Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[jda]

Radiated watts and coverage.

It takes about three panels (or more kessils) to put out the radiated watts that a single 250W mogul halide does - probably more with HQI or a 400W halide. In terms of radiated watts, there are no efficiencies where the LED and MH each put out about what they pull in... some more and some less.

The reflector and spread is another issue, which we are all aware of. He spoke a bit about this at MACNA.

I totally get that people might not need all the watts that they had before, but if you needed and wanted 400W MH, then you will likely need 3 panels to replace them. The people that are perfectly happy with one panel over a 2x2 area probably should have been using 150W HQI, or the like.

 

[Wazzel]

Jim, this is an interesting discussion because I think we are going to see a change in the recommended amount of LEDs over a tank. Just as an example, I had the recommended amount of 4 Radions over my 200g tank. But if money was no object and I was doing it again, I would double it. At least. You have all that power directly under the puck, and then the light drops off SHARPLY. So the light coverage ends up being so uneven across the tank, contributing to many of the problems we see people complaining about. Now if I did double it, I might be able to reduce power a little bit, but not much if the coral that were previously directly under the pucks where liking all that light. And not many people run their LEDs at 100% so you can't go by max power consumption if that's the case, plus all the time that you spend ramping up and down. But my point is that I think we are going to find out that we need to utilize more power for LED than we originally thought. Probably still less, but the gap will lessen.

I agree with you on the coverage/spread aspect Dennis. It is the only thing I am disappointed with on my hydra52. I am getting good growth and nice color, so far. There are a couple of pieces that are caught in funky shadows due to my scape that would not have been there if I had used MH or tubes.

AI and Echotech could help out the problem by going to double rows of pucks, kind of like what AI was doing with the Sol. That would help some.

 

[Bryopsis]

Don't think I'll ever consider metal halides again.

On top of that, the best coral I've ever seen were under t5's.

 

[Wazzel]

Don't think I'll ever consider metal halides again.

On top of that, the best coral I've ever seen were under t5's.

When T-5's first hit the market they got lots of criticism for making corals look unnatural, not growing fast enough, not as good as MH, etc. Sound familure?

 

[DavidinGA]

When T-5's first hit the market they got lots of criticism for making corals look unnatural, not growing fast enough, not as good as MH, etc. Sound familure?

Yeah, no doubt leds will get it done...someday too.

 

[Fredfish]

Yes it is doing fine, color is as good or better then ever. It is recovering a bit as I had a big alk bounce and burned a couple things.

The LED vs MH watt per unit discussion is interesting as I have removed 2 of the sols and I am now down to just 4. I am using two Buildmyled full spectrum strips on the front and back of the tank. They are on only as the AIs ramp up and down ...

Thanks for the reply Jim. Its interesting to hear how your system is progressing over time. Coral colouration is a complex topic. Light quality and intensity is only part of the puzzle.

Light spread with LEDs is an interesting challenge. I suspect there is a more optimum cluster size for leds to improve on spread.

 

[jda]

When T-5's first hit the market they got lots of criticism for making corals look unnatural, not growing fast enough, not as good as MH, etc. Sound familure?

There were also tons and tons of fanboys who did most/all of their homework online, aggressively defended what they purchased (because they purchased it) with no real basis for comparison and labeled anybody a "hater" who knew that it could be better. This delayed development of better stuff (bulbs mostly... which needed to happen) since people were buying based on recommendations of mostly the inexperienced and biased and there was little reason for true change.

Sound familiar?

This same thing happened with high temp MH bulbs too, if any of you all go back that far...

 

[Wazzel]

There were also tons and tons of fanboys who did most/all of their homework online, aggressively defended what they purchased (because they purchased it) with no real basis for comparison and labeled anybody a "hater" who knew that it could be better. This delayed development of better stuff (bulbs mostly... which needed to happen) since people were buying based on recommendations of mostly the inexperienced and biased and there was little reason for true change.

Sound familiar?

This same thing happened with high temp MH bulbs too, if any of you all go back that far...

Yes it does sound familiar. New tech takes a little while to get adapted and to prove itself.

I remember some of the issues with high color temp lamps. I think I came in on the back side of that one. Am I showing my age if I tell you I remember some of the same comments being made about radium lamps?

 

[power boat jim]

Thanks for the reply Jim. Its interesting to hear how your system is progressing over time. Coral colouration is a complex topic. Light quality and intensity is only part of the puzzle.

I guess I never thought of it as progressing over time but you are correct. I have made numerous changes over the 3+ year with LEDs. Some changes made it better some did nothing some didnt work out at all. The one constant has been keeping the sols.

I understand why some people dont like LEDs, it has taken much tweeking and trying different combinations to finally get where Im at now. It should not take this much effort to get things to work as complete as this set up does now. Mh still is the easiest to use.

 

[JPMagyar]

Don't think I'll ever consider metal halides again.

On top of that, the best coral I've ever seen were under t5's.

Oh really . . .

