Lets talk LED's..............

[Somethings Fishy]

I am planning on setting up a 90+ gal tank this winter and just testing the water for led's you guys have used........


What are you running?
what do you recommend for mixed reef with sps?
lets see some pics with your setups.

 

[Thrawn]

+1
I'm setting up a 90 this month as well and was wondering about maybe going LED's so I'll be keeping my eye on this thread.

 

[mojoreef]

Just put the finishing touches on a diy Led fixture. As per pre made units I still cant justify the costs.

Mojo

 

[Somethings Fishy]

Hows your DIY fixture going? it seems like it would be challenging. where did you get your led's? any pics of the light?

 

[mojoreef]

Just finished the design and now have ordered the materials, so a few weeks away from having a working model on the tank. Look up posts on Leds by Guerry I followed the same principles as he has on his tank, with modification to the actual colors of some of the emitters.

Mojo

 

[Somethings Fishy]

i saw that build, have to say mine will probably not be as professional looking as his if i do one haha. i like how he used green and red leds as supplement, don't seem to see that much....wonder why

 

[mojoreef]

I think the Led world just has not really evolved from a manufacturers point yet. I have been working with Guerry alot on the LEds and put a lot of time into other colored units that would help create more of a full spectrum lighting system. I hear you on the doing it up myself, I conceded that if I did it I would screw it up so I am having Guerry do it for me, lol

Mojo

 

[Scooterman]

I've tried a few LED home lights and when comparing the power consumption to Visual output, it is amazing. In time when manufactures figure out how to mass produce these cheaper I think it will take over all the way around. JMO LOL

 

[Somethings Fishy]

Sounds like i need to place an order with guerry!!!haha, i totally agree with you scooterman on the leds

 

[Somethings Fishy]

How has growth of sps been with diy led setups?

 

[Sidewinder33]

I'm new to the boards but I love my AI Sol Blues. I have 2 over my 72 bowfront and have a pretty good spread with them at 12" off the water. As far as using red and green, I've read that although visually pleasing to us is not necessary for coral growth, and to much red can actually do some bad as far as growth. Here's a review of the new Ecotech Radion (which has the RGB in mind) that makes some points on the useful spectrums and some of the follies of LED's Ecotech Marine's Radion XR30 LED Light: a Swing and a Miss?
Hope that Helps

 

[mojoreef]

We talk a bit about the use of reds and greens here along with a few other things.

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/f69/thingss-beware-when-changing-leds-62429/#post641299

 

[Sidewinder33]

Great thread mojo, very easy to understand and makes a lot of great points. I've always heard 300 par MH and 300 par LEd are not the saem but no one could tell me why. Your explanation makes perfect sense, when you hit the corals with an abundance of the wave lengths they commonly use from the LED's vs the wider spread (slightly lower effective light) spectrum of the MH they get more usable light at the same par, which like you said is good and bad. It's taken me 6 months to ramp my leds up to 80% (5%) a week. Thanks for shedding some .... light on the subject. ha ha ha

 

[Scampy]

I'm also planning an upgrade soon and would like to go LED. Is there any kind of chart or something to compare T5 HO lights to LED as to not overkill on the LED's? For example...my nano is 2X24 T5 HO, how do I go about figuring how many and what ratio of blue to white LED's to get the same affect?

 

[Sculpin]

Anyone know how much money an LED system would save over Metal Halides, for example two Eco Tech Radions vs. two 400w MH? If I ran them for 12 hrs a day, what would I save (approximately) in my electric bill over a year)? I realize that the savings could be potentially higher when you factor in the cost of powering the chiller to cool the water the 400w lights heat, but lets start with just the lights.

Thanks, Sculpin

 

[jezzeaepi]

Anyone know how much money an LED system would save over Metal Halides, for example two Eco Tech Radions vs. two 400w MH? If I ran them for 12 hrs a day, what would I save (approximately) in my electric bill over a year)? I realize that the savings could be potentially higher when you factor in the cost of powering the chiller to cool the water the 400w lights heat, but lets start with just the lights.

Thanks, Sculpin

Apples and oranges. A dual 400w mh system would abosultely blow the radions away in terms of par. Even a properly set up dual 250w mh system would be superior in terms of par, but it is more comparable to the radions. When comparing LED to MH, you don't need to run the bulbs as many hours per day. Using LED or T5's, I would want to run my bulbs 10-12 hours a day. For a MH system, you should only be running them 8- 10 hours a day because of the increased intensity.

Lets do a comparison.

LED = 120w X 2 X 11 hr a day = 2640w/day.
MH = 250w x 2 x 9 hr a day = 4500w/day
In addition, the MH will require a chiller. For me(I use 620w of light over my 125g tank in Washington state) my chiller doesn't run at all in the winter, but averages about 2-3 hr/day for 3-4 months of the year. If I average 1hr/day on my chiller(which is on the high end) this will cost me 650w/day. Adding up the figures, we have:
MH = 5150
LED = 2640
Difference = 2510w/day. At $.09/kw, that is ~$.23/day or $82.45 a year.

Some things to consider:These numbers are highly dependent on climate and electricity cost. If you live in a hot area, obviously your chiller will be running more often. However, if you are in a cold environment, then your "extra" cost in electricity is hardly wasted, because much of the MH energy is recycled as heat energy(which is emitted from the bulb), which heats your house. For example, during most of the winter I don't run any heat because my tank lights heat up the room comepltely on their own. Therefore, given the energy savings during the winter from not having to run heat as much, and the extra expense of having to run the chiller in the summer, you are probably saving about ~$50 a year if you happen to live in Washington state where it is cool most of the year, and electricity is cheap due to our hydro-electric plants. This figure can increase dramatically depending on climate and electricity cost.

