Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[muttley101]

Shenanigans.

Hijinks are not quite there yet. Maybe some day. But for now I'm sticking with tried and true shenanigans. :lol:

Lmao!

 

[jestronix]

I know it's been pointed out but I wanted to chime in. I'll say it a few times. Love the spirit of the experiment of mh vs led in a closed system. Good stuff. The experiment done by vivid aquariums is stellar and executed wonderfully.

I know the poster on here with the d120 and the mh shop light is just having a little fun but let's be honest...even the biggest mh supporters will pick the led in this showdown. I don't think the argument has ever been "the cheapest most useless and low wattage mh unit will smoke the best led unit all day".

To equalize quality a bit, instead of battling stoplight vs d120, go get one or two of the utilitech led strips from lowes or Home Depot. People use those on planted tanks and fw fish only tanks all the time. That or maybe a Marineland single brite led unit. Or replace the mh unit with a mogul pendant and coralife ballast and a pllusrite 20k bulb or something. Cheap but appropriate vs cheap but appropriate. Not cheap but appropriate vs nobody in the world would use this for sps.

Just saying. Love the experiment, but because of the extreme disparity in usefulness of the competitors, I wouldn't even expect the anecdotal results to be useful

Going back a few years ago I remember some of the top brands selling all in one halide/t5 units with 150w halides in them, Most people talk of these 150w halides /shopfitter units as useless, but is this more depth penetration issue than the wattage? Are 150w bulbs out putting rubbish spectrums / PAR or? I was under the impression a 150w over 1foot of water should be ok ? The makers of these bulbs give all the same spectrum output information and charge quiet a lot for the high end bulbs in this range. My light is a few inches off the water as well, these frags should be getting enough light?. If this were a 24 or 36" depth tank I wouldn't have ever considered the 150w. As for a test I was looking for something comparable to the wattage for the LED unit, 150 vs 120w, running the LEDs at half that for an efficiency aspect.

 

[jda]

150w halides were used cheap Chinese light units, and some others, with cheap ballasts that gave so-so results. Good 150w HQI units with M81 ballasts are the real deal and provide light about equivalent to 250W Mogul on Electronic ballasts. I would not use them too much deeper than 20-22 inches for growing SPS, but they make excellent lights for a mixed reef even deeper than that.

One of the great things about them is that you can get 20K Radium and 14K Phoenix bulbs in 150W DE.

 

[Bpb]

Going back a few years ago I remember some of the top brands selling all in one halide/t5 units with 150w halides in them, Most people talk of these 150w halides /shopfitter units as useless, but is this more depth penetration issue than the wattage? Are 150w bulbs out putting rubbish spectrums / PAR or? I was under the impression a 150w over 1foot of water should be ok ? The makers of these bulbs give all the same spectrum output information and charge quiet a lot for the high end bulbs in this range. My light is a few inches off the water as well, these frags should be getting enough light?. If this were a 24 or 36" depth tank I wouldn't have ever considered the 150w. As for a test I was looking for something comparable to the wattage for the LED unit, 150 vs 120w, running the LEDs at half that for an efficiency aspect.

True there have been a lot of success stories with combo fixtures with tiny reflectors. Can't argue there.

 

[jestronix]

150w halides were used cheap Chinese light units, and some others, with cheap ballasts that gave so-so results. Good 150w HQI units with M81 ballasts are the real deal and provide light about equivalent to 250W Mogul on Electronic ballasts. I would not use them too much deeper than 20-22 inches for growing SPS, but they make excellent lights for a mixed reef even deeper than that.

One of the great things about them is that you can get 20K Radium and 14K Phoenix bulbs in 150W DE.

and some others like the "Giesemann Infiniti 1 x 150W + 4 x 24W", I do know lots of cheap Chinese lights also used them, id say the Geisemann ones were M81 ballasts, making a difference.

 

[TreyK]

It would seem you haven't read the thread either, or if you did, you failed to understand. There are plenty of gorgeous LED lit tanks, and most of us do not have our heads hurried in the sand. How would you explain the numerous people who have noticed better coloration after dumping their LEDs and going back to conventional lighting?

