New bulbs or switch to LED's

I'll add this, I had LEDs for a year and made the switch to metal halide. I think MH, LED and T5 all have their perks and down sides. It will really come to a personal preference. For me, the wattage use on my halide is about the same as an LED unit and $50 a year on a bulb isn't a cost that overwhelms me.

Now, if I needed 3 or 400 watt metal halides for my system, I would have a different opinion.

 

Tanks 90 gallon SPS dominant, been up for almost three years and doing great. Most of my SPS are in the mid to upper portion of the tank and have done well under T5's. Guess I'm looking at LED's for the same reasons as everyone else. No more bulbs to buy, cooler, the ability to run them off my controller and lots of possibilities with the DIY fixtures.

 

Also scared my SPS either they wont grow or they'll burn up. I have been surprised how well my SPS have done under a six bulb T5 lamp.

I looked back through some pictures and found that my SPS doubled and tripled in size over the past year, almost all just frags when I started

 

Thanks again for all the input, I decided to stand pat and order new bulbs. I think what really made my decision was looking through pictures and see how well my SPS have done over that past year.

 

purely my opinion.......

LED's are where I want them to be yet. It seems every couple months there is a newest latest greatest best spectrum. first it was just blue & white, then cool whites, the natural whites, then different blues, then mixed blues, then a red mixed in, then some greens, then all that plus cyans, now a different shape of red.

Follow that up with price right now. Since they are the latest greatest hot thing on the market everybody is churning out lights and slapping the max gain pricetag on them. Even rapid (who I love and am not bad mouthing them in the least), it making a KILLING on their led's. led's are produced by the 10,000's in rolls and cost pennies to buy at the wholesale level. I've worked with LED's before, so not talking out my butt. These high hundred dollar premades cost about 100 or so to make. Truthfully I dont blame them, if there is money to be made by all means make it. just saying the price isnt there for me.

All that combined, I am gonna give them about another year to let people figure things out, let price become more realistic then I'll relook them.

 

I was in the same boat a week ago. I decided to go with LEDs instead. I bought a taotronic, the Chinese LEDs off eBay for $127.99 These ate great reef capable LEDs. You can find great reviews on them from aquarist from aquarium advice.

 

The one thing I miss with T5's is the shimmer like I see on tanks with LED's or Halides. The only problem with adding an LED strip is I have read T5's will most likely wash out any shimmer.

 

If switching what is the best combo of color?

I was wandering what the best color combo for making my own DIY led fixture? The ratio of White to Blues to any other color. How many LEDs would be sufficient and how many is to many?