So as many of you know and are aware of I am a huge fan of the misunderstood creature that is reef capable LED lighting, what you may not realise is it wasn't always this way. When I first walked into a LFS and starting to seriously look at my new potential tank and the things I would need, I was immediately drawn to the acropora sp. tank at the front of the shop and from that exact moment I knew I was going to be an sps keeper. As I was drawn to that lovely tank that had recently been filled from a delivery, the discussions began about them. What was needed, why they're fussy and that I was the sort of reefer that had every intention of making this a life long hobby.
Through the many discussions metal halide lighting was the number one thing that I wanted to be on my list as they were the best you can have to keep the pretty coloured stick gardens, however the more I research the harder that choice became to justify to myself... in the end my research of LED's slowly grew and I knew that this was going to be the lighting of choice that I was going to grow my reef with, locking away that desire to give metal halides a go.
Flash forward nearly three years and this dilemma had risen again. I've love my LED's and would recommend them to anyone along with giving the proper explanation of how they should be used and run over a reef tank, they're a different beast to T5's or MH's so they require a little more attention in the beginning! My corals are showing fantastic colour and growth is good but I've always felt a little something has been missing from getting the perfect happiness from my beloved acropora sp. corals. I spent countless hours looking at LED fixtures, T5/LED hybrid fixtures and looking at how I can upgrade and get the most from my LED's. I changed the lighting times and program on my unit and got a little more from it but it still wasn't enough!
I then made the decision that I was going to implement a second type of lighting and I got a couple of T5 tubes running over the tank for a few hours a day, I'm not sure if this weak effort ever made any impact but it got me thinking more about hybrid units so I researched and researched and decided I was going to get a Nano Box Reef hybrid with my tax return to bring out a little more life in my corals.
Fast forward another two months and as I was browsing the classifieds here, I spotted something, something that really caught my eye in terms of potential lighting that I would jump upon! A hybrid 250w metal halide, 4x 24w T5 lighting unit, A 2ft Cebu Sun unit. Immediately (for fear of missing out) I bombarded the seller with questions and my feelings on it all, he out of great kindness put up with my interrogating and persistent questions. Answering everything, sending me pictures of the unit and talking me through it. Well I was settled by the end of this but didn't quite have the amount of cash that I would happily allow myself to spend on a new light so cautiously asking, I asked if I were to put a deposit would he hold the unit for me and he was more than happy to, success! I had myself some new lights!
Come delivery day of the lights I nearly wet myself with excitement and because of this, what should have been a two person job to mount the lights, I did on my own because I couldn't wait for help to get it mounted and fired up!! And once I did and turned everything on I was blown away... by the noise of the bloody fans! My LED's were whisper quiet and this thing sounded like it wanted to take off haha ah well I thought and moved on to the tank and.. I was blown away! The tank looked brighter, clearer and nicer than I had ever seen it during high light (my LED's would have been close to a 7000-8000K rating which is quite white-yellow).
So now that I have my silly story out of the way, I thought I'd take a more serious note and start a thread to do with the change of lighting and what I do and don't like and what I've found so far and along the way in future
The number one thing I like so far about the change in the lights is the colour temperature between my led's and my cebu sun during high light (max intensity). The led's were quite white-yellow maybe even a 6500K rating which makes certain things look rather ugly and not very enjoyable, especially give I am home around the middle of the day lots. I couldn't change this either as the lights were cranked up as high as possible and running for 13hrs so turning down the whites would have meant a slight loss on the corals. The new lighting currently has a 14K Hamilton halide in it with 3 blue and one coral plus t5 tubes in it, giving the tank a very 15K look during the period of maximum intensity which for me is perfect! I much prefer the look of having a slightly blue hue to the tank lighting as things look a little nicer that way. I'm going to be taking that a set further and going a little bluer again with a 20k Radium metal halide bulb, the best in the hobby and chaning the t5 tubes to 2 actinic and 2 coral type tubes. Hopefully this will give me the nicest and more eye pleasing colour rendition and excellent growth and colours in my corals!
Obviously as the new lights have only been running 5 days, I can't really talk about much in the way of changes. Given the metal halide is only on for 2.5hrs a day as of tomorrow, working my way up to a max of 6-8hrs. I can however talk about some small immediate changes I've noticed since installed the new lights. The first is the polyp extension on a large amount of my sps corals. Generally each day within about 10-15 minutes of the MH coming on, the extension goes crazy! To the point of it being similar to that that I get at night! Which is a very pleasant surprise for me.
The biggest surprise that I have noticed and definitely wasn't expecting is the reaction from my entire zoanthid collection! They are loving it, everything looks much fuller and expanded and they are all in generally looking a lot happier!
Now the tank is still only in early days so any of this could change but I'm keeping a close eye on the differences and have taken some shots of every coral so that I can note the changes that the tank goes through over the coming months and how the corals react
Now for those of you who suffered through my long post and the lovely ramblings of this reef junkie haha here's some comparison shots to start with.