Most of the nice Halide lit tanks I see do not look near as good as the nice LED lit tanks I see. T5 setups are a different story. As most have pointed out, it is the inconvenience/ cost of replacing bulbs that I dislike with T5. I personally would rather spend the money up front and then not have to worry about silly things like replacing bulbs... and at the same time have complete control over the spectrum and intensity throughout the day. I did read most of this thread btw...

 

[FranktheTankTx]

How high would you have to hang a Geisemann Spectra 1 x 250w MH to avoid heat issues?

 

[Bpb]

How high would you have to hang a Geisemann Spectra 1 x 250w MH to avoid heat issues?

Depends on ambient temperature and airflow. I use 2x250 watt halides over a 90 gallon inside a canopy. Hung roughly 10" off the water with a single 6" clip fan inside the canopy. Tank temp tops out at 79 when the lights are on. Ambient room temp stays around 74 degrees annually

 

[Incaico]

I really want to switch to LEDs but I think I am going to stay with halides and add some LEDs for color.

 

[FranktheTankTx]

Depends on ambient temperature and airflow. I use 2x250 watt halides over a 90 gallon inside a canopy. Hung roughly 10" off the water with a single 6" clip fan inside the canopy. Tank temp tops out at 79 when the lights are on. Ambient room temp stays around 74 degrees annually

I recall running a 250w pendant over an open top & never having issues with heat. This new tank would be open top again - thinking 10-12" awl would be fine. I keep thermostat 73-75 degrees in house.

 

[Jaffy]

led.

 

[markalot]

I setup my very first Halide lamp over a small tank. I'm using the Phoenix 14K DE bulb. Very nice blue, a blue I am not able to achieve with LED, and nice less 'frantic' shimmer.

I really think the secret to LED, other than improved spectrum, is to use it like T5 and not like Halide. Multiple strips lighting corals on the top and sides to make up for the lack of reflectors.

I'm preparing to run my nano tank with a single 150W MH and some LED supplementation once I get a better fixture. It will keep the basement nice and warm for the winter.

 

[sanchoy]

Led all rig way here

 

[overexposed]

Since switching to MH I'm getting a serious lesson in what coral colouration really means. With LED, I thought my corals were really colourful - they'd had a very nice glow to them!! Immediately after installing the MH pendants I was disappointed because I thought it was making all my corals look brown and lifeless. Well, it was, but only because that's what they actually were!! I'm now just over a month in with the halide lamps and my corals are still adjusting. Some have bleached a little bit, and I am still waiting for them to come around, but the rest have begun to show their true colours. I didn't really notice it until I looked into the tank while the lights were off one day - mu corals had always looked brown in the dark under no lights, but now they weren't! My blue corals actually looked blue, my purple stag purple, and my green corals green.

The are no longer simply florescing, they are actually colouring up. It's fascinating to watch this change occur. I'm in the process of upgrading to a bigger tank and now that I've been sold on MH I plan to build the new canopy with 400 watt fixtures in it.

 

[d2mini]

I recall running a 250w pendant over an open top & never having issues with heat. This new tank would be open top again - thinking 10-12" awl would be fine. I keep thermostat 73-75 degrees in house.

My old cube ran a single 250 DE MH and 4 T5's and i needed a heater at night. No chiller, no excessive heat. It was an open top rimless tank with the fixture hanging around 10-14" off the water.

led.

That was informative.

I really think the secret to LED, other than improved spectrum, is to use it like T5 and not like Halide. Multiple strips lighting corals on the top and sides to make up for the lack of reflectors.

Yes, led lit tanks need MUCH more coverage than originally though, IMHO.

Led all rig way here

I don't speak pig latin. Come again?

 

[markalot]

Since switching to MH I'm getting a serious lesson in what coral colouration really means. With LED, I thought my corals were really colourful - they'd had a very nice glow to them!! Immediately after installing the MH pendants I was disappointed because I thought it was making all my corals look brown and lifeless. Well, it was, but only because that's what they actually were!! I'm now just over a month in with the halide lamps and my corals are still adjusting. Some have bleached a little bit, and I am still waiting for them to come around, but the rest have begun to show their true colours. I didn't really notice it until I looked into the tank while the lights were off one day - mu corals had always looked brown in the dark under no lights, but now they weren't! My blue corals actually looked blue, my purple stag purple, and my green corals green.

