LED Questions

[DaRed.Turtle]

I see a few LED DIY Lights which is awesome. I love to DIY myself as much as possible. Now to my questions.

I don't really know much about aquarium lighting, where can I find info? links are awesome.

Where is the best place to get LEDs to DIY?

I see a few people are going with mixed LED and T5s what the reason behind that?

What are the pros cons to LED only setups?

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[reefes pieces]

don't really know much about aquarium lighting, where can I find info? links are awesome.

Where is the best place to get LEDs to DIY?
RapidLED
LEDGroupbuy
eBay
There's another one that Schnitzel buys from in China but can't remember the name

I see a few people are going with mixed LED and T5s what the reason behind that?
LEDs are known to have a limited spectrum bandwidth as opposed to full spectrum that MH and T5s offer. By going hybrid you can have the efficiency and intensity of LEDs and still get full spectrum coverage by supplementing T5s. People seem to have good success with this setup for corals that seem to not take to LEDs that well.

What are the pros cons to LED only setups?
Pros:
Energy efficient
Low Heat dissipation
Tend to have strong par and water penetration
Very customizable due to amount of options and small footprint of individual LEDs

Cons:
Still relatively new tech for reef environment with no long term track history like t5 and MH (metal halide)
Narrow spread
LED spot lighting can happen and create discoball effect. Also, some difficulty in color blending
Can burn corals if not properly acclimated
Some corals just don't adapt well to LED lighting and either change color or die
More trial n error in dialing in LED lights to corals
although more color ranges are offered, still not proven that full spectrum can be achieved

Me I have aqua illumination lights for my tanks and couldn't be happier but I have had my ups n downs with getting the right settings for coral FWIW

 

[SchnitzelReef]

O man too much info

Everything u are asking has already been covered numerous times. Check out the search function on this forum, it will answer all of ur questions and then some.