This is my most recent FTS of the tank taken while it is under LED's
And here it is under MH and T5's:
As you can see there is a very large difference in the shadowing and the way that the tank looks. The tank is much whiter in the led picture as you can see. As the time goes by I will keep this thread updated with FTS's and coral shots so that the nature of the changes can be tracked fairly closely
Here's a shot of the tank so you can see the unit and the way it's mounted
Through the many discussions metal halide lighting was the number one thing that I wanted to be on my list as they were the best you can have to keep the pretty coloured stick gardens, however the more I research the harder that choice became to justify to myself... in the end my research of LED's slowly grew and I knew that this was going to be the lighting of choice that I was going to grow my reef with, locking away that desire to give metal halides a go.
Flash forward nearly three years and this dilemma had risen again. I've love my LED's and would recommend them to anyone along with giving the proper explanation of how they should be used and run over a reef tank, they're a different beast to T5's or MH's so they require a little more attention in the beginning! My corals are showing fantastic colour and growth is good but I've always felt a little something has been missing from getting the perfect happiness from my beloved acropora sp. corals. I spent countless hours looking at LED fixtures, T5/LED hybrid fixtures and looking at how I can upgrade and get the most from my LED's. I changed the lighting times and program on my unit and got a little more from it but it still wasn't enough!
I then made the decision that I was going to implement a second type of lighting and I got a couple of T5 tubes running over the tank for a few hours a day, I'm not sure if this weak effort ever made any impact but it got me thinking more about hybrid units so I researched and researched and decided I was going to get a Nano Box Reef hybrid with my tax return to bring out a little more life in my corals.
Fast forward another two months and as I was browsing the classifieds here, I spotted something, something that really caught my eye in terms of potential lighting that I would jump upon! A hybrid 250w metal halide, 4x 24w T5 lighting unit, A 2ft Cebu Sun unit. Immediately (for fear of missing out) I bombarded the seller with questions and my feelings on it all, he out of great kindness put up with my interrogating and persistent questions. Answering everything, sending me pictures of the unit and talking me through it. Well I was settled by the end of this but didn't quite have the amount of cash that I would happily allow myself to spend on a new light so cautiously asking, I asked if I were to put a deposit would he hold the unit for me and he was more than happy to, success! I had myself some new lights!
Come delivery day of the lights I nearly wet myself with excitement and because of this, what should have been a two person job to mount the lights, I did on my own because I couldn't wait for help to get it mounted and fired up!! And once I did and turned everything on I was blown away... by the noise of the bloody fans! My LED's were whisper quiet and this thing sounded like it wanted to take off haha ah well I thought and moved on to the tank and.. I was blown away! The tank looked brighter, clearer and nicer than I had ever seen it during high light (my LED's would have been close to a 7000-8000K rating which is quite white-yellow).
So now that I have my silly story out of the way, I thought I'd take a more serious note and start a thread to do with the change of lighting and what I do and don't like and what I've found so far and along the way in future
The number one thing I like so far about the change in the lights is the colour temperature between my led's and my cebu sun during high light (max intensity). The led's were quite white-yellow maybe even a 6500K rating which makes certain things look rather ugly and not very enjoyable, especially give I am home around the middle of the day lots. I couldn't change this either as the lights were cranked up as high as possible and running for 13hrs so turning down the whites would have meant a slight loss on the corals. The new lighting currently has a 14K Hamilton halide in it with 3 blue and one coral plus t5 tubes in it, giving the tank a very 15K look during the period of maximum intensity which for me is perfect! I much prefer the look of having a slightly blue hue to the tank lighting as things look a little nicer that way. I'm going to be taking that a set further and going a little bluer again with a 20k Radium metal halide bulb, the best in the hobby and chaning the t5 tubes to 2 actinic and 2 coral type tubes. Hopefully this will give me the nicest and more eye pleasing colour rendition and excellent growth and colours in my corals!
Obviously as the new lights have only been running 5 days, I can't really talk about much in the way of changes. Given the metal halide is only on for 2.5hrs a day as of tomorrow, working my way up to a max of 6-8hrs. I can however talk about some small immediate changes I've noticed since installed the new lights. The first is the polyp extension on a large amount of my sps corals. Generally each day within about 10-15 minutes of the MH coming on, the extension goes crazy! To the point of it being similar to that that I get at night! Which is a very pleasant surprise for me.
The biggest surprise that I have noticed and definitely wasn't expecting is the reaction from my entire zoanthid collection! They are loving it, everything looks much fuller and expanded and they are all in generally looking a lot happier!
Now the tank is still only in early days so any of this could change but I'm keeping a close eye on the differences and have taken some shots of every coral so that I can note the changes that the tank goes through over the coming months and how the corals react
Now for those of you who suffered through my long post and the lovely ramblings of this reef junkie haha here's some comparison shots to start with.
This is my most recent FTS of the tank taken while it is under LED's
And here it is under MH and T5's:
As you can see there is a very large difference in the shadowing and the way that the tank looks. The tank is much whiter in the led picture as you can see. As the time goes by I will keep this thread updated with FTS's and coral shots so that the nature of the changes can be tracked fairly closely
Here's a shot of the tank so you can see the unit and the way it's mounted