Made the switch to LED's!

Flippers4pups · Oct 23, 2016

Finally made the jump and got them up today. 3 mars aqua 165w units.

Have them set as low as they go and believe me they have some punch!

So far so good. Loving the colors of the corals so far.

Coming from t5's.

Waterjockey · Oct 23, 2016

Looks like great coverage! Nice looking tank too!

mattstanks2016 · Oct 23, 2016

I'm going to try t5 and led

Flippers4pups · Oct 23, 2016

Thanks!

Flippers4pups · Oct 23, 2016

Waterjockey said:
Looks like great coverage! Nice looking tank too!

Thank you. Hand built the stand and canopy .

Robthorn · Oct 23, 2016

mattstanks2016 said:
I'm going to try t5 and led

Best combo for me so far. Growth, color and low heat

Flippers4pups · Oct 23, 2016

mattstanks2016 · Oct 23, 2016

Robthorn said:
Best combo for me so far. Growth, color and low heat

That's what I'm hoping!

Neon Jungle · Oct 23, 2016

They look great ...

Porsche · Oct 23, 2016

Looks great I've always used LEDs.

michael.cser20 · Oct 23, 2016

My looking to go to t5 from leds. I love the color of t5s

Daniel@R2R · Oct 24, 2016

Looking good! Do you have a build thread on here? I'd follow!

happyhourhero · Oct 24, 2016

Looks great! Be sure to start those off quite low. I would be 25w 50b to start and work my way up very slowly each week.

Flippers4pups · Oct 24, 2016

mdbannister said:
Looking good! Do you have a build thread on here? I'd follow!

No unfortunately I don't. But, I may start one here when I have the time. I have a large number of pictures of the build archived, so I could easily do it.

Flippers4pups · Oct 24, 2016

happyhourhero said:
Looks great! Be sure to start those off quite low. I would be 25w 50b to start and work my way up very slowly each week.

I have the whites turned down as far as they would go and the blues up at 25%. I also have them hanging at 10" from the water line. Mars aqua recently sent an email stating I should start out between 12"-16" off water line, so I may raise them up to 12" when I get off work.

bruleyii · Oct 24, 2016

raising them might help some of the shadowing and cover.

Flippers4pups · Oct 24, 2016

Glad I went with 3 units. Not much shadowing even with the cross brace.

atoll · Oct 25, 2016

4 years or maybe more now I imported cheap Chinese LED units for my tank and the experts (so called) on lighting did their best to rubbish them. "you will get no growth" they said "you won't get any colour from your corals" they said. "they are dangerous and could burn your house down" They said. The experts were ALL wrong. The light had just blue and white LEDs then the full spectrum units had not come out then but when I showed pic's of my . frags growing with colour and opened the units up to show the build inside strangely enough they never replied and went and hid back under their rock. However 2 qualified electricians on my same thread (on a UK forum BTW) both commented on the good safe build quality. Yes these same doubters will still tell people you only get what you pay for and that these lights are rubbish. I will leave you to guess as why this might be.

Phil Cusimano · Oct 25, 2016

Flippers4pups said:
Finally made the jump and got them up today. 3 mars aqua 165w units.

Have them set as low as they go and believe me they have some punch!

So far so good. Loving the colors of the corals so far.

Coming from t5's.

Really nice reef aquarium!

Flippers4pups · Oct 25, 2016

atoll said:
4 years or maybe more now I imported cheap Chinese LED units for my tank and the experts (so called) on lighting did their best to rubbish them. "you will get no growth" they said "you won't get any colour from your corals" they said. "they are dangerous and could burn your house down" They said. The experts were ALL wrong. The light had just blue and white LEDs then the full spectrum units had not come out then but when I showed pic's of my . frags growing with colour and opened the units up to show the build inside strangely enough they never replied and went and hid back under their rock. However 2 qualified electricians on my same thread (on a UK forum BTW) both commented on the good safe build quality. Yes these same doubters will still tell people you only get what you pay for and that these lights are rubbish. I will leave you to guess as why this might be.

I'm of the frame of mind that if you wish to buy a more expensive item and you have the resources to do so, then there is nothing wrong with that.

When it comes to a lot of things in this hobby, deciding on what to buy has to be done on others experiences, reviews and forums. There is little independent laboratory research done to compare an item against a similar item.

I am willing to pay more for quality, if there is no other choice.

In this case, I feel I got a great product at a fair price. I'm happy.