The are no longer simply florescing, they are actually colouring up. It's fascinating to watch this change occur. I'm in the process of upgrading to a bigger tank and now that I've been sold on MH I plan to build the new canopy with 400 watt fixtures in it.

What kind of LED lights were you using? I think that's an important part of the conversation. I believe there are two issues. Point source lighting and spectrum. It's nice to know what LED lights were in use that produced the bad colors. I'm using Maxspect Razors and BML strips. No great color yet, except from the top, and I have nothing to compare that too.

 

[d2mini]

Since switching to MH I'm getting a serious lesson in what coral colouration really means. With LED, I thought my corals were really colourful - they'd had a very nice glow to them!! Immediately after installing the MH pendants I was disappointed because I thought it was making all my corals look brown and lifeless. Well, it was, but only because that's what they actually were!! I'm now just over a month in with the halide lamps and my corals are still adjusting. Some have bleached a little bit, and I am still waiting for them to come around, but the rest have begun to show their true colours. I didn't really notice it until I looked into the tank while the lights were off one day - mu corals had always looked brown in the dark under no lights, but now they weren't! My blue corals actually looked blue, my purple stag purple, and my green corals green.

The are no longer simply florescing, they are actually colouring up. It's fascinating to watch this change occur. I'm in the process of upgrading to a bigger tank and now that I've been sold on MH I plan to build the new canopy with 400 watt fixtures in it.

I had gotten into it with some people many pages back (or maybe it was a different thread) on this and maybe you did a better job of explaining it but this is exactly what I was talking about when trying to say there is a difference between how a coral looks under led vs the actual color of the coral. I couldn't seem to get my point across. People are always blown away by that black light fluorescence of LED but I don't like that really blue look, so when running a more white spectrum many of my sps looked brown. Because they were brown. But after switching back to MH, these brown coral colored up and look great.

And not just coral. I have also gotten comments about how great the colors of my fish look. They have natural, bright, accurate colors.

 

[overexposed]

What kind of LED lights were you using? I think that's an important part of the conversation. I believe there are two issues. Point source lighting and spectrum. It's nice to know what LED lights were in use that produced the bad colors. I'm using Maxspect Razors and BML strips. No great color yet, except from the top, and I have nothing to compare that too.

I had been using a DIY setup since the tanks inception back in March 2013. The fixture included 105 led point sources spread out over the surface area of my 90 gallon tank. Total wattage of LEDs was approximately 315 watts. I estimated that my fixture was approximately the equivalent of 2 hydra 52s, but with a wider spread because I utilized 120 degree optics. I used 405 nm, 425 nm, 450 nm (royal blues), red green blue multichips, and neutral whites. So about as full spectrum as I could get. The overall tank colour was nearly identical to what I am now experiencing under 2 250 watt DE XM 20k's with a single 250 watt radium in the middle. PAR was a little less, at the sandbed I was seeing 150 vs 250 now.

And it's funny, I never would have made the switch if it wasn't for the fact that about 1/3rd of my diodes quit on me. I was happy enough with them because I had no experience with any other lights.

My fish colours are pretty much the same due to my led fixture not being overwhelming in the blue spectrum, despite my ratio of violet to blues to white being approximately 2:3:1. I think the RGB chips combined with the neutral white as opposed to cool white helped to balance the colour.

 

[rgulrich]

@overexposed - just wait until the magentas and pinks start showing up! I've replaced my primary LEDs (Razors) with 250W Halides originally due to tank depth, but now the rest of the coral is starting color shift to some amazing hues.

 

[power boat jim]

.




Yes, led lit tanks need MUCH more coverage than originally though, IMHO.


?

Interesting observation. Over the last couple months have removed 3 of the six AIs I had been running. I still have two 5 foot full spectrum led strips on the front and back of the tank with the sols running lenghtwise down the tank center. Coverage is provided on as many angles as possible with this configuration. Intensity however, has been cut nearly in half during most of the day.

Coral color has become more intense under this regime. I am now seeing multiple colors on some corals as before they had only one color. I dont know if it is entirely due to light as I have managed to get everything stable for the last couple months waterwise. This is the first time in the 3 plus years since I installed the LEDs that corals have developed multi-colors though.