To LED or not to LED?

It has been 5 months now since I first installed LED lights on one of the reef tanks at CleanMyAquarium.com. The lights I installed are 60 watts ea. consisting of either:
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XP-E white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (60 degree lens)
- 10 x 3 watt Cree XR-G white & 10 x 3 watt Cree 450nm Blue (90 degree lens)
Here is what I have witnesses thus far:
- The lights have a very strong intensity directly beneath the bulbs. The spread on these lights is not very good, creating dark areas in the corners and under the horizontal supports across the top of the tank. They do create a nice shimmer with enough turbulence on the surface of the water.
- SPS corals are exhibiting nice growth directly under the LED lamps. Corals just outside this intense zone are stable, but not showing much sign of growth. I believe the sps would soon die if left in the darker areas of the tank, so they have been removed.
- LPS & soft corals are reacting well throughout all areas of the tank, even demonstrating lengthy polyp extension in dark areas that read as low as 30 par (reaching for the light?).
- All corals have nice coloration...about equivalent to 14k halide lighting.
My conclusion is that to have a tank with lighting that is visually appealing with an even spread, energy efficient & healthy for all types of corals, I would suggest a mix of metal halide & LED lighting. I have now added metal halide lighting on a 5 hour schedule to supplement the LED's which are on a 12 hour (white) & 14 hour (blue) schedule. I will report back the progress in a few months.
Does anyone have a similar or different experience with these lights?

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