LED lighting be an advance?

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tizzo

Guest
The place mentioned above, the coral corral, runs the entire store on LED set ups, and I have been watching them since they opened, their corals appearances go up and down.
One benefit of LED's is that they lie about the color of the corals. The corals look very vibrant and colorful, but what your actually seeing is the reflection of that particular bulb.
The PAR on the LED set up is adjustable. At 100% the corals started bleaching out due to to much light. The store tweaked the lights down and at 35% they are having the most success.
This store does not have one or 2 reef tanks set up on LED's but rather the entire store is this way. Every display tank, every grow-out tank, anemones, softies, frags, everything.
The LED's are quite impressive. Expensive, but impressive.
When you look at the lights there are many white bulbs, many blue bulbs and a few green ones, which explains the "lie" in color coral. But they make for a pretty tank and they are more than capable of supporting any coral including acros and any other SPS and also anemones.
I'll hafta go take pictures now huh?
 
T

tizzo

Guest
That store has Solaris fixtures. I found this "image" but in real life that middle row is very green.

 
bronco300

bronco300

Active Member
Originally Posted by Nano Reefer
http:///forum/post/2674002
yeah, you could also put LED's with MH. LED's have no Par value.
use google.....I don't believe that is correct...PFO solaris's I4(high powered LEDs, not 5mm,cheap LEDs) par ratings are comparable to that of 400MH(15K)..I think they are wonderful fixtures if it weren't for the killer prices...PFO also has the galileo, which are comparable to VHO or low end T5s...don't really know what the purpose is when you still spend a couple thousand.....they of course have had issues...recenently i believe the galileos themselves had whole white led boards defective...but anyways, I like them and they can definitely save thousands over the claimed life of Solaris.
 
lightdir

lightdir

New Member
I recently had a chance to see a 6' solaris light for myself and had a chance to run some tests. this fixture has 3 power supplies and each one was drawing about 2.5 amps @ 120 volts. We then compared the PAR output of the 3 sections against a 250w 20k ushio doubled ended MH in a lumen max 3 pendant with a electronic ballast. The MH crushed the LED every time on every setting the Solaris had. It is a BIG waste of money. 3 250w MH draw the saw current and cost much less than the 6' LED even after the cost of a chiller and lamps and the higher electric bill.
 
speeddemonlsr

speeddemonlsr

Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/2608220
As an electronics hobbyist as well as aquariums, I've been watching LED prices over the years... right now, they are TUMBLING while at the same time the technology is getting dramatically better.
We're not going to see any advances that are being driven by the aquarium industry... there is not much of a demand to make the actual LED manufacturers do anything differently.
Instead, look at the market for standard lighting (rooms and such). It's the price and performance of LEDs that will drive the aquarium industry, but those prices will come from the standard lighting industry. What you'll notice over the next few years is that the sc_rew in CFLs are merely a transitional technology... between the now obsolete and to-mature true leaps forward in technology - incandescent and LED . Just a few years ago you could not get LEDs 1/5 as powerful as you can now, and even those were many times the cost. White LEDS were not even around.
Moore's law will apply to some extent to LEDs. In two years, LEDs will be twice as bright and half the price... then in 4... 6...
So IMO, LED will definitely be the next big thing, wiht the technology moving forward as green alternatives to incandescent and CFL. It will kill T5s before the technology even matures due to it's return on investment in energy savings. Halide will be the competing technology, because of the shimmer effect and punch through intensity. I estimate 3-5 years.
I absolutely agree, I think led will be phased out very soon. Look to Plasma Light Bulbs there sick and there is a demand not in the aquarium industry but in everyday live such as street lights.
 
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tizzo

Guest
Well, I just saw a tank last night at our local reef club meeting, and the guy has the LED set up. Has had it for about a year.
I for one was incredibly surprised! Coral color was all very vivid and the corals were not wanting for light at all!! Pics to follow...
Solaris is what he had...
 
T

tizzo

Guest
These pics were NOT taken by me but rather the guy who takes the money at our meetings..
I don't remember his position.
But his name's Pedro.
Same tank though, all LED's...







 
gmann1139

gmann1139

Active Member
Originally Posted by speeddemonlsr http:///forum/post/2684652
I absolutely agree, I think led will be phased out very soon. Look to Plasma Light Bulbs there sick and there is a demand not in the aquarium industry but in everyday live such as street lights.
Your logic is right, but your conclusion is wrong.
SCSI is dead on (as usual). CF's are a better technology than the incandescents we've been using since Edison, but they're really just biding their time until LEDs become a more mature technology, and start taking over the consumer market. When that happens, the technology will become cheaper for the hobby as well.
LEDs last forever, emit almost no heat, and can be 'tuned' like fluorscents. I think that those who've already adopted the technology are paying more to be ahead of the curve, but I think that within the next decade you will start to see large-scale switchover, but within the hobby as well as the home.
On another level, I saw an LED fixture on a tank this week for the first time. Had the 'shimmer' of MH, but it was only a 'demo' setup on a FO tank to show what the light looked like, not to prove its functionality.
Ok, finally, can anyone answer my LED question?
 
h3b

h3b

Member
Originally Posted by 1journeyman
http:///forum/post/2613787
I haven't checked the specs recently, but last time I looked the best LED's were comparable to 250wt 20,000k HQI's.
That's awfully blue. When they get to 10,000k then we're talking.
Correct if I am wrong ( I don't think I am but I may be). The reason they are so blue is that corals absorb blue light better than every other coor, so WANTING it less blue is the same as wanting less lighting for our corals. In addiction the reason they look so dark compared to MH's is that the human eye picks up on green red and yellow light much more than blue, exact oppostie from corals. So saying its dark is not a good reason not to get them.
 
wangotango

wangotango

Active Member
Originally Posted by H3B
http:///forum/post/2708654
Correct if I am wrong ( I don't think I am but I may be). The reason they are so blue is that corals absorb blue light better than every other coor, so WANTING it less blue is the same as wanting less lighting for our corals. In addiction the reason they look so dark compared to MH's is that the human eye picks up on green red and yellow light much more than blue, exact oppostie from corals. So saying its dark is not a good reason not to get them.
I think journey's talking about PAR. Most 20,000k halides have crappy PAR, so if you have a deep tank you won't get enough light to the bottom of the tank.
-Justin
 
jmick

jmick

Active Member
Also, the 20k it was compared to had the lowest par of all bulbs on the market and the ballast/reflector was low end.
 
xtreeme

xtreeme

Member
Par is almost the same as visible light. Better link
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agricultur...ructures/light
The part of the spectrum that plants use is called photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) and relates to light in the 400 to 700 nanometer wavelength which is almost the same as visible light but not quite. It is measured in units of mol/m2/s and describes the photon flux density, that is, the number of packets of energy which reach a surface.
20k is making more light we cant see. Its in the uv, so if par is close to visible light 20k is less PAR. I would use 10k. I agree.
 
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