LEDs - Good, Bad or just another addiction?

[pecan2phat]

Russ,
It was an old transformer that powered a Panasonic cordless unit way back when.....
Output voltage is 12V at 500ma.

 

[mfarris2]

Ok, I have had my Pacific Suns for a few months now.
I have found them to be worth the money spent. I have not noticed any increase,...nor any decrease in coral growth. My sps and lps are all very happy. Growth continues to be good in both.
My chiller has had a sharp decrease in run time from when I was running MH's. But it still does come on a few times per day. I am guessing that is due to the six water pumps transferring heat to the water.
I have the lights turned down to 70% with a Par table for clouds about three times per day.
I will try and get some pictures posted in the next few days.

 

[regal]

I had my leds setup the end of June to replace 2 of the 3 400W Radium. I will continue to photo document the progress with my webcam. If you save my pics and view it with any photo viewing program, the pics will kind of super impose on one another. You can see the grow on the green slimmer, green cap and the red planet (close to the front) in a week. I hope my wife/mother-in-law won't knock the webcam off position.

 

[Tim]

Regal what units are you running? Can I stop by one day to see them in person???

 

[regal]

Regal what units are you running? Can I stop by one day to see them in person???

I got the maxspect G2 160W-Cree on the left and 2XG2 110W in the middle and they replace 2 of the 400W radium. Initially, I was thinking of uisng all 3 leds modules to replacing one 400W. The right side I am still running the 400W Helios. You are welcome to stop by to check them out. The next thing I'll do is to build my own unit and rearrange the modules to replace the third MH.

 

[pecan2phat]

Anyone with the Pacific Sun modules that was using the PAR Table that I had made for a customized sunrise, sunset and cloud cover, well didn't realize that the cloud cover events were not working due to the conflicting commands.
Here is the PAR Table again containing a customized 2 hour sunrise, sunset, 8 hours of full intensity with two 40% cloud cover events lasting 10 minutes each:

This is what you need to set the Sunrise/Sunset times for 11am to 11pm to coincide with the PAR programming:

 

[robbous]

Thanks for posting the table pecan2phat, once i get my lights up to 100% ill be using your table as a reference.

 

[pecan2phat]

Some stuff have been moved around due to growth & touching or shading. I lost 2 colonies due to encroachment but also added a few more ORA frags.
Growth has been nice and quite a few corals were already pruned. Best I can do with a point-n-shoot but here are some updated photos, growth and color with 1 watt LEDs (yeah baby ):

 

[NYreefNoob]

< knows where to go get frags. lookin good warren

 

[pecan2phat]

1.5 months since last post and the tanks are doing well with the LEDs (Pacific Sun/Solaris).
Not much new growth but I'll put up a pic or two that I took today:

45g Tech tank that I plumbed in as a frag tank to the 120g system. 24" Solaris I5 shown in FTS:

 

[D1J8Z]

your 120 is amazing.

 

[cali_reef]

How did the tank do temp wise with the LED? less chiller action this summer?

 

[NYreefNoob]

well i got a AI gen 1 the other day. really like it other then you cant program it to come on any later then noon and go off no sooner then noon and no later then midnight, do like how you can program sunrise and sunset for it to ramp up and down, now if i could break down and buy a profilux controller i could really unleash this light with clouds and lightning

 

[pecan2phat]

How did the tank do temp wise with the LED? less chiller action this summer?

It's been a somewhat brutal summer here heat wise. I've went from a 1/4 hp to a 1/3 hp chiller mid summer and then ditched both and went with a portable room AC since the chiller made the ambient temp unbearable and was kind of defeating the purpose. It also kept my other system warm. In summary, LED lighting is a lot less of a heat factor for the water column but it is in no way void of heat. I think it causes less heat then any MH system that direct the heat towards the surface of the water but still creates heat in an enclosed fish room via ambient room temperature. Case in point was that when the chiller was still in service, IMO, it did not fire as often as when I had the Luminarcs. Even with the chiller causing the fish room to be a constant 80+ degrees, the 180g+102g system never really went above 82-83 degrees and it only utilizes fans for evaporative cooling.
If you think about it, lights like the Solaris constantly have the fans on even during night/moonlight phase and the heatsink temperature is reading 79-82 degrees and this is constantly emmiting into the room so are LED lighting system heat free, I would say no.

Did you make the move to LA yet? What are you replacing the Tacoma with?

 

[pecan2phat]

well i got a AI gen 1 the other day. really like it other then you cant program it to come on any later then noon and go off no sooner then noon and no later then midnight, do like how you can program sunrise and sunset for it to ramp up and down, now if i could break down and buy a profilux controller i could really unleash this light with clouds and lightning

Rick,
How come you cannot manipulate the onboard clock to change the sunrise/sunset time or offset the program time?
With the Solaris, I utilize the time offset feature by x-amount of minutes to achieve 11am sunrise & 11pm sunset.
The minutes change every 5-7 days so I adjust it when I catch a sunrise or sunset event every now and then. Currently I have my offset to negative 188 minutes. Does the AI have this feature?

 

[NYreefNoob]

i can warren, manuel even says to do so, just one of those little things you would have thought they wouldnt have had you do. the single unit is just about perfect for my ap24g. the one thing i will say for leds, is they do make the flourecents pop better then mh or t5's

 

[pecan2phat]

I hear ya Rick.
One thing that is cool and convenient about the Pacific Sun even though there were a lot of jabs at their blue tooth computer based software is that the lights are user controlled via software for on/off and they never loose or speed up time cause it's sync'd on your computer time. All my non ethernet Aqua Controllers, Reef keepers and all 3 Solaris units loose minutes.

 

[D1J8Z]

In your personal opinion,

What fixture at this time seems to be the best bang for the buck?

 

[pecan2phat]

Dave,
I replied to your PM regarding the above question.

 

[cali_reef]

Pacific Sun.. Because its got the fancy controller and so far it's been trouble free for him. $$$$ :lol2:

I been in LA since July, well sort of.. I work a few days here, few days on the road, then a few days at home. Got a brand new 2011 Tacoma last week, the insurance co total out my 2008 and I only had to write a check for another $1,500 to get the rear view camera, XM radio, blue tooth with voice command, new darker gray color and yeah, 17,000 less miles.. Even got new floor mats - an option you can't order a 2011 with out . You will have to mail me some of those nice corals once I set the tanks back up again.