LED lights

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David87

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
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Aug 12, 2014
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I'm thinking to move to LED lights for my 65 reef tank. Can anyone give me a hand on which brand, power and spectrum to chose? I would like to start keeping some SPS corals among my LPS.

The tank is RSM250 if dimensions are needed.


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I use a Maxspect razor which I find to be about perfect for a 36" tank. I also like that I can use stands instead of hanging kits. I'd recommend you checking the out.


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The taotronic LEDs would be a nice fit over the tank. One can cover 2ft of tank. They are the cheapest you can find on the market and will keep anything you want under them that is photosynthetic.
 
First off, asking for opinions on LEDs on the internet will almost always start a fight between two or more people because everyone has a very strong opinion. But, I have personally found the Intellisun and RapidLED both make very high watt, high PAR structures. Over my 48" 55 reef build I use two 170W Intellisun Ceruleans, but I can't have them at full power. At full power they would bleach out any coral. They're growing LPS, Softies (Zoas, Mushrooms, Palys, Xenia), Leathers, A Blue Maxima Clam, and SPS (Montipora, Plating Monti) and the exact lights that I am using (I bought them used from my LFS) have grown Acro.

These lights have Blue, Purple, and White LEDs. They all are adjustable 1-100%, and the max my LFS had them on when they grew the Acro was:
Blue: 100%
Purple: 100%
White: 10%
I think these LEDs would be a good choice for you, but they're expensive. Don't get me wrong, it is worth it and you don't want to cheap out on it. The only LEDs that I think would be a bad idea that are claimed to be "reef capable" are Marineland LEDs, and Current USAs Orbit Marine LEDs. Of course it depends on what you're growing. For just softies and maybe a couple LPS you could use the Orbits, but they won't grow SPS. I hope this helped!
 
I don't know about fighting over lighting choices, but I'm willing to offer some experience with some of the cheaper units, like the ones mentioned by Hank. The important factor is money- how much are you willing to spend? You can do this for a thousand dollars, and you can do this for a couple hundred, Both of which will grow corals just fine.
 
I use ReefBreeders Photon series lighting. Has a controller, the company stands behind the product with a warranty of a year.

Easy to program, saw a huge difference in growth and lighting. Highly recommend it for a person on a budget.
 
. The important factor is money- how much are you willing to spend? You can do this for a thousand dollars, and you can do this for a couple hundred, Both of which will grow corals just fine.


Really what it comes down to
 
I purchased one of these last night. They come with pretty good reviews from people on this forum. We'll see what happens.

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Wow! Lots of answers! Hanks for sharing your experience, but there is one thing which I still don't know.
LEDA lights has to be as powerful as T5 or halide lights? I mean, 2-3 watts per liter or less?

Thanks


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Wow! Lots of answers! Hanks for sharing your experience, but there is one thing which I still don't know.
LEDA lights has to be as powerful as T5 or halide lights? I mean, 2-3 watts per liter or less?

Thanks


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No you want efficient LEDs, they're usually the higher wattage LEDs but not necessarily. Ingy broke it down very well to me in a pm, I'll see if I can copy and paste it here

Ingy said:
Sorry, I forgot to mention the biggest factor, efficiency. Fluval LEDs are about 44 lumen per watt. That is a very low efficiency.
Tao LEDs are using Cree LEDs which exceed 120 lum per watt.
So 39x44=1716 lum
120x120=14400 lum
That makes the quality led unit 8.4 times as bright. 3 times for the wattage and almost 3 times for the efficiency. Nothing for the size of the bulbs.
 
I've got a Tao (from eBay) over my 60g reef and have had no problems with a variety of corals...my Hammer has tripled in size, my green Monti cap is easily 6x, my Jedi Mind Trick is probably 2x, my Zoas/ Palys all like the LED...my favias, leptos, etc are all good too. I'm considering buying more and going LED with my 240g between now and the end of the year. For the money, they are tough to beat.


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Nanobox makes awesome lights that look great on tanks like this, but they are definitely on the higher end of the price scale.
 
I have the same as ms705jk

Find them really good and very cheap. Although i am still unsure how to have them set. Atm i am on blue 100% and white 30%.
Im unsure exactly the best setting for this light
I also made up a bracket for them so i didnt have to hang them off the ceiling!


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I also have had good luck with inexpensive Chinese panels, but their weakness is poor drivers that can go bad. I sold about 50 of them and after 5 years had a 10% driver failure. Still not bad for the price. Mr_X even tested one of my first imports for me years ago. I think it was when he saw that a cheap LED panel could work so well. (Let me know if that's inaccurate Doug).

I have since gone to RapidLED and have bought both full spectrum Onyx fixtures and am now replacing my remaining Chinese panels with custom full spectrum DIY kits from them. I became a dealer and have been supplying fixtures to our local club.

There is no going back, I am addicted to LEDs.

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Last edited:
I too have the Tao panels. My 1p punk rocker zoa has turned into 7p in 1 month. My anemones has both grown tremendously. However one of them is a bit bleached because I turned to the lights up too fast. So I'm pretty sure that proves that they have some power.
 
Your have to remove the lid to your rsm250 for the Taos though if I'm thinking correctly.


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I have the same as ms705jk

Find them really good and very cheap. Although i am still unsure how to have them set. Atm i am on blue 100% and white 30%.
Im unsure exactly the best setting for this light
I also made up a bracket for them so i didnt have to hang them off the ceiling!


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Can you post a pic of the bracket you made? I will have to do the same this weekend

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I also have had good luck with inexpensive Chinese panels, but their weakness is poor drivers that can go bad. I sold about 50 of them and after 5 years had a 10% driver failure. Still not bad for the price. Mr_X even tested one of my first imports for me years ago. I think it was when he saw that a cheap LED panel could work so well. (Let me know if that's inaccurate Doug).

I have since gone to RapidLED and have bought both full spectrum Onyx fixtures and am now replacing my remaining Chinese panels with custom full spectrum DIY kits from them. I became a dealer and have been supplying fixtures to our local club.

There is no going back, I am addicted to LEDs.

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Yes, taking PAR readings from your fixture was what pushed me into the low cost units. I still use them to this day, and haven't had one fail on me yet.

Again though, it's all up to what you want to spend and what you want your lighting to do. I only cared about growing colorful corals so these fixtures worked perfectly for me. Some others like their units to ramp up and down to simulate sunrise and sunset, cloud cover, even lightening storms...those folks would need to spend more money.
 
I have two 130w actinic/white Taotronic panels. My questions how many hours are you running eat color for best results? Do you leave Actinic on when you turn on the white?
 
When I ran a similar panel (reefbreeders value unit) I ran blues at about 70% and whites on 50%, blues were on for 11 hours total and whites 8, the blues would come on 90 mins before the white and go off 90 mins after the whites went off.
 
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