LED

[Madreefer]

Well to some on here LEDs do not save money, are not worth the money and basically in short form just junk.
I've had them for 2 years last Sept. It was a huge learning curve and well, it took me 2 years to finally get the colors I wanted out of my corals. With MHs and T5 combo I had I fought with overheating my tank in the summer months. I no longer plug my heaters in until Dec and turn them off in March. But I also have a basement sump with display a floor above. Some corals do great and some not so well. They grow pretty much anything, it's usually colors that people talk about with that. I'm quite happy with my choice to switch over and I chose low end cheap AIs. That's my experience with them and some on here have had the opposite of mine. Only thing I can suggest to you is to do your research and make your choices off of those that have actually tried LEDs long term.

[mike31154]

I built a fixture using 10 watt multi-chip LEDs and have been running them over a year & a half. It will be 2 years in April. No LED failures but it looks like the cheap little fans on the heatsinks I'm using are a weak point. Since I'm underdriving the LEDs & have spare heatsinks, it's not really an issue, they don't run that hot and the heatsinks seem to do the job even with a stalled fan.

I have a mixed tank with only a few SPS, monti caps mostly & they are growing like gangbusters. LPS & soft coral are all doing fine & my BTAs are loving the LEDs as well, puffing up huge & not sure lights are an indication, but one of them split into 4 clones a few weeks ago.

Since building my unit, choices in multi-chip LEDs have improved with chips offered that combine different colours on the same die. They are also available in larger sizes, well over 100 watts on a single chip. My next project will be a fixture with fewer but larger multi-chips with optics hung higher off the surface. Less wiring, but heatsinking & fan performance will need to be bulletproof.

If your current set up is working fine, there's really no compelling reason to switch to LEDs in a big hurry. Take your time, look around at all the options, there's a lot of stuff out there & improving constantly. Prices probably stabilized somewhat these days, so manufacturers are offering more features to promote their product. Some of the features add value, some don't.