About LEDs

Has anyone used an array of ultra-bright LEDS (10000K) as an alternative to Metal Hallides?

Can anyone think of a good reason why it definitely will fail?

I have noticed that the area of salt water aquariums is seemingly open to a lot more experimentation than I would have thought, which is partially my inspiration for ... this post.

They are really close except for one thing, they don't have them yet that run at 10K.
I have looked at doing this for years but the best color white LED's I have found has been at the 6500 - 8K range.

I was going to buy ~100  10watt (1KW) white LED's and sprinkle in ~20 Blue LED's
I figured that would get me close to the color scheme I needed.
It would have aproximated the ligh output of 4x400W MH.

Unfortunately, right when I decided to do it, the price jumped 10X.
The whole project would have cost me ~$4,000, yes, 4K.
The good, high wattage white and blue LED's are very expensive now.

I figured I would wait until some more manufactures build the high wattage LED's, right now only LUXEON makes the high wattage (10w) LED's.

Ok, I see your collective points.  It seems I was correct in my research that it was the fertile plateau of 10000K that would make for a viable alternative.  With much less heat, and potentially cheaper cost (especially for DIY), LEDs could be a potential candidate.

So is the consensus that LEDs will be a viable lighting alternative when LEDs can consistently output at the 10000K range?

I see what you guys mean, the intensity of MH is a force to be reckoned with.  clusters of LEDs could make for cool highlights, but probably not a replacement for the sheer muscle of MH (yet.)  LEDs however, continue to become more intense as the LED industry pushes the envelope :)

Interesting.

It sounds to me like LED would be the way to go .. however I really think the price would be WAY out of reach for most ...

Jake Pehrson wrote: I have been looking at this for years. The luxeon LED s are close, but now quite there yet. For those who went to IMAC we did see som exciting new products that will be coming out soon. Including the luxeon LEDs with multiple LED Lights cast on one die. When this product comes out I think you will start to see the move towards LEDs in reed lighting. That said I think we are 5-10 years away from having a real alternative to Halides (at least a cost effective one).

I think it is more than less  than 5-10years away!They are catching up very fast!

I think the LED fixtures that are not color adjustable are not worth buying. I have owned 2 seprate led fixtures one was from Reefkoi and the output was terrible, the fans ran 24/7 and the noise was crazy! Sent it back after 2 days and got my money back, no problems from them either, they were great to deal with. When I bought my AI's I couldnt beleive the difference! You get what you pay for with leds. I can go from almost a pure yellow light to beyond 22k and anywhere in between. The brightness is crazy, I run my leds at 75 to 80 percent and had to work up to that because the corals were bleaching.

This thread is from May 2006 a lot has change since then!

phys wrote: Cree also has come out with a 10w XM-L LED that produces 1000 lumens per LED if driven fully. They have a max kelvin rating of 8300.

You might actually be surprised to know that there are 1w, 3w, 5w, 10w and even 20w leds in that range. They might be new to Cree  but they have been around. The marine aquarium community might also be surprised to know there are actually other brands of leds other then Cree that are just as good if not better! Cree is only popular because they have been endorsed by the aquarium community. Its like when famuos celebrities talk about a no name product one day and the next day it is a brand name. If you were to poll the marine aquarium community on the best place to buy LEDs and LED components, I bet most of them would name places like Nano tuners, Rapid Led and other aquarium lighting specialist. If I told them I could get those same LEDs to include Cree and LED components for much less they would ask where and when I told them they would say "I've never heard of them, but I'd rather buy from a well know company." The thing with these aquarium lighting specialist is that they are only know to the aquarium community and they are actually buying them from these companies I speak of in the electronics industry.