The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[shilala]

Lance, I've got so many freakin cigars that I can't even find them all. I did buy five or six boxes of "save for later" stuff last week, though.

Now I'm really strongly considering LED lighting for the tank.
Will you guys please take a look at this for me, and see what you think?
Here's where I am so far...
I'm trying to figure out how to get from watts/gallon to lumens/gallon to size my fixture. I already plan on getting the biggest one at that Foster Smith link cause I think it'll fit my tank.
The reef capable lighting are rated for 50,000 hours, which is 17 years of 8 hour days. Right now I run a little over 8 hours, but I need to back that up.
The fixture is $365, you never replace bulbs. In 17 years, I'd spend somewhere between $1600 and $3200 for t5 lamps. I'd also have to replace the fixture at least twice, and that'd cost about $1,000.
So it's t5's for $2600-$4200 or led for under $800. (Apparantly I need two fixtures because these things really focus the lights into a very thin, straight down wall of light.)
With two fixtures, I'd be down to 108 watts from my current 432 watts, so I'm looking at 1/4 the energy use and I'm guessing 1/4 the heat.

Being that I was already going to spill $200 for tubes, I'm really looking at $530.00 to make this upgrade. I'm sure I can sell my 48" t5's on Craigslist or to one of the reefers in my club, bringing down the price even more.

The one drawback is that there's a polycarbonate lens on this thing that creates a "realistic ocean shimmer effect" that is only realistic to people who have never been in the water. It's more like a strobe light cranked all the way up to max, almost constant on, or at least that's how I perceive it when I look at them.
I'm hoping that's more prominent with one light than with two.

Will you guys please take a look when you have time and let me know what you think? I could use a bunch more negatives so I can weigh this out a bit better.

[OLS]

Originally Posted by shilala

Now I'm really strongly considering LED lighting for the tank

I have not done much if any reading since they came out, right around the time I bought my T5
hood. I was simply buying closeout for price. So there was no way on the LEDs. However, like
anything there are kinks to work out, and those first fixtures were WROUGHT with problems. In fact
I think that many of the problems are still there. Random LED failures, entire strip failures, and
NOWHERE near the durational performance they were sold at. "It's the last light fixture you'll
EVER BUY!"...."All the light with none of the heat!"...."LEDs Don't burn out like light bulbs!"
None of which turned out to be true. I say stay with what you have, ESPECIALLY since
you got drug into starting this back up at great cost to yourself. Let the newness of your rig
wear off, have a few disasters again, and then think, "Hmm, good thing I didn't spend $800 on LEDs.

I have a "night lite" led on my fixture, and i can tell you it IS like a semi-strobe effect, but it DOES
produce shimmer in a way. I guess if you are going to extrapolate out to 17 years, it's a good buy,
but as with any reef tank, I predict disaster, the LAST disaster, way before then, lol.