# LED lighting fixture for reef tank - experience/opinions?



## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

What is your experience/opinions? Many people I know who have tried LEDs in the past believe it just does not work as well as more traditional lighting systems such as T5 and MH. 

For me I use a Chinese brand 300W 96LED system and it works. Perhaps the growth is not as good as under the T5s I had before but I'm generally happy with this fixture.

I have not paid much attention on this topic for a couple of years, and now I see that such high end fixutures have been evolving rapidly and have seen some really nice tanks in person with these fixtures on.

However, it seems that it's still not a simple transition to move to the LED fixture. What makes it difficult and what causes failures? In the end, I'd like to learn more so that if I should consider switching to the *better* ones available today.


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## Yellowtang (May 26, 2015)

*LED lighting for reef tank*

I had been out of the hobby for the last several years and recently returned to a reef tank. I read a lot about lighting and bought an expensive LED unit. With this tank I wanted a mixed reef, sps/lps and at first I was happy with my choice of lighting. As time went by I noticed that my lps were fine and showed some amazing colour, but my sps were not doing well. The colour was ok but the growth wasn't there. I checked with several marine venders who were running T-5's on their systems, some had changed to LED's then back to T-5's while others had stayed with T-5's. I ended up selling my LED's and bought a Hamilton Fiji Sun 6 bulb T-5 H.O. system. I'm also running 2 Reefbrite blue XHO stripes on each side of my lights. My lights are now where I want them to be, great colour and growth with my corals and easy on my eyes. I'm in the process of switching tanks (larger one) and once the move is completed I will post pictures.
It really comes down to what you prefer, I have seen some LED tanks that look terrific but for me the Hamilton lighting system works really well.


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

Yellowtang said:


> I had been out of the hobby for the last several years and recently returned to a reef tank. I read a lot about lighting and bought an expensive LED unit. With this tank I wanted a mixed reef, sps/lps and at first I was happy with my choice of lighting. As time went by I noticed that my lps were fine and showed some amazing colour, but my sps were not doing well. The colour was ok but the growth wasn't there. I checked with several marine venders who were running T-5's on their systems, some had changed to LED's then back to T-5's while others had stayed with T-5's. I ended up selling my LED's and bought a Hamilton Fiji Sun 6 bulb T-5 H.O. system. I'm also running 2 Reefbrite blue XHO stripes on each side of my lights. My lights are now where I want them to be, great colour and growth with my corals and easy on my eyes. I'm in the process of switching tanks (larger one) and once the move is completed I will post pictures.
> It really comes down to what you prefer, I have seen some LED tanks that look terrific but for me the Hamilton lighting system works really well.


How long did you run your LED lights on your tank before switching to T5s?


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## Yellowtang (May 26, 2015)

*Led lighting fixture for reef tanks*

Almost 5 months, may be I didn't give the tank enough time with the LED's but in that time frame I wasn't happy with my sps. If my tank was all LPS I probably would have kept the system but under my new lights I have experienced better growth in my zoo's, palys and sps. The reefbrite XHO LED stripes still make my mushrooms, zoo's and palys pop in colour but now I have added T-5's for growth.


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## poy (Jan 14, 2015)

I was in the exact same position with my mars aqua 165w. Growth was meh, colors and polyp extension were ok. In the end, 2 x 24" KZ Blue bulb T5's were added to the fixture. Now you get the best of both worlds! Currently the 165w unit was swapped out for a AI hydra 26HD from previous nano system. I've been running hybrid LED/T5 for over 5 months, polyp extension and growth has improved greatly. These are my observations since install. Try hybrid route


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## conix67 (Jul 27, 2008)

poy said:


> I was in the exact same position with my mars aqua 165w. Growth was meh, colors and polyp extension were ok. In the end, 2 x 24" KZ Blue bulb T5's were added to the fixture. Now you get the best of both worlds! Currently the 165w unit was swapped out for a AI hydra 26HD from previous nano system. I've been running hybrid LED/T5 for over 5 months, polyp extension and growth has improved greatly. These are my observations since install. Try hybrid route


I think a lot of people are having success with the hybrid method, but this is something I'd like to avoid.

I have seen tanks that are lit by LED fixtures only that still looks like it's lit by MH + T5 hybrid that were very popular years ago - everything thriving in it including all types of acros. Hydra52 was one of them.


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