Oz;772484 wrote: why are you switching?
I wanted to show a few positive examples to first dispel those who would cry water params are an issue, instead of the lights. (I'm not happy or impressed with my Red Dragon growth as Reggie is. Chris, yours grew a little more than that in a year right?)
The Stag coral I have is the best/happiest piece in the tank. Why? I have one guess. It's the highest up. Only about 4" beneath the water line. Acro's barely budge in growth deeper than 6" down in my tank. That's a big problem in my opinion.
Here are some pics of sps that are further down than 6"
First is a Palmers blue milli. This is not a mistake in when I took the pictures. This is after one year.
Second is one of the fastest growers around. Finally, I moved it up to 4" below the water line about 4 months ago.
The biggest reason apart from my displeasure with growth is that multicolored SPS DO NOT look the same under LED as MH.
Come on over and see. I'll flip the MH off and just run the LED's. Do they look nice under both? Yes. One just looks better.
Easy real world comparison is TV shopping. When in the store and you see two TV's side by side playing the same program it's easy to see how much better the picture is on one vs the other. Get one home and you loose the perspective rather quickly.
I got sick of taking corals (SPS only! LPS and Zoa's rock under LED) home from stores or members tanks and no sooner than it hitting the water of my tank it didn't look as good.
LED manufacturers and users are chasing Radium look and performance. Sanjay uses Radiums as a benchmark to rate LED fixtures by.
Why go use something that is busy chasing when you already have the undisputed leader?
Why? Because people are looking to save money, (energy/heat/chillers/bulb replacement) dim their fixtures, and control their light temperature. Oh yeah, and if they can get some growth and/or color while they're at it, yippie!
I simply choose to put performance first and unfortunate inconveniences second.
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