I've had my Hydra 51 and director for 1 week. I don't care for it and am sending it back. I had it over my three year old, 60 gallon, SPS dominated cube. It replaced a GMan Infinity fixture (1x250W DE, Pheonix 14K and 4, 24W, Blue Plus, ATI bulbs). The fixture seems so dim compared to my old lights. Here were my settings for most of the time. I kept changing them, well, because I could. That ability is great..if you can handle all the possibilities...I can't. RB-85, DB-80, R-20, G-20, UV-40, V-40, W-40. I ran this setup with a 30% acclimation reduction scheduled for 1 month.
The first thing I noticed is how dim they seemed. I would reduce the acclimation reduction to 20% then get scared and turn it back up. I also noticed that at 12" off the water, there was hardly any light getting to the back corners. I have coral wall-to-wall in this tank. I also didnt care for the shadowing.
So, this morning, I decided to get a RMA number from Marine Depot (Awesome business by the way), pack them up and send them back. I then put my old MH fixture back on. I noticed that all the coral in about an eight inch diameter circle in the very center of my tank were "frosted". That is, they were faded appearing to have a coat of frosting on them. I assume this is the start of bleaching from the LED's. Weird thing was though, my toadstool leather was completely elongated and bent towards the light which would indicate to me that it was "reaching" and thus deprived of light. I also had some various shrooms across the bottom "trumpeting" indicating they as well were light deprived.
Sorry for the long post but, it is my experience. Even though the Hydra seemed "dim" to me, it appears that there is light being emitted that we can't see. This look is not for me. I like a very bright tank. Even if thats "wasted" light, it is still what I prefer. So, my curiosity with LED's has been quenched and it has made me appreciate my MH's and T5's even more.
Dennis
