Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[jestronix]

Interesting to see other people experiencing the same thing. I think as the hobby goes on corals that do well under LED will be fragged and become more popular, making LED more successful in appearance. Halide is now days for the more dedicated reefer that has experienced and seen what halide and T5 can do. anyone getting into the hobby now will most commonly start with LED, in fact I don't think I've seen any LFS selling halide lights for a few years now.

Our local LFS which I've gone to for 10 years or so has a huge show tank, I've watched them make the move to LED. I've been there and seen people come up to the tank and go wow this is incredible! I always chuckle quietly and think "u should have seen this tank under halides !" But they are amazed and I'm sure buy some new G5s for their tank and are probably very happy for many years.

I think LEDs are outright the most beautiful looking light, at night they transform the tank softly and u can do so with unlimited tuning to exactly what u want. This is why I run 10K Hamilton in the day, pure growth and health with halide in the day and led for evening viewing.

I think there will be some new full spectrum led or new tech that will come out in the next decade that will transform the hobby again and perhaps beat halide and T5. I actually thought plasma LEP was going to be that light! But expense, heat and a very accurate yellow sun colour stopped it being popular. It's true full spectrum completely!

 

[shred5]

Interesting to see other people experiencing the same thing. I think as the hobby goes on corals that do well under LED will be fragged and become more popular, making LED more successful in appearance. Halide is now days for the more dedicated reefer that has experienced and seen what halide and T5 can do. anyone getting into the hobby now will most commonly start with LED, in fact I don't think I've seen any LFS selling halide lights for a few years now.

Our local LFS which I've gone to for 10 years or so has a huge show tank, I've watched them make the move to LED. I've been there and seen people come up to the tank and go wow this is incredible! I always chuckle quietly and think "u should have seen this tank under halides !" But they are amazed and I'm sure buy some new G5s for their tank and are probably very happy for many years.

I think LEDs are outright the most beautiful looking light, at night they transform the tank softly and u can do so with unlimited tuning to exactly what u want. This is why I run 10K Hamilton in the day, pure growth and health with halide in the day and led for evening viewing.

I think there will be some new full spectrum led or new tech that will come out in the next decade that will transform the hobby again and perhaps beat halide and T5. I actually thought plasma LEP was going to be that light! But expense, heat and a very accurate yellow sun colour stopped it being popular. It's true full spectrum completely!

That is what is happening that is why Jason fox who uses almost all blue and world wide corals have become so popular. Not a cut on Jason Fox or WWC either they are selling what sells. They sell some corals that are brown or light in color but are highly fluorescent under the royal blue leds. I just can not handle all that blue it is unnatural and looks terrible.. Ever since people learned to use orange/yellow filters for their cameras you see these incredible pictures. Take for instance the Walt Disney coral, it is not attractive under 10-14 k at all. it is very washed out and would not have been looked at twice 10 years ago.


There are so many advantages to leds but the one thing they can not do is bring out the max real color of a sps.

Led do allot better than they used to and are improving. Still self shading is a issue and I think that is the reason you do not see many full colonies much any more. Allot of the tanks look more like a frag tank with way to many small coral plastered all over the tank. To compensate people have to add allot of fixtures and for best result mount some angled.

People are just taken advantage of the short comings of leds.

Not my tank so I really do not care, to each his own. I understand the want for led.

People should do what they want to do and enjoy.

Just funny how people fall for trends though and have so many excuses to defend them.. I remember when t-5 became popular people said they hated them because of no shimmer. Now I see people going back to t-5 because they hate shimmer of like the kessils. I remember when Iwasaki was the bulb of choice and it was 6500k everyone loved them, then when people started using the Radium bulbs people hated them they looked too blue and dim.

You know I have been in the hobby so long I do not really care to each his own. As long as people are providing the care their animals need.

i run t-5 with kessil with more white than blue somewhere aroud 10 to 12 k... Why? it is the closest to halides without being halides. I get lots of shimmer and the t-5 take care of self shading issues. I love halides but prefer the lower energy cost. I might run them in the future though again who knows. I would love Iwasakis with led strips for a little pop.

 

[markalot]

I'm hybrid T5/LED. I don't have high end acros in my tank but the ones I have are colored well ... but I find I have to run T5 for 5 hours daily to maintain healthy. No clue if this is a par thing, or a coverage thing, or just acclimation. I can make up the PAR with the LED but they don't like it.

I assume it's spectrum and that I can duplicate the coral performance by tweaking the LED's, I have the coverage, but it won't look good to my eyes. I need the green spike in the T5's to make the tank bright enough and white enough for my taste.

 

[heritage]

I switched back to T5's several years ago and never looked back. I'll run them till the day they decide to stop making bulbs.

 

[Bpb]

I switched back to T5's several years ago and never looked back. I'll run them till the day they decide to stop making bulbs.