 

[Bpb]

Yes it does sound familiar. New tech takes a little while to get adapted and to prove itself.

I remember some of the issues with high color temp lamps. I think I came in on the back side of that one. Am I showing my age if I tell you I remember some of the same comments being made about radium lamps?

While I don't go back that far in the hobby I have read a lot of what you speak about. When I was researching what halides to go with I read a lot of old threads and reviews. From archives online going back as early as 2001.

EVERYONE swore that radium lamps, or anything above 10k will never grow coral and will only make tanks look like windex. Funny even seeing comments of people switching to xm and ushio 10k bulbs from the iwasaki 6500k talking about how ugly and blue the 10k bulbs were and how coral growth will likely be abysmal.

Funny.

 

[Wazzel]

While I don't go back that far in the hobby I have read a lot of what you speak about. When I was researching what halides to go with I read a lot of old threads and reviews. From archives online going back as early as 2001.

EVERYONE swore that radium lamps, or anything above 10k will never grow coral and will only make tanks look like windex. Funny even seeing comments of people switching to xm and ushio 10k bulbs from the iwasaki 6500k talking about how ugly and blue the 10k bulbs were and how coral growth will likely be abysmal.

Funny.

If you stick around long enough you can see it agin the next time a new tech gets introduced.

 

[codyreed29]

Well after running ati t5ho and leds. I would say that I liked the t5ho more and to make a comment on the best color corals being under t5ho is because of the better and different spectrums of t5ho more color spectrum from 400 nm to 660 nm is going to make more colorful colored corals.

To be honest my diy days are done as to 250 watts of metal halide and 4 different t5ho bulbs for growth and color it's a very high mark to beat that I just don't think leds have quite gotten to maybe in another 3 to 5 years.

 

[markalot]

At the risk of beating a dead horse ...

I like LED's but without even seeing a Halide bulb, or using one, I am a firm believer that it can make corals look better at light levels we prefer.

Why?

20K spectrum

In my opinion the secret to proper success with LED is the addition if wavelengths our eyes are most sensitive too at the proper amounts so when it appears bright enough to our eyes it's also the correct light level for the corals.

As it stands now when many older and some of the cheaper LED fixtures are turned up bright enough to suit us they are frying the corals. It's that little extra bump at the proper spectrum that helps make most of the older technology lighting just work, and work well.

Let's look at the spectrum of what I use, the Maxspect Razor.

Hmmm. The green is elevated, but so is everything else around it, so to make it bright enough to my eyes I'm bringing in a bunch of other frequencies that are not present in the halide bulb.

ATI Coral+

ATI Blue+

There's that green peak again. Lots of science and research went into these bulbs, a lot of which was apparently abandon when the first gen of LED was introduced. I wonder why the goal was not to reproduce the spectrum of something that works as close as possible?

I think the future of LED fixtures is to add diodes that give a significant boost to the 540nm - 560nm spectrum to increase the magical green peak. A lot of people who know more than me are excited about the new Lime LED because it is BRIGHT to the eye. Put this on the white channel and it forces people to turn down the channel because it's too bright. :bounce3:

 

[Wazzel]

You can get a green spike with the Hydra52 if you are not afraid to turn the green and white up a little. I got one on mine, but I run my green at 70% and white at 88% unlike most.

IMO the truth on conversation like this is somewhere between the fanboys and the naysayers.

 

[jda]

By the 2000s, high temp bulbs were quite good. I am speaking more of around the early 1990s when somebody was wanting to do better than hydroponics daylight MH bulbs that only went to 6500K.

What you can learn from those old discussions is that the people who said that the new stuff was not yet good enough were totally right. They are still right today - the sooner that people realize this, the sooner that they will eventually get good enough.

 

[Fredfish]

By the 2000s, high temp bulbs were quite good. I am speaking more of around the early 1990s when somebody was wanting to do better than hydroponics daylight MH bulbs that only went to 6500K.

What you can learn from those old discussions is that the people who said that the new stuff was not yet good enough were totally right. They are still right today - the sooner that people realize this, the sooner that they will eventually get good enough.

What do you define as good enough?

 

[fewponds]

Apparently there is no technology to produce 550nm led suitable for commertial use, not only for laboratory studies. 550 nm diode means more indium concentration in InGaN/GaN LED structure (more then 520nm green led has) and it looks like science needs new break through to achieve this...

 

[muttley101]

Oh really . . .

Great husbandry! Glad I switched back to halides/t5's.... What T5 bulbs are you using?

 

[JPMagyar]

Great husbandry! Glad I switched back to halides/t5's.... What T5 bulbs are you using?

Thanks!

I have switched around a little in the last 8 or 9 months all in an attempt to optimize the color on my growing colony of Red Planet which for me has so far been an almost Red Planet. Anyways, at the moment I am using 4 Giesemann True Actinic + 4 ATI Aquablue Specials with four 250 watt Radiums. The True Actinics are on from 8AM to 10PM. The ATI's are on from 10AM to 8PM, and the Radiums run Noon to 6.