Show Us Your LED Tanks

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

Steve, Im gonna need to see your math on this one.

not math.. called an extra key stroke. I'll fix it haha

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

I have to disagree with a lot of the posts, there is a tremendous savings potential we'll use brads tank as a example.

3x 400 watt MH set up comparing apples to apples your looking at 300-400 each for the first set up with bulbs so 900-1200 bucks.

initial set up for LED 4000 for a store bought, say 1200 for a DIY (which Brad could do if I still lived close )

cost of a chiller for brads tank is say 400. (most likely more) and power for MH is going to be about 550 watts each for a total of 1675 watts.

power for LEDs is going to be about 300 watts for that tank.

so power cost wise using brads example of 25 bucks a month to run the MH, 5 bucks a month to run the LEDs but we'll say 8 bucks.

now at 50,000 hours the LEDs will have to be changed after 11 years running 12 hours a day

so thats 10 bulb changes for the MH at 300 bucks a change for diecent bulbs.

Oh we forgot the T5's/VHO, ect for suplemental lighting with the MH so another 70 bucks a year.

so lets add it all up over an 11 year period.

MH
3300 in electricity. (not including the suplamantal lighting)
3700 in bulb changes
900 for initial setup very cheep side or 1200 normal
400 for the chiller (cheep side) and say 2000.00 in power to run it for 11 years. most likely it will not last that long but we'll assume you don't need to buy another one.

this comes to a total of 10300 over 11 years.. kinda depressing when you think about it now

LED
bought option
4000 for fixture
1056 to run it
0 for bulb changes
0 for chiller as I know the only reason I needed one was because of my MH light in victoria

so 5056 bucks for 11 years.
if he did a DIY set up and even spent 2000 on it then he would be just over 3K for 11 years.


now both of these are assuming there are no premature bulb failures which I had in about 1/5th of the MH I bought and I would suspect that there would be a smaller number of failures with LEDs.

lets talk about the pros and cons of each asside from setup and operating costs.

Color.

MH you are stuck with 1 color untill you change out bulbs. the LED set up you have an infinate range of color blending between royal blue and cool white (6500K to about 30K) with the LED if you don't like the color one day you can switch it at whim by changing the dimming levels of one color or the other.

New corals

MH you have to place New frags low in the tank and or come up with a screening method to reduce the amount of light till they are used to it.

LED you can placve your corals in there spot and drop your intensity and slowly bring it back up over any time period you want with out screening or moving the light

Heat. MH are a radiant heat source, LEDs are not. need I say more on this.. could mean the difference of using a chiller or not.

controlability.

MH do not dim.

Leds can be turned on at 1% of there power and raised in 1% incraments over any time perior you select. you can also do this with the blue then with the white and reverse at the end.
If you want you can also rig your white LEDs to simulate lightning and other visual effects like clouds and such depending how there set up.

finaly light spillage. MH ratiate 360 degrees so you need good reflectors to gain the advantage of all the light and even then your not getting it all.

Leds are also a point source light but they are directional and with optice you can direct your light only where needed not using reflectors with no light spillage which requires larger canopys and housings.

Steve

OP was based on 100 gallons, and how do you get enough LEDs, drivers and heat sink to replace 1200W of halide plus supplemental for $1200? That's more than 200 LEDs which will cost over $2000 with basic drivers and a heatsink. Also 300W of LED will not replace 1200W of halide plus supplemental, they aren't that efficient. And supplemental is an option, you could run 14-20K halides and be satisfied, if you added supplemental to 10K halides you would need even more LEDs to compensate.

Of course the bigger you go the more money you'll save and the shorter the payback but put your application on the 100gallon size range as requested.

As for a chiller, it's a moo point, I've always ran halides and never used one.

Lastly if you compare pricing over the lifespan of the LEDs then you must include the cost of replacing all LEDs after 11 years.

There is of course big potentials for saving with LEDs but not so much with the average size tank, you will still save money but it can take a few years before you break even which is simply something to think about and be aware of. If someone is setting up a 90 gallon tank and wants to use LEDs with the intent to save money then they better make sure they will be keeping the tank long enough to make it worth while. As for you guys with 300+ gallon tanks, yes I get it.

[Dez]

I just use cheap China MH bulbs - 3 years worth for just over $100 (9 x 250 watt halides)

[StirCrazy]

oh so many and where do I start.. sphelps, I am not even sure if it is worth it with you as you are a die hard anti-LED person anyways but

as for the original poster and a 100 gal, doesn't matter as for my example I said we would use brads tank.

