lighting but I think T5 just look flat in color. Bring the shimmer!

LEDs have great shimmer! What types of fixtures have you had experience with? Can you give us some examples other than "they are best hands down" this really doesn't explain why. Have you ran a reefbreeders light and had poor color or growth? Why kind of halides are you running? Do they change tank temp? How often do you change bulbs? Have you tried running led with t5? How has your electricity bill changed when running halides vs led or t5? I run my radions at 60% intensity and my energy usage went down when I switched, I compare the same months year to year and from for the last 13 months I have been down 15 dollars! My tank doesn't fluctuate more than .3 of a degree. My growth with sps Lps zoas etc all are doing great! Please give us some more useful information as it seems that this is the most understood area of the hobby at the moment! Better input provides more accurate results. Some people simply can't get LEDs to work over their tank yet some have great success I feel that either people are just not using them properly or there's something else going on aside from a light issue! I personally had issues when first changing so I dialed them down and went very slow with them and I am having great success!


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[fishmommy]

I had high end LEDs for a year and I can tell you when those halides come on all I can say is 'wow, I never knew!'
My corals look a lot better since switching.
It's quite possible my programming just sucked but I had downloaded programs from people who claimed success.

 

[P-Nut]

I've been back and forth from halides to T5 to LED several times. Each one has it's strong points. I did find that Acros grew the best under LEDs, LPS grew the best under MH and Zoas grew the best under T5. Your results may vary. All my corals grew under various lighting formats so each has it's plus and minuses.

How long did you grow the acros for under LED?

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[s_kelley]

Wow forgot how much evap goes on with halides.

 

[fishmommy]

hah! yeah I am thanking goodness I have such a big ATO container!
Most of my corals are looking much better after struggling for a year.

 

[reefstarter]

I lose about 7 gallons daily from 5 250's

 

[delta]

I suspect it is something to do with adjusting spectrum too much.
There are two types of LED have good track record in general, AI SOL and ReefBreeder. As well as the el-cheapo eBay type.
Both of them have limited option for spectrum adjustment.
My take is to set LED at one of the factory preset and leave it alone.

Problem is some times better to not give control to the end user. With halide, T-5, VHO compact florescent the only control is the duration of light and while you can choose spectrums they are tested. In the end I think the lack of success some are having is that LED are not providing a solid set of spectrums that have been thoroughly tested. What we like for viewing and what actually is good for the corals can be two different things.

It is why I stay away from LEDs they are still in their infancy there is no standardization you can count on. In time there will be but it just isn't their yet.