it will be soooooooooo nice to see those lights in their proper glory. The corals are already loving the light-- bigger, puffier, and i have never seen such great colour.
wowowowowow
Monday morning: the splitter box is here! plugged it in and it is working perfectly on both sides-- plug ins and lighting unit connection.
aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. now that is pretty.
double wow.
boy, are the corals happy. and so am I! Thank you, ALBERT!!!

What size would one reccomend for a 75 gallon setup?

the 3ft or 4ft model?

Thanks
TJ

Jud y I need to come to your place and see the lights :biggrin:

sure thing. let me know when you want to swing by...

re what size for 75 gallon-- what is the tank's depth and footprint?

Tank is your standard 48 x 18 x 18 or 20 I think....

A 3' will be more than fine for your tank. :wink:

Hey TheDogFather

The first post in this thread was 7/7/2010. You've had your light for over 8 months now. Are you seeing any coral growth? - Do you have any progression pictures for the last 8 months?

There are lots of Vertex Illuminia owners on this thread now. Has anyone had good growth?

For what it's worth, I am now also a 260 owner. I'll put pictures in my thread sometime in the next week. No doubt it's a nice light, but I sure hope the corals like it!

- Brad

Anyone trying to use Vertex lighting on a Mac? I have been unable get the web based programming to work on Mac and sadly I had to pull out the old PC to run the software. It is supposed to be supported by Mac but it doesn't work. At least his is the case for me and a few others I have come across.

Is no news good or bad?

TheDogFather, I'm really hoping that you've been busy and haven't had the time to catch up on Canreef. There is a lot of positive feedback around how great the Vertex technology is. So much so that I personally made the investment in an 260 - SR1800. However, I can't find any credible sources that can show good coral growth. With the lights having been available for almost a year now, I am hopeful that we start getting some reports back about amazing growth. As one of the biggest proponents of the Vertex Illumina name, please share your experience with us.

This thread, and your posting on RC, has been some of the biggest sources of information for the Vertex Illumina technology. Let's try to get some feedback from those who have invested in this technology and let people know if the Vertex LED technology is suitable for reef tanks.

Your tank looked awesome 8 months ago! - Can you share a recent picture?

http://i390.photobucket.com/albums/o...D/P1010278.jpg

- Brad

Well I have no pictures to show but this light is awesome! I have had some good growth with my 5' 260. Friends have given me corals that were on the verge on death and now they are going strong. I have had my light since Jan and have had no problems with it.

For sure I agree this light is awesome. First class all the way, but that's not my concern. Your success is also encouraging, but I'm really hoping we can get some evidence of long term success?

There are many reports of tanks doing well over short periods of time and then taking a turn for the worse. There are very few people that claim long term success. As the OP has had this light for 8 months and claims excellent growth, I am still hopeful that he will share pictures to support this. There is no one better qualified to address this question than TheDogFather as he brought in one of the very first lights.

Another Canreef thread just took an interesting turn - Post 8: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...threadid=74046

- Brad

I dont know what your looking for the light has only been out alittle over a year? sooo really and truly the long term haul for these lights have yet to be proven, LED technology on the other hand, has been proven over and over again, and has been in the Saltwater industry for quite a while, sure it hasn't been as main stream as it is now, but there are many tanks that have been using LED as full lighting and for supplemental, and all tanks have had great color and growth from the corals.

Im searching for a thread now on a another forum. Shes been using Par38's over her tank for quite a while and she has had some excellent growth.

Ummmmmm I'm interested in reading these threads your saying that they had amazing improvements with the light, and then took a turn for the worse? I would like to see some proof? I find blaming the light the easy way out, there are to many factors that come into play when your talking about growth and color.

I hope I'm not coming off as rude here, but you bought the light, get it on your tank and find out for yourself? I mean you have already made that investment, and if your starting to worry about your investment now, just return it and get a MH setup, but say hello to a high electricity bill, and have fun changing your bulbs every 6-8 months, and for that reason, along with many others, going to a full LED setup made perfect sense to me!

Another thing you have to think about, Vertex Aquaristik, is a pretty big company, and I'm almost 100% certain, a company of that size has put numerous hours into this light, to make sure it can support coral growth. I also don't see them putting a product on the market where it could be detrimental to your tank. This is just my personal opinion though.

Cheers Todd

Also My build thread doesn't have to many photos of growth, but in the 4-5 months of having my light, the PE, and the growth i have seen has been amazing! I do nothing besides a 25% water change weekly.

Let’s establish what we all agree on first:

• I think the question as to whether LED lighting can create an environment in which corals thrive and exhibit good growth has been answered. It can.
• LED lights are bright. There is no lack of visible light.
• The Vertex Illumina lighting systems are awesome!

However, it’s really not that simple. A better question to ask might be “Is it more challenging to create an environment in which corals thrive and exhibit good growth when using LED vs. MH?”.

Consider T5 lighting. There are many examples of magnificent tanks where the primary lighting is T5. Just look at Lobsterboy’s tank. His main lighting has always been T5. However, most reef keepers who are serious about SPS have traditionally relied on MH even though T5 does have some advantages. It’s easy to assume this is simply a question of PAR, but there is always more than one variable.

Consider the SPS tank at J&L that has the Vertex LED lighting. I haven’t seen this tank and don’t know it’s history, but perhaps the details aren’t all that important. It’s been suggested that this tank hasn’t lived up to expectations under LED lighting, but that the reason might have nothing to do with the lighting. It could be water parameters, flow or perhaps even mishandling of the corals. However, saying that it might have nothing to do with the lighting does not rule out the possibility that it has everything to do with the lighting. J&L does have other tanks that are not having the same problem.

