ps2cho Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 First I really like my Reefbreeders unit...so I wanted to ask if this is worth doing at all? After looking at some really beautiful tanks, I have noticed that a lot of them have some high kelvin rated bulbs or LED's, but after looking at the valueled layout, I have mostly low kelvin whites. I see that Reefbreeders DOES offer a wide variety of blues (420nm-660nm) and whites (3.5k-20k): http://reefbreeders.com/leds/ Is it worth upgrading some of the lower kelvin LED's? My goal is a mostly SPS dominated Reef. What are your guys' thoughts on this? Any opinions or suggestions? Should I consider it, or just leave the fixture alone? Is there a better LED Layout I could change to? (I don't have much soldering experience. A little, but not much. I soldered some wires to install my headunit in the car...that's about all I have.) Here is the default layout on the Reefbreeders Value LED Fixture. "There are 2 different dimming channels, controlled by knobs on top of the fixture. Channel 1 consists of 13 4500K neutral whites, 6 480nm blue, 6 420nm violet, and 2 660nm deep reds. Channel 2 consists of 28 450nm royal blues, for a 14k output with both channels at maximum intensity." Link to comment
gulfsurfer101 Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 The thing works just fine and why would you even consider f*cking up a perfectly good fixture. Link to comment
ps2cho Posted March 23, 2014 Author Share Posted March 23, 2014 Really the only thing I am considering is replacing a few of the 4.5k to 10 and 14k to give a more crisper white. Just because something "works" doesn't mean its the best. Its called Value LED for a reason -- its an affordable, entry level LED. I'd love to get a Radion fixture, but its far outside the budget. On their FAQ's it states that replacing the LED's is a simple procedure, so its not like the fixture is being hacked apart. I don't see the big deal honestly. My question is really about performance. Will the switch from 4.5k to 10k&14k LED's improve growth, color and visual appearance? None of the higher priced LED units use neutral whites only. They use cool whites, or a mix. Link to comment
Paleoreef103 Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 Really the only thing I am considering is replacing a few of the 4.5k to 10 and 14k to give a more crisper white. My question is really about performance. Will the switch from 4.5k to 10k&14k LED's improve growth, color and visual appearance? None of the higher priced LED units use neutral whites only. They use cool whites, or a mix. Quite the opposite. Going from neutral whites to cool whites is a huge downgrade. Your greens won't suffer, but your oranges, reds, pinks, and yellows will. One of the major knocks on many prefab fixtures is that they use low CRI cool whites. Link to comment
cocojakes Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 I have to agree with Paleoreef, if you want it more blue, dim the whites and pump the blues, with that fixture you can really dial it in to whatever colour spectrum you want, you probably shouldn't have both channels at 100% anyway. I had the "same" fixture (had the photon 16, which is just the controllable version of that) over a 15gal tall, and never ran it past 50%. if you want a more blue colour, dim the white/colour channel. You COULD replace some of the whites, and it may help get that crisp white colour you want, but it will not be only for ascetics, won't be beneficial to your corals (will actually be slightly detrimental) Link to comment
bdevillier19 Posted March 23, 2014 Share Posted March 23, 2014 yeah dont swap out the warmer whites, cool whites do nothing for color compared to the warm and neutral whites Link to comment
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