[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by abcha0s

Sorry for the long post.

- Brad

as you should be.

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