LED Lighting, Has anyone seen or Used these as their Reef Lighting?

teen

Active Member
Originally Posted by Apos
http:///forum/post/2486141
Well, these are usable by coral. There isn't any question about that. My point in brightness there was that seemingly low wattage doesn't mean that these things are dim. Wattage isn't a measure of luminous efficacy, which is what really matters.
I'd also like to see an incandescent flashlight that can put out anywhere near that much light for so little power.
Which is critically important for simulating the sun... it's no good to blast corals with tons of light if it's not in the range they can use, and we do a lot of this, unfortunately, no matter what lighting system we use.
The PAR readings on these systems are all perfectly comparable to MHs. LEDs also don't put out tons of energy in the UV spectrum, which means you don't waste power generating that and then filtering it out again which is in part where a lot of their savings comes from.

where did i say because its using less watts its not as powerful?
 

apos

Member
Originally Posted by teen
http:///forum/post/2486249
where did i say because its using less watts its not as powerful?
I didn't say that you did. Where did I say you did?
Again: I was answering DJ's
objection that with such a low wattage, they can't possibly ever match up to MH's. You jumped in off of there.
 

blitz99

Member
here in michigan there is a shop called kees aquarium that has a solaris on a tank. they've had it for around a year or so.
that little system is very cool. yes, the price tag is UP THERE, but with a push of the button you get whatever coloration you want and it's fully programmable. they have clams, lps, zoos, and what have you in there.
the guy that runs the place also has a PAR meter and i believe they tested better then the MH they have on the sps tanks.
 

h3b

Member
Originally Posted by Hefner413
http:///forum/post/2487072
anybody have some pics to post?
I can but I am sorda dragging up and old post... I will in a little
BTW teen that flashlight is 24watts copared to 3w that sorda is contradictory.
I have Solaris Leds and most of my new corals open within minutes and I have received awsome coral growth. The reason for the cloudy day is to make it more natural, if you turn off mh's it dark if you lower the lightting or set up a cloudy day it varies throught he day.

P.S these leds bring out more usable par than MH's can acheive
 

teen

Active Member
i wasnt comparing them watt for watt. i was just showing a flashlight that puts out a lot of light for little power, like he asked me to do.
and your corals coming out within minutes has nothing to do with lighting. ive had corals open in the bag on the way home as well as open after being shipped overnight to me. so thats irrelavent. i couldnt be more happy with the growth of the corals under my MH.
a guy that comes in my store ordered a solaris unit from us weeks ago. it finally gets here, he opens it up and the screws are stripped in the sides, a bunch of LED's are broken, and the glass/plexiglass that shields the individual LEDs wasnt even in place. for the amount of money he dished out, that just isnt right. he comes into the store to see our solaris unit over our tank and sees the MH tank next to it. he says the MH looks a lot brighter, that solaris unit isnt on all the way is it? i show him it is and he just rolls his eyes considering the amount of money and time hes spent waiting for this light to get to him. now he'll be waiting at least another 3 weeks for the replacement to come in.
 

macdadydave

New Member
I don't have much to compare it to; noob. But I am using mine on the 180 tank I built and love it so far. No heat meant no chiller to try and fit into a cabinet that was already overcrowded. Here is a pic or 2. Tank is 3 months old I am am just starting to add corals.

 

coral keeper

Active Member
Originally Posted by Macdadydave
http:///forum/post/2539593
I don't have much to compare it to; noob. But I am using mine on the 180 tank I built and love it so far. No heat meant no chiller to try and fit into a cabinet that was already overcrowded. Here is a pic or 2. Tank is 3 months old I am am just starting to add corals.
AWESOME!! Can you post a few videos of the lighting and post a video when it does the cloud affect thing(s)?
 

macdadydave

New Member
The cloud cover mode is kinda cool, but not what you would picture/visualize. Basically what happens is for 15min., 5 times a day, the light intensity drops to 50%. I don't think a vid of it would impress you.
 

macdadydave

New Member
One thing that is cool on the Solaris is that the light intensity changes quickly in increments of 0 - 100%. The sunset, sunrise, moonrise, moonset modes are cool. The light changes from 0 - 100% evenly over 30 minutes or any length you decide.
 

1journeyman

Active Member
Have they increased the lghting on the Solaris yet? All of the comparisons I saw from a year or so ago rated it at about a 20,000k MH. That's still awful blue.
When it gets to the point it's producing equivilant to 10,000k MH's it will be a system worth looking at (once they quit shipping broken units and get their ballast issues dealt with)
 

shinobi9119

Active Member
i bet it would be cheaper if they didnt have the high tech computer systems running all the extra things like cloudy setting and such. A simple on off switch would be fine.
 

teen

Active Member
im telling you, the 6 foot solaris unit with lunar blues, lunar whites, day whites, and day blues all at 100%, 4x 175w mh looks a lot brighter. we have the tanks right next to eachother. there like 7 foot long tanks. the solaris unit isnt all that impressive IMO. but to each his own.
i will admit, they do stay cool though.
 

h3b

Member
Ok teen one thing you don't understand is this.:
MH's look brighter to us as they are using red/green type of lighting which our eyes pick up better.
LED's use blue/white lighting which corals Pick up so much better than MH's.
Pretty simple really.
And what I was trying to say is that my corals also open, just saying that it doesn't diter it
 

dragonboy

Active Member
With so much MH option why even bother with that expensive LED's that still hasn't been proven to be that great. Plus there are so much company that makes the MH nowadays the prices dropping on them.
 

h3b

Member
Originally Posted by dragonboy
http:///forum/post/2540499
With so much MH option why even bother with that expensive LED's that still hasn't been proven to be that great. Plus there are so much company that makes the MH nowadays the prices dropping on them.
Acually it has been proven... I'll try to find a link.
 

h3b

Member
I found an article but it has a bunch of advirtisements for competitors so I'll just take the chart of the PUR.
"When we compare the spectral qualities of the LED array and the metal halide lamp, we see that the Solaris produces more PUR"
 
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