LED wattage for Acro and other SPS?

[Istrom]

Hey guys,

I'm aware that LED guidelines say about 1 Watt per gallon is good for most corals. How many watts would be good enough for Acros and SPS? (of course, these would be in the higher half of the tank. I'm not looking for specifics on my tank, just a general guideline)

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[BigRedsReefs10]

Watts/gal is an outdated guideline, and doesn't really apply to led units. Quality units use more powerful individual diodes (usually 3w LEDs run at 2w) with a white to blue ratio of at least 1:1 (I personally prefer more of a 1:2 w:b ratio), or if the unit uses other colored diodes on the white channel you still want a 1:1 ratio with about half the LEDs being used in the blue spectrum. Honestly it really comes down to the quality lighting units use better LEDs that are more efficient and true to the spectrum they claim to give off, where the cheap units get the cheaper individual diodes that may be off of the claimed spectrum slightly.


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[Istrom]

Okay, well I've got a 24" fluval reef led fixture over my 24 gallon (18 gallon display) tank that's 25 watts, and a 24" TrueLumen actinic led that is 9 watts.

The spectrum on the fluval includes 400 NM, 420 NM, 440 NM, 460 NM, 600 NM, and 25,000 Kelvin overall.
(see attached graph)

The TrueLumen strip has 453 NM only, and I really got this strip for greater wattage and more blue.

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[BigRedsReefs10]

The fluval units use .25w LEDs last I checked which are way in the weak end. I tried one of the nano versions on my 10 when it was first set up and they left my shrooms reaching all the way up for light on the sandbed directly underneath the light. I also hated the look it gave off because it's in the 10k range, but that's a personal preference as I prefer a more 18-20k look to my lights (more blue = more better in my book )


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[Istrom]

Agreed on the blue lol, I think I'll probably frag off a piece of the brown monti in my 90 and try it under the lights. If all goes well, I'll bump it up a level.

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[BigRedsReefs10]

A quick but of research and as far as I can tell they are still using the same .24w LEDs and haven't changed the amount of blues. The 36" uses 504 LEDs , 252 of which are cool white the other half are split pretty evenly between blue, royal blue, red, uv and 2 other different spectrum whites. The par goes from ~350 directly underneath the light to 40 19" down (this is actually better than I was expecting) but imho the par at the average depths corals are placed in our tanks limits this light to softies and lps, with the possibility of maybe a monti cap in the top couple inches of the tank where the pars still in the 250-200 range ( personally doubt they'd do well, but I've seen stranger things)


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[Istrom]

Yeah, like I said, I have the TrueLumen strip on there as well for increased blues, and higher PAR. I've got two mushrooms (14 inches below the lights, in the sand) doing fine, a small favia colony (12 inches below), and a frogspawn (9 inches down). All of them seem to be doing fine. In the future I might buy another 24" TrueLumen actinic strip for better spread on the blues and even more PAR.

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[Gregcoyote]

Yeah, like I said, I have the TrueLumen strip on there as well for increased blues, and higher PAR. I've got two mushrooms (14 inches below the lights, in the sand) doing fine, a small favia colony (12 inches below), and a frogspawn (9 inches down). All of them seem to be doing fine. In the future I might buy another 24" TrueLumen actinic strip for better spread on the blues and even more PAR.

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What you have listed are all pretty light tolerant corals. The shrooms need very little light.

LED efficiency goes up with higher wattage LEDs. With or without lenses controls the size of the illumination zone. Lenses are good generally for deeper tanks, hanging the fixtures higher or raising intensity at the sand bed.

My main reef supports all kinds of SPS and LPS, it is deep (34") and about 300 gallons. I use three DIY panels using Cree 2 watt LEDs at about 100 watts per panel. I use 90deg lenses. That's only one watt per gallon. When I used MH it was more like 3 watts per gallon.


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[Istrom]

After looking at prices, I discovered this:
http://m.ebay.com/itm/181275113350?_mwBanner=1

It's half the price of the fluval LEDS (which came with the setup), so I think I'm going to buy one of these fixtures, and sell the fluvals.

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[nwsharksfan]

After looking at prices, I discovered this:
165W LED Aquarium Light Full Spectrum Dimmable for Fish Reef Coral Marine Tank | eBay

It's half the price of the fluval LEDS (which came with the setup), so I think I'm going to buy one of these fixtures, and sell the fluvals.

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I recently bought two of these for my 55 gal tank. I'm still cycling - so I can't testify as to how much corals like it ... and I just got them so longevity is still up in the air. I can say, however, that given how bright they are I can't imagine them not being more than adequate for your tank. One will be plenty (each has a 2 ft spread). I have them running at 15% right now and they're easily 100% brighter at that level than the marineland LED fixture I have on my fw tank. Only pain with these lights is hanging them - but I'm not terribly handy.

 

[Istrom]

Good to know. The way I see it, it's a medium risk (not too expensive, not super cheap), for a high reward. Also has 1 year warranty

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