Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

There are so many subtopics here it gets confusing. I regret feeding the troll ...

IMO

LED's can color corals just fine if they can maintain the proper par, but the directional light means almost all of the nice colors can only be seen from the top down.

For the same amount of light, at least on a larger tank, a quality T5 fixture including annual bulb replacement is cheaper out to at least 5 years. As the tank gets smaller I think LED's become more cost effective, but I only ran numbers on my 72" tank. T5's light the top and sides of my corals and I think my SPS look a lot better. Subjective.

I never used MH, I can't take the heat, but I can certainly see why people like them who use a large tank wide reflector. For my money it's all about lighting up the sides of the sticks as well as the top so I can see the color from the front, where I enjoy the tank most.

To come in here and simply make a cost argument is to miss the entire point of the thread IMO.

To switch to halide without a proper tank wide reflector also misses the point, again IMO.

I think some people have argued LED can't color up corals as well as other light sources. I disagree unless the argument is specifically about coloration on the sides of the sticks. IMO putting a halide bulb over a tank with a small reflector is not much different from placing a LED puck over the tank. In this specific situation I can see how one might argue LED is superior, but then again it's subjective.
 
Actually, there are graphs that show a lot of very commonly used MH bulbs that show that spectrum does not noticeably shift over time, just output. Again, knowledge and learning might be good... or better yet, use some for a while and see.
 
d2mini, I would believe more of what you said if just about every manufacturer out there wasn't working on led's.
There are relatively few manufacturers working on LED's.

Now if you meant that just about every manufacturer is incorporating LED's into their product lineup somehow, congratulations, you've identified a trend. What it's supposed to prove, who knows. We're at the trial and error part of the product cycle. Where the market gets flooded with hundreds of products, half of which don't work as advertised. At this point, the fact that every manufacturer is jumping on the trend is a negative point for LED's, not a positive one.
 
There are relatively few manufacturers working on LED's.

Now if you meant that just about every manufacturer is incorporating LED's into their product lineup somehow, congratulations, you've identified a trend. What it's supposed to prove, who knows. We're at the trial and error part of the product cycle. Where the market gets flooded with hundreds of products, half of which don't work as advertised. At this point, the fact that every manufacturer is jumping on the trend is a negative point for LED's, not a positive one.

It's just a money grab for most. Jump on the wagon and ride as long as they can. None of them are making any strides on making LEDs better. They are just incorporating them better or making better software. Neither of which really benefit a tank/corals.

Make it shiny and market it. That's all they're doing at this point
 
I have a problem with a fixture that advertises 10 years and comes with a 1 year warranty.

Agreed. Why even make such a lofty burn life claim if you'll only give product support for 1/10 of that....after charging close to a grand to light. 18x18" area
 
I think you will probably see some changes in the next couple years with respect to LED's and reflectors. I personally know of one person/Company working on this right now. He is not working on it with anything reef in mind. He is a specialist in optics and light separation/refraction/reflection. He and his partners currently work on anti-counterfeiting and solar applications within their specialty. A friend of his came to him and asked him for an LED fixture that would replace a florescent fixture for industrial use and eliminate hotspots (sound familiar). He thinks he knows how to solve the problem and hopes to have something for his friend by late spring. I asked him how it could apply to our use and he did not see why it wouldn't. He is using micro lenses in both his currency anti-counterfeiting and solar applications. It sounded interesting and I hope to find out more at our next board meeting.
 
For those who don't know... Apologies as the examples are at 7 months, but the spectrum change is present. If you want to get into semantics of how much of a change is ok, I'm sure quite a bit.(but then aren't you supporting the led argument from those who like mh's saying led's aren't appropriate spectrum?! lol) But again, that isn't the original reasoning for the point I made on color shift. The goal, is to match the environment these creatures are from. Sure, they probably won't die, but I don't choose my personal favorites to skew the perception of what's "natural". I try my best, and try to pass on what I've learned.
http://wwwadvancedaquaristcom/2008/7/aafeature1

But yes, there's quite a few people who will argue preferences to feel better about their purchases. And people will always have their personal preferences to better fit their situation.
But a blanket statement like metal halides or t5's are a "better quality light" is nothing but hogwash.
If led's were indeed a very horrible, horrible choice? You probably wouldn't be able to find any successful reef tanks on the net and the market would have died after the first couple years and progressively faded out.