Coral and in particular what we call SPS coral are incredibly sensitive. There are many people who try unsuccessfully to keep SPS in their tanks. For others, it doesn’t seem that challenging, but perhaps we discount the hard work that we put into our tanks. Being successful doesn’t make it easy.

Also consider all of the stories where a coral won’t grow in one tank (where other corals are thriving) but when moved to another tank, the same coral takes off. Often it’s difficult to explain why the coral did poorly in one tank and thrived in another. It’s probably reasonable to speculate that the coral in question was outside of its optimum conditions in the first tank and within its optimum conditions in the second. Exactly where these lines are drawn on a per species basis is challenging to understand at the best of times, but we do understand that it is not the same for every species. All we can do is try to create an environment that is as close to optimum as possible and hope that we select corals that fit within the a safe variance.

Corals require a number of conditions to be in balance in order to thrive. The most commonly cited are Temp, Salinity, pH, Lighting, Flow, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium. There are countless others, some of which are known and being researched. Some of which we are likely unaware of at present but may be inadvertently providing through secondary sources.

Here’s my point. Coral’s are living things and can be stressed. Stress can be minor or major. Consider a scale where 0 is at complete peace and 10 is basically certain death. It’s probably reasonable that even in the ocean, corals are constantly living with a stress level of 1 or 2. Now let’s say that the nitrate spikes for a couple of days. Maybe these corals are now stressed to a 4 or 5. If there’s no plantonic food in the tank, stress elevates to a 7. If the temperature shifts, stress is now an 8. If the MH bulbs are replaced and the light intensity suddenly increases, the coral is stressed to the point of a 10 and dies. However, if the same coral had been fragged in the ocean and put into a shallow water holding area (more intense lighting but the same ocean water conditions), it would probably be fine. Of course you have to consider the degree to which the light intensity changed, but you get the idea.

Many factors contribute to coral stress. There is no question that lighting is one of these factors. Changing MH bulbs can stress or kill coral if not managed properly and is one of the reasons why I opted for LED lighting. However, MH lighting does have a long term and proven history of success on SPS tanks suggesting that it is not a significant factor contributing to coral stress. We simply don’t have this same data as it relates to LED lighting.

If LED lighting is a contributing factor to coral stress, it would still be possible to have an amazing SPS tank, it would just be significantly more difficult. If your starting point was a stressed coral, then you would need to keep your water parameters near perfect just too see any kind of real growth.

I can say from firsthand experience that SPS under MH lighting can tolerate a reasonably wide range of water parameters. The SPS in my 90G tank with MH lighting are thriving and I have posted pictures of this. This tank has not had perfect water parameters at all times, yet the SPS are just fine.

I don’t claim to be an expert on coral health. I am just learning like the rest of us. I’ve had some successes and failures; however, the whole reef hobby is watching with great anticipation to see how this new technology for lighting our tanks plays out.

There are many experienced reef keepers who have diligently researched the topic of LED lighting and are now testing these lights on their tanks. There are an equal number of experienced reef keepers who have done the same research and came to the conclusion that the technology was unproven and the concerns were unanswered. There are examples of success and failures, but it’s not always easy to say why. I personally am on the fence but perhaps the only way to know for sure is to see for oneself and thus I made the investment.

Short of marine biology at the PhD level, the only research that the average hobbyist can rely on is observational. TheDogFather has a unique opportunity to share his experience with the Vertex light because he has owned his longer than any other poster on Canreef or RC. We also have pictures of his tank from 8 months ago, so it should be easy to post some comparison shots. I am still hopeful that he will post an update.

Sorry for the long post.

- Brad

as you should be. :mrgreen:

LED lighting is not anything new. it has ben used fro growing plants for what, about 10 years now ( don't quote me on the 10 years.. its to damn early for me to look up when Nasa started conducting there experaments, and it was being used befor that even)

at any rate the only problem at this pont with LEDs is purley in the looks department for some people. I suspect the SPS at J&L look just fine, but rather the person looking at them doesn't like the look that they have the LED adjusted to. also they color of LEDs used in the fixture can make a huge difference.

for instances I wouldn't buy a fixture that uses cool white and royal blue, but I would buy one that uses nutral white and royal blue because I don't like the blue washout look of the CW combo and to me it makes some corals look not great.

Also.. everyone has there own "Look" they like. some people like the 20K look, some the 8K look, some 14K. I like the 12.5K look so to me nothing in a different light is going to look so good. hence the beauty of LEDs. a properly built system will give you all the requirments for healthy growth as well as the ability to custom tune your color. as for J&Ls system you can't factor a high volume store as a good tester of anything.

I havent seen these "one year then everything looks bad" but I have seen several 2 to 3 year tanks with LEDs that are stunning.

on the same tolken I have seen many MH tanks that look real bad, and I have seen MH tanks that look real good. same with VHO, PC, T5. lighting is such a small part of coral health, you have to concider water quality (probably the most important ) water temp, water flow, food, fish type, ect...

Steve

I seem to be haven trouBle uploading my graphs it keeps saying error saving customs mode is anyone else than this problem? I tried re installing and it worked once. It also says is can't find loud settings. Any help would be appriated! And is there a way to con net the illumilux to this unit?

He's baaack!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...1#post18620582

I'm back.... Sorry, I've been really busy with work and distracted by new car etc...

Although I just purchased a new 24" Illumina 260 for the basement frag tank I have come to the conclusion that looking after two tanks is just too time consuming for me at this point and I have decided to sell the tank and fixture.

Cheers!

-TDF

UPDATE: The light is sold.