Lighting your reef... Best bang for your buck.

[Pisces3473]

You may be the first to experiment it Tom. Just hang 2 mirrors of same dimension as Taotronics at same height on both sides. Just tilt these mirrors reflecting the water surface below Taotronics back to both far sides of tank. Im pretty sure it will help brighten up those areas.

I'm sure the physics of this idea will work, but wouldn't that take up quite a bit of space?

 

[54seaweed]

One of these over a 55 is spreading the mustard quit thin Tommy you would need 2 of them for sure

 

[jeffaquarius]

Taotronics is a hang on fixture. The mirrors will be hanged at same height which are free space.

 

[jeffaquarius]

Definitely but the guy needs something until he can afford the 2nd unit

 

[TommyP]

Thanks all for the input. I'm not too good with hanging things so idk how it will look and turn out if I try to hang mirrors. I'm going to buy one at a time anyway so ill see how it looks with the 1 and if I need to ill just buy the second

 

[54seaweed]

gotta start somewhere right
your going to like them so be prepared to buy the second one soon lol

 

[jeffaquarius]

Well laser light works on same principles. Just a couple of reflective mirrors. I think mirrors are cheaper than LEDS lol

 

[Daniel Fishy]

I have a reef breeders over a 46 bow 36" long about 10" above and getting great results in growth and color. 48" will be pushing it but with corals in middle and sides for lower light you should be fine until you cash is replenished.i have lps on the sides six more inches on each side doesn't seem to bad.

 

[Reefer4eva]

Dimmable LED Aquarium Light 120W Coral Reef Tank White Blue Grow Light 55x3 Watt | eBay
Keep in mind there's no optic lenses

 

[mwilliams]

Lighting your reef...Best bang for your buck.

There is some argument about some of the LED units out there not being full spectrum. Some say they lack the red and green spectrum necessary to grow coral. I haven't found this to be true as of yet. As stated, I use the first generation Taotronics fixtures which aren't dimmable, over my 300 gallon. I can grow acropora on the sand bed with them. I did purchase this-
TaoTronics TT AL09 Dimmable Coral Reef Tank Light LED Aquarium Light 120W 55 3W | eBay
for my frag tank, which I like a bit better since you can adjust the blues and whites to your liking, but this wasn't available when I was lighting my reef.
Neither of these have reds and blues but it does not seem to matter.

mr_x how long have you had these over your tanks? Can you post some pictures how yours looks like as of today?
What size tanks are they over as well...

 

[Gregcoyote]

Dimmable LED Aquarium Light 120W Coral Reef Tank White Blue Grow Light 55x3 Watt | eBay
Keep in mind there's no optic lenses

Lensing only makes a difference if you want to concentrate the light, for instance a deep tank would do well to have lenses perhaps from 60-90 degree. My Rapid LED fixtures have 60 degree lenses and operate at just over 90 watts. Using Cree LED's I have a PAR of 400 at the sanded 16" deep in my frag tank. And the fixtures are hung 18" over the water. The Cree LEDs are more efficient than the Bridgelux (which I use on my reef tank) and with the lenses, I can push more PAR deeper. The lens-less Bridgelux panels work fine but would need to be much closer to the water for the same kind of PAR.

Mirrors would add some light (my minor was in lasers, so I enjoyed the mirror comment, true, some lasers do use mirrors). But I haven't seen it done much, don't know why. It can drive some fish crazy if they see themselves.

 

[TommyP]

So I pulled the trigger. Thanks for everyone's input this thread, it has been very very informative. I got the 2 fixtures off e-bay. The dimable ones. I am excited to receive them. They should arrive anytime between this Tuesday to next Tuesday. I put my old 4bulb t5 fixture on CL here on Long Island so hopefully I can make some money back off those. Thank you everyone so much for the kind knowledge, especially mr.x

 

[mwilliams]

Not sure without going through all of these pages again.. Does anyone out here on this thread have any pictures of their corals before using these led lights and after using them ? In particularly SPS corals. A friend of mine does not believe in these lights and I want really make sure that they are doing as good as everyone has been posting on here.. But need pictures to back it up the before and after pictures.

 

[Gregcoyote]

I am not sure pictures would mean much without some documentation. There are hundreds on this forum alone using LEDs.

Main tank shot - all Chinese LEDs

Frag tank with purple acro - Rapid LED
6 months later

 

[mwilliams]

This is a good start that is what I am looking for is the before and after pictures for corals that have been under these lights for any duration.. And like you said documentation is needed did not think about that part.

 

[54seaweed]

these were under t-5s in my 37g and were not doing well
so I put them in my 40b under the leds they have been in there about a month

the brown ones with orange dot in center
and the candy apples
you can see the growth and how much better they look

sorry the before pict is so blurry but you can still see them

here are the brown with orange spot you can see how much better they look and more fuller they look

and here's the candy apples they look a lot better too this camera don't show the true colors to good

 

[Gti_Leo]

I am not sure pictures would mean much without some documentation. There are hundreds on this forum alone using LEDs.

Main tank shot - all Chinese LEDs

Frag tank with purple acro - Rapid LED
6 months later

greg are you just using their onyx fixtures?

i wasn't sure if i'd be happy with the color output but having tuned up my drivers i have to say the purplish color is very pleasing and i'm sure it targets a great spectrum for coral growth, i would highly highly recommend Rapid LEDs kits more so now then i ever did before. the cree emitters truly are a great technology. i have seen PAR videos on youtube of a man using 48 cree XP-E white and royalblue on his 120 gallon 48x24x24 on 3 heatsinks, two with 12 and the middle with 24 LEDs and they were hung 12" above the water and was getting 700 PAR on the sand bed. i can only imagine what the XP-G and XT-E will put out at full power

 

[Gregcoyote]

Yes, it's a onyx fixture. But one thing to consider is the Cree LEDs have lenses, in my case 60 degree. This concentrates the light more than what a non-lensed Bridgelux emitter might give (but some of them have lenses too). I like the warmer color temp the Onyx gives over the standard Taotronics style fixture, but when placed right, both grow coral great. In fact, your biggest danger is underestimating them and burning corals.

 

[Gti_Leo]

i also have 60 degree optics on mine, but you can remove them i think they are normally 120 degrees of spread on each LED whe nthey don't have the optics but aqt the same time when testign with and without they look more intense with the optics off, i woudl think the jagged lense stops some of the light output

 

[JesseMessykinn]

Im Defiantly looking into these for my 55G, I was originally looking at Vertex and Eco Tech, But at 1,200-2,000 bucks into just a light setup is off the wall crazy IMO. Let alone getting the wife to approve, I feel she would be more on board at at a third of the cost then she cant say no! The only things holding my back is A. Broke at the Moment, and B. Mounting them. How did everyone else get these mounted? The only thing I can think of is 12In Wall Brackets from the hardware store. Whats some tips on how you guys have em set up, and how far from the water do you have them?