The new "thing" you might say, is led/t5 hybrids, which I've heard good things about, but still not a choice for many because they want to eliminate the costs of mh/t5. Remember, bulbs are not the only thing, in addition to initial cost, electricity, heat, algae provocation, evap will make you spend more money as well, and I remember that horrible amount of water I had to waste via the rodi unit to keep up with that evaporation. Electricity is a big thing until they come out with dimmable units. Given a dual 150w mh fixture with zero t5's, 300w x 6 hours a day, x 7 days a week, etc = 655,200 watts consumed per year. Given 2 led units that spit out 150w max per, if on a schedule, with intensity adjustments, and color adjustments, that amounts for A LOT of "lower running wattage time". Even if you had them cranked up full power all the time like mh's, you're not replacing bulbs except for even every 4 years, you're not approaching the heat output which can affect your house temp if you don't have a chiller, and you're not increasing evaporation to a similar degree like the heat output comparison.
I'm sorry but you can't ignore some parts of the equation when comparing things with a level and logical viewpoint.
 
Last edited:
For those who don't know... Apologies as the examples are at 7 months, but the change is present. If you want to get into semantics of how much of a change is ok, I'm sure quite a bit.(but then aren't you supporting the led argument from those who like mh's saying led's aren't appropriate spectrum?! lol) But again, that isn't the original reasoning for the point I made on color shift. The goal, is to match the environment these creatures are from. Sure, they probably won't die, but I don't choose my personal favorites to skew the perception of what's "natural". I try my best, and try to pass on what I've learned.
http://wwwadvancedaquaristcom/2008/7/aafeature1

But yes, there's quite a few people who will argue preferences to feel better about their purchases. And people will always have their personal preferences to better fit their situation.
But a blanket statement like metal halides or t5's are a "better quality light" is nothing but hogwash.
If led's were indeed a very horrible, horrible choice? You probably wouldn't be able to find any successful reef tanks on the net and the market would have died after the first couple years and progressively faded out.

The new "thing" you might say, is led/t5 hybrids, which I've heard good things about, but still not a choice for many because they want to eliminate the costs of mh/t5. Remember, bulbs are not the only thing, in addition to initial cost, electricity, heat, algae provocation, evap will make you spend more money as well, and I remember that horrible amount of water I had to waste via the rodi unit to keep up with that evaporation. Electricity is a big thing until they come out with dimmable units. Given a dual 150w mh fixture with zero t5's, 300w x 6 hours a day, x 7 days a week, etc = 655,200 watts consumed per year. Given 2 led units that spit out 150w max per, if on a schedule, with intensity adjustments, and color adjustments, that amounts for A LOT of "lower running wattage time". Even if you had them cranked up full power all the time like mh's, you're not replacing bulbs except for even every 4 years, you're not approaching the heat output which can affect your house temp if you don't have a chiller, and you're not increasing evaporation to a similar degree like the heat output comparison.
I'm sorry but you can't ignore some parts of the equation when comparing things with a level and logical viewpoint.

Please go back and read the thread.
All your points have already been discussed.
 
Please go back and read the thread.
All your points have already been discussed.

:)
Btw d2mini, it occurred to me:
running LED instead of MH is like feeding your kids McDonalds every day instead of fresh meats and vegetables cooked at home.

Are you saying the same wavelength of light from 2 different light sources is somehow different?
 
You do realize for most of us on here 655,200 watts cost is about $65.00 a year right? And replacing LED fixtures every two years is a little bit bigger expense? And although LEDS do not add heat to your tank, they do add heat to your room. Unless you try to use them in an enclosed canopy you find out real fast you need to exhaust the heat out or the led fixtures shut down. I work for an Electrical contractor we are seeing more and more LED fixtures, but on the commercial side we did not see an increase in demand until manufactures started issuing a 5 to 10 year warranty on parts and labor on there fixtures.
 
So, that is the cost to run a 250 watt MH for 7 hours per day, approximately.

As for adding heat to the room, there is a huge difference. I have two tanks in my living room, one on either side of a fireplace. They take the place of bookcases and the bookcases are "vented" up the back and into the room. I set these tanks up using 5 AI Sol Blu units over each initially. I was getting satisfactory results, but changed due to my concerns about not getting a full spectrum which made sense due to the white/blue only LED's in those units, but I swapped two of the AI units for two 250 watt MH pendants. I will tell you from actual first hand experience, the heat added to the room in nowhere near equal. It caused serious issues with how I then had to set our thermostats. It would be comfortable in the living room, but freezing in the kitchen, living room, family room and dining room. I recently (in the last several months) have gone back to five AI units (Hydra/SOL Blu/Hydra/SOL Blu/Hydra) and those issues have gone away. The tanks are also running a good 3-5 degrees cooler. That is my practical and actual experience, not hypothetical or theoretical.

I realize the difference in actual operating cost, but I also know there are other ancillary costs that are much harder to quantify. And that brings us all back the the subjective as well, which I refuse to debate any further.

It is not a black and white issue, no matter what everyone wants to debate, for the simple reason that everyone has a different set of priorities and circumstances.

