no luck with monti

May I take a moment to share my experience with LED lighting and my experience with my corals. I had 24 species of corals both soft and hard with several monti's growing in my tank. The cost of lighting was sky high so I invested $2,800 in the best LED Marine lighting at the time now this is just over three years ago. The corals did very well for about six months, in about 18 months time I had lost all but a few of my soft corals. I have gone back to traditional lighting and scaled down my MH lighting to 150 W's and I am having good luck again. When I go tot he LFS I have noticed that many of the hard corals are being kept under tradition lighting and the softies are generally under LED's now. Not always the case for the most part this is true. Some hardier hard corals under LED's. So what I am trying to say, I think LED's are not there yet and some corals have a hard time adjusting to the light source. This is my experience and I now know that the lighting is going to be a major cost factor in my hobby enjoyment, as it has been for many years now.
 
I'm wondering if this issue is more spectral in nature rather than intensity? The systems I'm using are full spectrum, not just blue and white lights. Might have to run an experiment. Y'all don't care how you spend my time and money do you?
 
2XAl said:
Old tom do you have any info on the leds you tried?
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I used Aqua Beam Lighting, only after reading the entire article and talking with the company. At the time, there was only the Aqua Beam 1000 available, the Aqua Beam 1500 was new and was available by special order, so I ordered 3 there of these untis along with eight of the white and blue strips, these were to replace my 250 watt Metal halides and provide me with 11 years of care free lighting. After about six months the lights started to burn out and the company would not replace until over 50% had burned out, this was not in the warrenty anywhere. The aquarium looked great for about a year, but then my corals began to die out and when they went they died at a very fast rate. I now see that the company has a couple of generations of lights beyound what I bought so it is possible that the lights are much better. As for me, I am staying away from LED's for a while until more is know about the industry.

I almost got out of the hobby as a result of this devastating loss.
 
the ones i have are the geissemann teszlas, 5 on a 7 ft tank 30 in deep, everything is doing well. my lights only have white and blue in them. but the colours look good and my corals are growing. 15 months and counting
 
I do think that LED's are the way of the future of this hobby, I didn't have much luck and it may have been that I entered the LED cycle just a bit early. I think I am going to wait a bit more before jumping back into the aquarium again, and when I do add them it will be as secondary lighting not as my primary. I just will not take the chance that I did a few years back. I am so glad to hear tha so many are happy so much success, as I said i do think this is the wave of the future of this hobby.

I go back before there were VHO's and Metal Halids and you would use the standard household lights over the tank, we have come a long way over the years. Trial and error is what makes this hobby so fascinating and fun; it is also the reason so many drop out of the hobby sad to say.
 
Old Tom said:
I do think that LED's are the way of the future of this hobby, I didn't have much luck and it may have been that I entered the LED cycle just a bit early. I think I am going to wait a bit more before jumping back into the aquarium again, and when I do add them it will be as secondary lighting not as my primary. I just will not take the chance that I did a few years back. I am so glad to hear tha so many are happy so much success, as I said i do think this is the wave of the future of this hobby.

I go back before there were VHO's and Metal Halids and you would use the standard household lights over the tank, we have come a long way over the years. Trial and error is what makes this hobby so fascinating and fun; it is also the reason so many drop out of the hobby sad to say.
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My 8' 240 had, wait for it, 12 4' 2 bulb fixtures over it, 6 on each side, lol.
 
ReeferRob said:
We have a well, so no hydro bill, lol.
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how do you run your lights, pumps,etc. on a well. please tell us so we can all do that. bigger systems all around by the way the pix of your tank for the contest, that one big long piece of rock is some nice. i want a piece like that.
 
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That 240 was circa 1985. I sold the tank and the morons that bought it shoved it through a basement window and the tank broke in 1/2, lol. the lights were on the grid, the water was out of the well. I had the filtre above the tank just because of the sheer size of the tank. i don't even know if I have a pic of that tank. The wife took care of it while I was deployed.
 
Aquarian said:
Silly Canadians Hydro is water. Electricity is power. :D
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silly americans, water is water, hydro is electricity. the company that supplies electricity to the province of ontario is called hydro one. actually all of canada calls electricity hydro. if you call water water i know what you are taking about. if you call water hydro i will think you are taking about electricity. you guys need to learn canadian english.
 
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