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I just have to brag a little about my new 300 gallon deep dimension starphire :)


jenna

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MH are cheap. You could get everything up and running with MH and then switch to LEDs at a later date. That way you would get the system all dialed in and know you have everything right before you play with lighting.

 

The biggest disadvantage of LEDs (in my opinion) is the inconsistency. Some people have great luck and others terrible. There are lots of sale threads with new high end LED fixtures that didn't work. It makes me a little worried about the ones I bought, but I am up for a challenge and know the rest of my system is solid. If my corals start to suffer it will be a good probability that it is the lighting. With a brand new build it may be harder to determine the problem.

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No we don't have metal halides yet. We have T-5's over our 90 gallon and I have been planning on using 400w halides for the new build but I don't have them in my possession yet. Nate, I know you're not trying to steer me away. You make a good point. That's the biggest reason that I'm nervous about LED- I really know nothing about them other than they're new and starting to catch on and that some people say they look great and work well. On one hand, I feel like well, I'm just gonna end up wanting LED anyway; may as well just go with them from the beginning and figure it out now. Get any issues worked out right away while we don't have too much coral in the tank. But, on the other hand, I know MH works well and I like how they look...

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if you decide to go led just be sure to get the right nm spectrum to start with so make sure there are the cyan gren violet and deep blues and that the fixture is controllable built in with 48+ data points or with a controller or a potentiometer. The bigger name makers have been redesigning they're fixtures to incorporate these. look up the maxspect r420r I've been looking for a long time and am still on the fence about what fixture to go with, leaning towards reef breeders as theres is about the same but cost less

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Get on rapidled.com and look at there DIY kits they have solder kits and solder less kits which is what I'm going to start investing in. When I was living in Ohio I knew quite a few people that were doing the DIY led kits and there coral thrived under the LEDs. But make sure u get the dim-able LEDs so u can adjust them properly. Now as for the par and amps that you run through it I have no idea on any of that but if u call there customer service and talk to them they are extremely nice and very knowledgeable I mean I know that's there job and should know about that stuff but they will break it down for u Barney style as we say in the army so u can understand what it does and the best way to set ur system up. Personally if I were u go LEDs right off the bat it will save u a lot of money in the long run and the look u get is crazy awesome

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FWIW my DIY LED fixtures ( I have 6 total) are all Royal Blue, and Cool White-no other colors, and anyone who has seen my tank will tell you they now are a believer in LED, its all I have ran for over a year. I used to run nothing but MH and T5 for actinic

 

That being said there are a LOT of LED fixtures out there I wish you luck-

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Ha! I think the regular ones were all my heart could handle for one day lol.. but he said that they were upgradable to pro :)

 

Just messing with you. I'm not sure that the Pro models offer enough of a performance gain to offset the cost increase. The new lenses would be nice for the height of your tank though. I would think the lenses are much cheaper than the full upgrade.

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