Peace,
Jesse

 

[trido]

Looks like you've done some home work on this Jesse. With LED's on a small tank you obviously don't get a huge savings in the first year in electrical costs.

Lets look at it like this. $82.45 a year plus the 2 MH that MOST of us replace every nine to twelve months. I'll stick with once a year just for ease of math. 2MH @ 75ea. = $150. $150 + 82.45 = $232.45. in the first year. In three years you save, $697.35 Cree emitters are rated to last 50 thousand hours or ten year for a savings of $2324.50

I understand that alot of fixtures probably wont last ten years or most reefers wont even keep a tank that long but you get the point. There are huge long term saving by having LED fixtures. We didn't even look at the fact that a majority of reefers with MH also run T-5s or VHO actinic supplement for a dawn dusk effect that require even more electricity and more bulb replacement. The higher end DIY's and manufactured LED's can be dimmed to give a dawn and dusk removing any need to add supplemental lighting.

Recently I switched over from a 4 x 24w HO T-5 fixture 96W to a 60 x 3w fixture running at 75% = 135w max. The LED fixture ramps up to this and only runs peek for four hours a day. The 60 LED fixture is comparable to a 400w MH so IMO in this case, the extra 40 watts between these fixtures is huge. Even if I backed the fixture down to 55% or 99w it would be strong enough to light my 65G and the T-5 fixture would not. At least not with SPS near the bottom IMO.


On my 210 I ran three 400w MH and two 160W VHO's for a total of 1520 watts @ 10 hours a day. With three 60 x 3w fixture running at 75% = 405wmax @ 12 hours a day. (keep in mind this is only maxed at 4 hours a day so the savings are actually bigger)
I'm not even going to touch on my chiller with this one.

MH/VHO = 1520 x 10 = 15200w/ day or $41.61 a mo.
LED = 405 x 12 = 4860w/ day or $13.30 a mo.

Difference = 10340w/day. At $.09/kw, that is ~$.93/day or $339.72 a year.

Let's add my bulbs in there. I changed all my bulbs religiously at nine months so I'll total the cost savings for a year and a half for ease of math.
In a year and a half I would buy 6 MH bulbs @ $80 and four 72" VHO @ $45 ea. (6*80) +(4*45)= $660 in bulb replacement

$339.72 *1.5= $509.58 + $660 for a total of $1169.58 of savings in a year and a half.
Savings over three years = $2339.16
Over nine years = $7017.48


I'll never use MH on one of my tanks ever again.

 

[mojoreef]

Apples and oranges. A dual 400w mh system would abosultely blow the radions away in terms of par. Even a properly set up dual 250w mh system would be superior in terms of par, but it is more comparable to the radions. When comparing LED to MH, you don't need to run the bulbs as many hours per day. Using LED or T5's, I would want to run my bulbs 10-12 hours a day. For a MH system, you should only be running them 8- 10 hours a day because of the increased intensity.

Couple of things that I have to question a bit. One is the par on the 400 watt MH blowing away the Led fixture, yes its is tough to compare a 120 watts against 800 watts so the led will never win that one but you will find that the led's par that is in the Zoox usuable range for photosynthesis is all of it, where as the same usuable portion of the MH is half at best. You can see this looking at the percentage of Par that is outside of the 400nm in the MH spectral chart...so maybe not as far away as one might assume.

The other is the time frame for running the lights, their should be no difference in the durations between led and MH or any other light really. Zoox take photons and convert them, they have a cap on what they can take in and they also dont store photons.



mojo

 

[mojoreef]

Oh one thing to add just on a comparison of the radions. You could go to reefledlights (sponsor) and get more lights and much better layout in a fixture with fans for almost half the price. just a thought

Mike

 

[jezzeaepi]

Well I guess the disagreement here is over what is the equivalent to what. I don't think a 120w fixture compares to a 400w fixtures, but for tridos calculations he is comparing the two, where as with my calculation I am comparing them to 250w bulbs. To be fair, I probably should have included the price of running some t5's for actinic supplementation to make the MH truly comparable to the LED(since LED can do sunrise/sunset). That can further complicate things because one could easily save some money by simply only running the actinic bulbs during sunrise/sunset and leaving them off during the day since they will be largely washed out by the MH. Therefore you could either run them 2hrs a day for just sunset/sunrise, or 11 hours a day to try to augment the color of the tank. In tridos case, this would amount to a savings of ~$94 a year in electricity.

Can you post some par readings that show that LED are on par with 400w MH? Looking around the internet I was able to find this thread here:
LED PAR measurement on a 16 months fixture - Reef Central Online Community

This guy is using dual 160w fixtures(which is about 25% stronger then the one on this thread) and his par numbers are nothing to write home about as you move more then a few inches from the surface. You can see from his readings that the par falls off very quickly. In 14 inches of water, hes getting about 300par vs the 2500par 1 inch from the surface. If you take a 400w mh bulbs and put them in place of the 160w LED,s then I guarantee you will get higher par ratings 14 inches down. This becomes further magnified the deeper your tank is. Given the decline in par from 0 - 14 inches, you can only imagine that between 14 and 24 inches its going to drop a lot more. At 30+ inches, which is the depth of many tanks that use 400w bulbs, the Par reading would be almost nothing.