alton
Thu, 16th Jun 2016, 09:04 AM
Taunted as the future, LED’s still have their issue. With Metal Halide you had the issue of excessive heat and lamp replacement, but they are king. With T5 as long as you stayed with a shallower tank and did not mind changing lamps every twelve months you were also fine. Then drops in this little diode, companies producing them say they are going to be the miracle for all our lighting needs. No heat, another lie. Oh wait we have to be careful because since it is so powerful it will burn your corals and PAR meters do not work well with them.
The preceding paragraph was about LED’s a couple years ago, but can still be true with some Led’s today that still use lenses and also use cheaply made diodes. The following is a list of what I like about different fixtures and don’t like. Oh yea I am biased!
Buildmyled – My favorite 20K seems to be the best as far as coloring up the corals, uses less watts than other fixtures to produce the same results. Buildmyled puts out light similar to that of a T5 with very little shadowing. I never had an issue of burning a coral, so no rules for acclimating. The bad is the company no longer makes aquarium lights, just horticulture. BOO
Chinese Boxes – Not all the same some work, some don’t most are made with cheap diodes and require more wattage to get the same results. Most only cover the area below the fixture. The color is mostly purple and blue because most are afraid of frying there corals. Care has to be taken to make sure you acclimate your corals to the amount of light, because most just put out so much unusable light. But they are cheap so many use them. If you are going to use these at least use the more familiar brands that come with a warranty and you can set your setting to what others have used because the PAR meter is sometimes worthless on guessing how much light you need
Kessil – They grow coral, look nice, the have that clean look on your take setup. The bad is although they grow coral most of the growth of SPS is on top because of the bad shadowing.
Radions – Look good, last, but are very expensive and I still have an issue with a one year warranty.
Aqua Illumination – Can grow coral, one year warranty that stinks, especially since I have seen so many of their fixtures diodes quit working around year two, but wait we have upgrades for $200? Once again have to be careful not to burn your corals. Also to keep from shadowing you have to add twice as many fixtures as recommended by the manufacture.
Ecoxotic – Stunner Strips, great for lighting a tank, not enough power to grow coral but last for years. Work great for sunrise and sun down. I think mine are 5 years old and still working. I bought another more powerful fixture from them and it quit working within a year but they did replace it, but that fixture only lasted 6 months. It wasn’t worth asking for another.
Giesemann – Great Company, expensive, I am sure will work since they take their time before releasing something onto the market. My boss has one of their HID moon light fixtures and it is 16 years old. It still works flawlessly with only one ballast replacement.
So what do you think? Am I wrong? Or should we all go back to compact fluorescent?
FYI I wrote this article hoping that more will post! I figured lighting would be a great subject to discuss.
The preceding paragraph was about LED’s a couple years ago, but can still be true with some Led’s today that still use lenses and also use cheaply made diodes. The following is a list of what I like about different fixtures and don’t like. Oh yea I am biased!
Buildmyled – My favorite 20K seems to be the best as far as coloring up the corals, uses less watts than other fixtures to produce the same results. Buildmyled puts out light similar to that of a T5 with very little shadowing. I never had an issue of burning a coral, so no rules for acclimating. The bad is the company no longer makes aquarium lights, just horticulture. BOO
Chinese Boxes – Not all the same some work, some don’t most are made with cheap diodes and require more wattage to get the same results. Most only cover the area below the fixture. The color is mostly purple and blue because most are afraid of frying there corals. Care has to be taken to make sure you acclimate your corals to the amount of light, because most just put out so much unusable light. But they are cheap so many use them. If you are going to use these at least use the more familiar brands that come with a warranty and you can set your setting to what others have used because the PAR meter is sometimes worthless on guessing how much light you need
Kessil – They grow coral, look nice, the have that clean look on your take setup. The bad is although they grow coral most of the growth of SPS is on top because of the bad shadowing.
Radions – Look good, last, but are very expensive and I still have an issue with a one year warranty.
Aqua Illumination – Can grow coral, one year warranty that stinks, especially since I have seen so many of their fixtures diodes quit working around year two, but wait we have upgrades for $200? Once again have to be careful not to burn your corals. Also to keep from shadowing you have to add twice as many fixtures as recommended by the manufacture.
Ecoxotic – Stunner Strips, great for lighting a tank, not enough power to grow coral but last for years. Work great for sunrise and sun down. I think mine are 5 years old and still working. I bought another more powerful fixture from them and it quit working within a year but they did replace it, but that fixture only lasted 6 months. It wasn’t worth asking for another.
Giesemann – Great Company, expensive, I am sure will work since they take their time before releasing something onto the market. My boss has one of their HID moon light fixtures and it is 16 years old. It still works flawlessly with only one ballast replacement.
So what do you think? Am I wrong? Or should we all go back to compact fluorescent?
FYI I wrote this article hoping that more will post! I figured lighting would be a great subject to discuss.