Milad's 72in LED build

[mike31154]

Read up a little more on the Orphek line of products. According to them, they've teamed with marine biologists to produce LEDs specifically designed to provide the spectrum certain corals need and do well under. So the engineering/experimenting appears to have already been done by some highly educated and specialized individuals. Too early to tell whether it's smoke & mirrors but I'm inclined to believe them. Still, no personal experience, but feedback from customers with Orphek products appears to be mostly positive.

[Milad]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Read up a little more on the Orphek line of products. According to them, they've teamed with marine biologists to produce LEDs specifically designed to provide the spectrum certain corals need and do well under. So the engineering/experimenting appears to have already been done by some highly educated and specialized individuals. Too early to tell whether it's smoke & mirrors but I'm inclined to believe them. Still, no personal experience, but feedback from customers with Orphek products appears to be mostly positive.

Actually the LEDs we are bringing in our designed by the biologist/specialist not me. Their customers are huge industrial grow houses. What do the orphek guys use?

[Milad]

And just to give everyone the idea how im going to test it is that (depending on if the fish room is up when I get the LEDs in) I will have different areas of the tank or even in the fish room covered by the different LEDs to see how much of a difference they make. So same water. Im going to try to have the same flow also as much as possible.

so my 180g will be broken down into 3 sections. 1st Section with even 660nm 455nm. 2nd section with more 660nm than 455nm. 3rd section with basic 14000K look.

[martinmcnally]

I hear a lot of people talking about ratios of 2:1 blue to white and such an I wonder if that is based on fact or hearsay or optimized for color rather than growth.

I can only speak for my own personal experience which is 1:1 Cool White to Royal Blue. I've never seen growth like I am getting right now with 1:1, I maybe have my Cool White turn down just a little to make the corals look nicer.

Although could also be down to getting a new Reef Octopus skimmer haha. Too many variables in Reef keeping to really get the best test results I think. With two identical tanks one can go astray with with just simple small anemones stinging your corals at night and throwing your results completely.

I also think back to the "solid recommendations" various store owners would give for T5s and how they were all completely different haha. I think after changing the bulbs multiple times over the years the only thing changing was how the tank looked and not the actual heath or growth of the coral. Moving to LED was most definitely a very significant change for growth and color but I wonder if you end up getting back into the same argument about the different T5s only now with LEDs. Is changing the color slightly really affecting coral growth or is it just more pleasing on the eye. It would be great to see some solid test results the only problem being by the time you are done the testing those LEDs are obsolete and a new range are on the market.

Cant loose sight of the fact also that light is only one portion of how corals feed, depending on the coral of course. So the perfect LED setup in a tank low in nutrients may not be as good as the wrong setup in a nutrient rich tank.

Martin

[Milad]

Originally Posted by martinmcnally

I hear a lot of people talking about ratios of 2:1 blue to white and such an I wonder if that is based on fact or hearsay or optimized for color rather than growth.

I can only speak for my own personal experience which is 1:1 Cool White to Royal Blue. I've never seen growth like I am getting right now with 1:1, I maybe have my Cool White turn down just a little to make the corals look nicer.

Although could also be down to getting a new Reef Octopus skimmer haha. Too many variables in Reef keeping to really get the best test results I think. With two identical tanks one can go astray with with just simple small anemones stinging your corals at night and throwing your results completely.

I also think back to the "solid recommendations" various store owners would give for T5s and how they were all completely different haha. I think after changing the bulbs multiple times over the years the only thing changing was how the tank looked and not the actual heath or growth of the coral. Moving to LED was most definitely a very significant change for growth and color but I wonder if you end up getting back into the same argument about the different T5s only now with LEDs. Is changing the color slightly really affecting coral growth or is it just more pleasing on the eye. It would be great to see some solid test results the only problem being by the time you are done the testing those LEDs are obsolete and a new range are on the market.

Cant loose sight of the fact also that light is only one portion of how corals feed, depending on the coral of course. So the perfect LED setup in a tank low in nutrients may not be as good as the wrong setup in a nutrient rich tank.

Martin

There is no question from what ive seen that LEDs are a hot damn for growth. The 2:1 people are suggesting is more for aesthetic then anything for growth - I dont think most people would notice a major difference between the two but it does make it cheaper because Royal blues are much cheaper than Neutral Whites. What im trying to do is push the limits on growth and still have the aesthetics piece.

The whole system is modular also so if I start seeing the brownish colors imisky is talking about then I can easily swap out the LEDs.