Yep, I'm a dinosaur now. After following the led bandwagon for a year now, I'm going back to what works...energy chuggin, hot as the sun's corona, 250w metal halides. But all is not lost. I'm actually going with a halide/led/vho combo.

My sps never regained their colors during the switch to the vegas. Even after I added a third unit (ai hydra) everything still looked pale and washed out compared to the halide/vho days. I've noticed that when keeping corals, that LEDs seemed work better on tortusa, stylophoras, seriataporas, and most lps.

But acans, mushrooms, and all milleaporas hated the transition. So after a lot of back and forth, I ordered a pair of 12 inch reflectors, Phoenix 12ks, and a pair of uri super actinic vho bulbs.

The plan for now is to mount the halides onto my light rack, keep the hydra in between the reflectors, and supplement with the vho's. But the whites for the hydra would be scaled back th 15-20% at the most.

i love the electric blues of the LEDs, the controllability, and the lack of heat. But I think the manufacturers need a few more years to get LEDs to the reliability point of halides. Maybe the hydra 52 is at that point, but I'm unwilling to spend any more money on them until I see a few years of experience under their belts.


Sorry folks, I tried them, but I'm going back to basics. Anyone else had a similar experience? Any sps keepers out there prefer the colors of their corals under LEDs to mh?