Originally Posted by sphelps

OP was based on 100 gallons, and how do you get enough LEDs, drivers and heat sink to replace 1200W of halide plus supplemental for $1200? That's more than 200 LEDs which will cost over $2000 with basic drivers and a heatsink. Also 300W of LED will not replace 1200W of halide plus supplemental, they aren't that efficient. And supplemental is an option, you could run 14-20K halides and be satisfied, if you added supplemental to 10K halides you would need even more LEDs to compensate..

sorry I did make a little mistake. its actualy 432 watts of LED so I have to add 13% to the power usage. I changed the current I am going to drive them at. you know what.. lets add another 48 LEDs and setup so i'll take it up to 1600 bucks for you and it will be about 576 watts so now were running at 1/3 the power so the actual 8 bucks a month I used in the example so power costs are actual to my example now as I over estimated the Led usage to start as for efficiency.. the best MH is about 88 lumin/watt LEDs are now getting close to 150 lumin/watt now as for 300- 500 watts of LED replacing 1200 watt of MH.. actualy easy. you don't think you getting any where near the full 1200 watts of light into that tank do you? I would hazord to guess at most your getting a 75% efficiency of light transfer even with a very good reflector. and that is a very generous guess. with LEDs you are getting 100% of the light into the tank. when they start making MH bulbs that only shine on one side then well be revisiting this one

Originally Posted by sphelps

Of course the bigger you go the more money you'll save and the shorter the payback but put your application on the 100gallon size range as requested .

yes and no.. the money value gets bigger but the % should remain simular

Originally Posted by sphelps

As for a chiller, it's a moo point, I've always ran halides and never used one.

good for you.. so have I and I found the problems were from not having a chiller. where you live in your house you may not need one.. do you have central air, do you have low humidity? if you have high humidity remember the heat transfer due to evaporation is going to suck.

Originally Posted by sphelps

Lastly if you compare pricing over the lifespan of the LEDs then you must include the cost of replacing all LEDs after 11 years.

nope, cuz at the 50,000 hours the LEDs are rated to only lose 15-20% of there output with no color change.. LEDs lose that during the break in so realy you could keep on using the LEDs for a long time after this

Originally Posted by sphelps

There is of course big potentials for saving with LEDs but not so much with the average size tank, you will still save money but it can take a few years before you break even which is simply something to think about and be aware of. If someone is setting up a 90 gallon tank and wants to use LEDs with the intent to save money then they better make sure they will be keeping the tank long enough to make it worth while. As for you guys with 300+ gallon tanks, yes I get it.

I do a comparason for the 30 gal I am building for you after I take the kids to school

Steve

[Aquaholic]

I am just getting my system going and wanted to go with an LED system... this is what i have no water, live rock, ect... yet

they look nice an bright and with the multi controler i have them on for sunrise/sunset and moon light.

Attachment 7228

Attachment 7229

[TJSlayer]

I will hopefully have something to add in about a month or so.....stay tuned will be doing a full review of the setup...

[spit.fire]

Maxspect razor 120w at 100%


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[Dez]

LEDs for over 2.5 years. AI Sol Blues plus DIY LEDs.

[Dearth]

The scary thing most people is twofold when it comes to LED lighting first off is the cost a good set of lights will definitely hurt the pocketbook (including DIY lighting)and secondly having powerful enough LEDs to reach the bottom of deeper tanks and having the correct colour spectrum to promote growth and colour.

Once I save up the coinage I will be switching to LEDs on my big tank but that will be awhile in coming.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Yes LEDs can grow it all. Any tips on how to get a good pic so it does'nt have the cartoon look? With just the basic point and shoot cameras.

That's the trick really, I find taking pics with the point and shoot problematic, even for non LED tanks. Throw in LEDs and the point and shoots really struggle. That is unless you can get a point and shoot that allows you full manual control like Canon's G series (Nikon has an equivalent but I'm not sure what it's called).

Originally Posted by Dearth

The scary thing most people is twofold when it comes to LED lighting first off is the cost a good set of lights will definitely hurt the pocketbook (including DIY lighting)and secondly having powerful enough LEDs to reach the bottom of deeper tanks and having the correct colour spectrum to promote growth and colour.

Once I save up the coinage I will be switching to LEDs on my big tank but that will be awhile in coming.

Cost of entry is definitely high, but there are good LED units that are quite reasonably priced. For example, you can get an AI Sol unit for roughly $400. In my mind that's pretty reasonable. Of course you can easily go up in cost from there to the Mitras at $1200 (retail) per unit. Not everyone needs a $1200 Mitras though. There are plenty of people (as we've seen in this thread) doing quite well with their $400 AI Sols :-)

The issue of having "powerful enough LEDs to reach the bottom of deeper tanks" is an interesting one and one that still confuses me a bit. Whenever I hear of someone running LEDs I typically hear of them having to throttle down their LED lights as low as 50%. Even at those levels they can still easily burn their corals. As for the correct colour spectrum, I don't know if there is a unit that really has the wrong colour spectrum. I've seen beautiful tanks growing SPS with everything from cheap eBay LEDs, to DIY LEDs, to AI Sols, Radeons, Mitras. I've seen nice tanks from pretty much ALL the LED variations now. This someone leads me to conclude that if a tank is struggling with colour or growth that it's not necessarily the light causing the issue. It is easy to blame the light though because it is something that's easy to change, unlike other factors like water chemistry and husbandry.