I ran MH over my 450 gallon tank before I moved and sold it and had heat issues then as well, but living in Las Vegas did not help. Heat a big issue and electricity not cheap. They had a graduated scale where the more you used, the more you paid by kwh. So, living in a 7000 square foot house with a pool and five AC units got you to the highest tier pretty quick. Same thing for water ande with the evap rate associated with low humidity and MH, my water bill was at the highest tier as well. Things are much better here in NC. So, the "new" led user arguement does not apply to me. I used PC 15 years ago, MH (250 and 400, unsupplemented and supplemented) for 8 years and now LED. If I were going to change to anything else in the near future if these LED's do not work out for me, it will be a combination of T5 and LED.
 
Last edited:
Like Dennis, for me to put up leds over my tank Most recommend 2-4 fixtures. So 2 orpheks is 1800$, 4 radions are about 3000$ and a radium is 65.00$. That's a lot of radiums either way....halides are tested and proven and while there is no doubt that leds are the future, I think there is still room for improvement. TOTM, with leds do exist, but most have not had LEDs for too long as the technology is still new. I don't know of anyone that has had LEDs on their tank for 5+years.... That to me is when we have really had a breakthrough. Just my opinion tho.
While I do agree that sunlight varies throughout the day as far as intensity goes, I think most of our coral is farm raised, fragged, etc so they would do fine with same level of intensity all day because it's what they are used too. Once again tho, just my opinion.


Corey
 
For me, it's about heat avoidance and all the baggage that comes with it. I am willing to pay more to remove that out of the equation.
 
Vegas, you are exactly right, a factor that some seem to ignore are the ones not necessarily directly related to the tanks appearance. Like your situation, heat avoidance, chiller, etc


Corey
 
I'd rather deal with the heat (which there are cheaper ways of dealing with this than a chiller) than have crappy color and growth on my coral. As well as spending literally months trying to dial in a LED fixture. I just ditched 2 Radion G3 Pro's.

I'll be much happier with MH's.
 
I'd rather deal with the heat (which there are cheaper ways of dealing with this than a chiller) than have crappy color and growth on my coral. As well as spending literally months trying to dial in a LED fixture. I just ditched 2 Radion G3 Pro's.

I'll be much happier with MH's.

The heat is a plus for me. Cuts down on heater usage.

2x250w Radium + 4x54w T5s ends up slightly reducing net system electricity consumption vs an ATI 8x54w for me. If I ran the MHs a full 12 hours, it'd probably cancel out the benefit, but I imagine it'd still be pretty close.
 
:)
Btw d2mini, it occurred to me:
running LED instead of MH is like feeding your kids McDonalds every day instead of fresh meats and vegetables cooked at home.

Are you saying the same wavelength of light from 2 different light sources is somehow different?

As has already been said: Read the thread . . . it's already been discussed . . .

Light produced from an LED is NOT the same as light produced from metal halide or fluorescent lighting. We know precious little about how symbiodinium differ in their reactions to light from LED sources as few if any scientific papers have yet to be written on the subject.

Most light we are familiar with comes from hot gases or hot pieces of metal that give off "excited" photons. The spectrum produced is broad in nature as the photons have many different wavelengths. That spectrum is not identical to the spectrum of sunlight, but it is broad in nature.

LEDs are Light Emitting Diodes. They use a microscopic "junction" called a PN junction. These "junctions" have a "band gap" or "forward energy gap". That "gap" determines the wavelength of the photon produced and does not change. LEDs by their nature produce photons of almost identical wavelength. LEDs do not produce a broad spectrum of wavelengths. In addition most dimming of LED light is done with Pulse Width Modulation. What that means is that the LED sends out a burst of maximum intensity for a fraction of a second and then turns completely off and the frequency at which that occurs determines the "brightness" of the LED. So imagine a fire hydrant that turns on for 1 second versus a sprinkler that runs for an hour. We don't know if symbiodinium react to the on/off fire hose the same as it does to a continuously running sprinkler.

Light is highly complex and comes in many many forms. It is a wave and it is a particle. It can be visible and it can be invisible. The point is LED light is NOT the same as metal halide light and we have little knowledge on how light from LEDs may or may not change the way symbiodinium react. Many advanced reefers have a LOT of experience in seeing real world differences in the way corals react to different light sources.

In the end this is a hobby and you should enjoy the light you prefer. I have tried LED and prefer metal halide.

and here is a quote from "Lunar" who has arguably the nicest tank in the world and his words on what LED light did in his tank . . .

I like all ATI lamps a lot. ATI hybrid fixture seemed a good idea for me, nice blicks again, many ways to arranging lights. However, I noticed after some months that not all my corals like leds light. The more delicate acroporas started to loose their vibrant colour.

Krzysztof
 
Back
Top