Max C-250 - T5 to LED Conversion

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Danreef

Well-Known Member
nanoreefing4fun said:
Roy if you have not seen these short vids... click on the links in this post & see if it's of any interest to you (ir anyone else...)

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forum/...-interested-thread.61357/page-12#post-1314885
Click to expand...

Thanks Glen

I went through the videos and looks pretty easy to change to LED, mainly when you just cut wires without any worries.....love that !!!

The install, for someone that have never done it can take a couple of hours, may be. I can see myself expending at least 30 minutes taking the hood out only. But nevertheless it is pretty clear an easy how to do it.

As you have seen my tank is doing very well and , beside that every 7 months I spent $150-200 in T5 lamps I will really be afraid of doing the change now with a tank fully matured and tons of SPS growing on it and already adapted to the T5.

I love Steve's kit. But I am debating if it isn't too late for me. Any change in an Acropara tank is VERY RISKY. The most difficult part of growing these SPS, mainly Acros, is to keep the tank stability. When they are used to certain parameters and growing have started, you better try to keep them.

I will have to agree that those gift videos are simple, but they show what you need. Just by watching those videos I will be able to install the LEDs. It is really very easy.

This is my tank this weekend and I hope you and Steve understand why I am afraid. It isn't about $$$$ to buy the LED. It is about months of work to have this :



All the best and Nice job Steve !!!
Daniel
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
@Danreef , normally I'd probably mention that my corals have done great under LEDs, but in your case you have been through SO much to get back to where you are I can see why you wouldn't want to change anything ever, even if it is "better". Kind of, why risk it? :)
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
Daniel - your tanks is stellar - you have one of the prettiest SPS RSM tanks I know of, +1 on understanding why you would want to stick with T5s and not change what is working - your husbandry skills (ones I would like to acquire) are amazing !
 
StevesLEDs

StevesLEDs

RS Sponsor
Dan,
There is definitely some risk to it when you have a well stocked stable aquarium such as yours. What I have found is that acclimation does take about 2 months, and for the following 9 months, the acro colors sometimes change, browns become blues, greens can become purple, so on and so forth. That said, I'm not sure I've seen corals (namely acros) change to "uglier" colors under LEDs though, and corals will definitely grow corals faster though - in your case, may not be a good thing if you want status quo.

If you love your aquarium how it is exactly as it is, then you'll definitely want to keep doing exactly what you are doing. I'm a better aquarist than I am a salesperson!

Jeff
 
snappa53

snappa53

Member
StevesLEDs said:
Dan,
There is definitely some risk to it when you have a well stocked stable aquarium such as yours. What I have found is that acclimation does take about 2 months, and for the following 9 months, the acro colors sometimes change, browns become blues, greens can become purple, so on and so forth. That said, I'm not sure I've seen corals (namely acros) change to "uglier" colors under LEDs though, and corals will definitely grow corals faster though - in your case, may not be a good thing if you want status quo.

If you love your aquarium how it is exactly as it is, then you'll definitely want to keep doing exactly what you are doing. I'm a better aquarist than I am a salesperson!

Jeff
Click to expand...
Hi Jeff and Dan and all. I converted a 650 last year and it has taken a while (2-4 months) to see the corals grow and look good. The issue was my lack of understanding about LED intensity and the great flexibility in the 4 strips of lights. The positives outweigh the negatives in my very humble opinion!

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
snappa53 said:
Hi Jeff and Dan and all. I converted a 650 last year and it has taken a while (2-4 months) to see the corals grow and look good. The issue was my lack of understanding about LED intensity and the great flexibility in the 4 strips of lights. The positives outweigh the negatives in my very humble opinion!

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

This is definitely one of the things with LEDS. With the T5s on the RSMs, you pick out the color combination you want and you are done. With LEDs you have to figure out the intensity you want for the 4 strips of light. it isn't hard, but there really isn't a clean cut guideline, like set it 40% then slowly move to 65%-70%ish then stop--for this many hours per day, etc. People just kind of try different stuff until they see what they like and then share their experiences by word of mouth. I've had mine for a year and am pretty happy with my settings and even I wouldn't come on these boards and say "do what I do for I know what I'm talking about". Maybe I don't have it optimal. I dunno. I like it, though.

I don't consider this a real problem because you do figure it out, but it's a learning curve because there isn't a concrete guideline I'm aware of.

I truly love my LEDS. So much better than T5s. :)
 
StevesLEDs

StevesLEDs

RS Sponsor
Thanks for the feedback. We do have a basic acclimation guide (the very last step of all of our installation guides), and different techniques work for different corals. RSM250 is here - http://www.stevesleds.info/Red Sea Max 250 Drop-In LED Upgrade 8172015.pdf

Once you are in the 70% range, your corals should be pretty maxed out. That means you get to play with the color temp (how blue it is) to get it exactly how you want it. To make it more blue, just increase the two blue channels 1% at a time, and decrease the two white channels 1% to compensate. This will allow you to dial in exactly how you want it. The general rule of thumb though is to have the aquarium about as blue as you can tolerate. This keeps corals happy since it simulates the natural deep blue of the ocean.

There is no concrete guide because all coral requirements are slightly different, and people have different tastes on what exact shade of blue looks the prettiest.

Hope that helps?

If you need more details or specifics, I'm glad to share what has worked for me and our other customers.

Jeff
 
Tokalosh

Tokalosh

Well-Known Member
After doing a lot of research and reading I decided to go down the LED road.
I did not want to compromise my existing setup in case I wanted to revert back to T5, so I decided to go with a pair of Hydra HD 26's.

http://www.aquaillumination.com/lighting/hydra/

These bad boys fit perfectly into the existing T5 cavity without having to remove anything. There is enough room for air to flow over the top of them by the existing T5 cooling fans. If used at 50% then the existing fans can be turned off. The best part is I can design my own lighting spectrum and control it from my iPhone with the Hydra app.

A few pic's of my setup.












So far all my corals seem to be happy.

Tok
 
StevesLEDs

StevesLEDs

RS Sponsor
Just to throw this out there - Steve's LEDs systems require no drilling, cutting, hacking, etc. So it takes only minutes to revert back to the original lights. Although we know of no instances of this since the stock lighting is substantially under-powered.

Jeff
 
Tokalosh

Tokalosh

Well-Known Member
nigelwfisher said:
The Hydra 26 HD looks like a good solution..... are you still happy with them?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Well, the Hydra's have been running for a few months now and I'm really impressed. After the acclimation period of a month, I have now set up a schedule that works for my tank. I still can't run them at 100% as they are so bright that they upset my corals. The fact that you can control every spectrum from your phone or PC is really cool.



Cheers

Tok
 
N

nigelwfisher

New Member
Tokalosh said:
Well, the Hydra's have been running for a few months now and I'm really impressed. After the acclimation period of a month, I have now set up a schedule that works for my tank. I still can't run them at 100% as they are so bright that they upset my corals. The fact that you can control every spectrum from your phone or PC is really cool.



Cheers

Tok
Click to expand...
Convinced! I've just ordered two :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
N

nigelwfisher

New Member
Only 3 days in.... but I remain very impressed. Took me a bit of time to get the power cables into the hood neatly. Even with the acclimation setting on the lights are simply amazing. I have left the hood fans on during the day to keep them cool - but so far they seem much cooler than the tubes.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Tokalosh

Tokalosh

Well-Known Member
Well, it's been almost 3 months and all is looking good. I'm still not running them at 100% as I think I may do damage to my Duncans situated closer to the surface. I've also dialed the red and green to 0%.
I feel there is more than enough red and green in the Cool White.
 
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