Not real happy with reef breeders led and sps...add T5 for better growth? Or go MH?

Have you ever ran another type of lighting prior to leds?

 

What makes you think you have plenty PAR? Dis you measure the PAR? You are runnig about 200w of light on a 6' tank for 9 hours/per day and crank it all the way up to about 300w for 3 hours/day. There is nothing wrong with the LEDs. They will grow corals and that fact has been proven over and over.

Your AI Sol was half the wattage of a Radion. Unfortunately the price of LEDs has made many people buy into the myth that LEDs are so much more efficient compared to MH and/or T5. This myth has people lighting their tanks with not nearly enough light.

 

My two RB's can pull 422w wide open @ 100% on each channel (as per my kill-a-watt reading). How many watts should my 6ft tank have on it???

Are you saying I'm running my power too low or do you think I need more units???

 

To have thriving SPS you are gonna need more light. How you remedy that situation is up to you. I'm not a fan of the Reef Breeders line of LEDs for myself but it is surely a decent offering. They are more than capable of supporting SPS. If I was going MH on your tank I would at least recommend 3 x 250w witth optimal reflectors like the Coralvue Lumenbrite reflectors. If you were going T5 I would recommend an ATI 8x80w fixture. If going LED I would like to see somnwhere in the neghbor hood of 600w.

 

Do you have any photos?
I like what someone said above about NO3 and PO4 testing.
I'm no LED expert .. currently run T5 Sun power on 225 but 24" tall.
I dream about Radium shimmer but for now T5 does the job for me in bringing out the colors I like. It's a good compromise for heat and cost. I also have an LED actinic strip with UV to bring out a little more pop similar to Radium. It's mounted on my sunpower.
I've seen a couple local tanks with the Reefbreeders and they had fantastic color.. one guy did say he had to put some coral very close to the top to get colors he wanted. I would check into the nutrients first though.

 

Ya I got a NO3/PO4 test kit ordered...

I don't have any complaints about color as much as about corals stalling out without growing...

 

I'm curious, are your corals truely colorful or do they just floresce under blue lighting?

 

Well when I turn off all the lights my corals still glow with an eerie iridescence from within!

j/k

I don't really know, they seem to be colorful...

 

The reason I ask is because the royal blue lighting from LEDs do a very good job of brining out the florecent pigments within coral, giving a false sense of color.
I nooticed this when I switched back to halide from LED. My corals looked great under the LED, but they were pretty brown when I switched back to halide.

 

Oh gotcha.


Ya I guess with the blues down they don't seem super colorful...