High Performance LED Kits from RapidLED

Yeah Matt that is crazy PAR. Eric had the sensor about mid tank. The lights were 8-10" above the water so that reading was probably taken at a minimum of 18".
Eric and I talked about that and he was telling me that a lot of people are burning corals as LED tech progresses. I guess it's a big problem because when the coral bleaches or dies they blame the lights, saying there isn't enough of it when in actuality it's way too much.

 

There's a new LFS here in Phoenix (Reef Culture) that opened up a few months ago and the whole store is lit using LED's. They're starting to burn some corals in their tanks and keep needing to raise the lights up. There's some pics and a feature on another forum about it (Google if you'd like, I won't link to another forum here).

 

It's definitely the new wave. After listening to Sanjay Joshi speak about the basics of LED it was pretty easy to see that PC lighting is obsolete and on it's way out for sure. T5's will most likely soon follow them. It probably won't be very long before we all can afford quality manufactured LED fixtures for our systems.

 

The retro fit kits are priced right along side MH now. If they go lower than that, they'll dominate the industry.

 

I thought we knew PC was out years ago when t5 hit. lol

what about halide how do you think they will fair? I'm sure if led grow acros great they will be out, but I'm not convince the standard led fixture will do that yet(whether it be a spectrum or a depth problem).

 

What I meant is that nobody will even manufacture the tubes anymore. Any of the phosphor/mercury based bulbs will be gone. Halide is going to go because it isn't efficient when it comes to kilowatt/hour use and as the technology on LED improves we'll see more and more use just from the "green" factor.

 

well I wasn't really debating what you said, I said if they grow everything they would take over.
I was kinda asking how many years do you think halide will last. As I'm wonder how long it will be until most manufacturers get led fixtures perfect for corals.

I think it will take a bit more time until that happens since alot of LED's are pretty spectrum specific so they will have to be more fined tuned I think.
Of course I'm not a LED expert so I maybe wrong.


That reminds me does rapid or cree have the spectral analysis for the LED's?

 

I don't even think spectrum is a major issue with LEDs. I think it's going to be the price that determines how fast it's adopted. It literally is better than the other options in every regard except for price, and possibly spectrum if you want to get a bit of UV in your tank.

I think halides will be obsolete before T5, TBH. T5 can be used as an easy, cheap supplementation to LEDs to get proper spectrum, while halide is a very "all or nothing" type of option.

 

yea halide very much the lead light source or not involved at all. although led's provide nice blues so I would think them more likely to not need t5 supplements.

when boost ships I will be getting a all royal blue to supplement my halide tho.

 

Well, what I was thinking is that LED is expensive to get a precise color combination with, especially since each bulb only colors a portion of the tank. You'd have to have quite a perfect pattern to get nice, even colors.

T5 is cheap enough to buy bulbs and play around in your extra 2 slots, which span the whole tank.