Same here. I'll admit. I like the royal blue only crazy colors. I like that real life photoshopped look. But not all day. I'll always run t5ho until they're not available any longer. They're so cheap to replace and they last so long


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[heritage]

Same here. I'll admit. I like the royal blue only crazy colors. I like that real life photoshopped look. But not all day. I'll always run t5ho until they're not available any longer. They're so cheap to replace and they last so long


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Same here, I always changed bulbs around the 15 month mark with the blues running around 10 hours a day and white at 5 hours a day.

I tried dimming them for a year with the same times and by the 9 month mark my yellow tang was no longer yellow but green, so I stick to on, off and get 15 months out of them.

 

[Reefpuck]

I dropped LEDs for T5s for several reasons...but LEDs still provide great supplemental light IMO. I'll never go back to MHs though. Too much heat.

 

[jestronix]

Sitting here looking at my tank lit up with a Hamilton 10k bulb, suddenly I'm seeing a true yellow tang, true red clowns, add some blue led and now I'm getting fluorescence and all the rest. Halide gets hot, but dam i love the look!

I'm also leaning on maybe getting LEP plasma, something i still think is an amazing true spectrum light. Which on further research actually pushes way less heat into the tank. Though the unit runs hot.

 

[Tripod1404]

Sitting here looking at my tank lit up with a Hamilton 10k bulb, suddenly I'm seeing a true yellow tang, true red clowns, add some blue led and now I'm getting fluorescence and all the rest. Halide gets hot, but dam i love the look!

I'm also leaning on maybe getting LEP plasma, something i still think is an amazing true spectrum light. Which on further research actually pushes way less heat into the tank. Though the unit runs hot.

I think there were some trails for LEP plasma light on reef tanks few years ago. People in the trail groups gave up on them due to intense yellow color they generate. Some also reported it caused SPS corals to brown. Unless someone makes LEP plasma with colder spectrum, I dont see a future in that.

And all this comes down weather it is profitable to produce such a light. Sales for bulbs used in saltwater aquarium industry is a drop in the ocean compared to the entire bulb production industry. No body will produce a specific line of bulbs designed exclusively to be used for growing corals. ATI for instance uses rebranded sylvania bulbs. There was some talk at Macna couple of years ago that it is actually possible to produce a single full spectrum T5HO bulb that mimics the light coral reefs get, say at 20 meter. But no such bulb is being produced because no major fluorescent light producer wants to invest in a bulb that would have a very limited and specific consumer target. The bulbs we get in this hobby are mostly used in a variety of different industries, for different purposes, under different names. At best what we get are mixtures of two bulbs, which are relatively cheap to manufacture.

And this all relates to MH because no will be producing MH lights in 10 years. Even if there will still be demand from saltwater aquarium industry, that demand is not large enough to make it profitable to produce MH bulbs. Metal halide light are being phased out in all major industries that use them, they simply produce too much heat and are inefficient. Also, production and waste management of MH bulbs is getting more expensive due to handling of toxic mercury and other heavy metals.

 

[jda]

Please. I have already been hearing for ten years already that nobody was going to be making MH bulbs in ten years. Instead, there is new MH tech coming out right now.

Until LED are an ACTUAL replacement, there are still massive amounts of people who use T5 and MH. Heck, there is still enough of a demand for VHO that they are made still just for the aquarium industry - people have been prematurely calling for the death of VHO for probably 15 years.

PEC stopped making 14k phoenix bulbs, and then started again after they realized their error. Hamilton just designed new bulbs. ReefBrite also has new bulbs on the market. Giesemann too. If anything, MH is making a resurgence. All of this is just for reefing. Most of these are improved bulbs. What happened is that MH got stale and this is where PC (they were once the heir-apparent), T5 and LED took over... companies jumped on these bandwagons... but in the last few years some people have grown tired of the never ending promises of LED manufacturers so some manufacturers saw the increase in MH sales, innovated and came up with some really good new bulbs. Have you not seen these new bulbs? These companies would not have done the R&D if there were not customers to buy them. Some of these bulbs are supposedly very low on IR and have significantly less heat (this will upset me since I live in Colorado and love the heat).

While true that Radium 20k was an import from another purpose/industry, there are a lot of bulbs that are made just for reefing.

If somebody wanted to tell me that everybody will be using dual/tri acr MH over their tanks in 10 years, then I might believe that.

 

[Tripod1404]

Please. I have already been hearing for ten years already that nobody was going to be making MH bulbs in ten years. Instead, there is new MH tech coming out right now.

Until LED are an ACTUAL replacement, there are still massive amounts of people who use T5 and MH. Heck, there is still enough of a demand for VHO that they are made still just for the aquarium industry - people have been prematurely calling for the death of VHO for probably 15 years.

PEC stopped making 14k phoenix bulbs, and then started again after they realized their error. Hamilton just designed new bulbs. ReefBrite also has new bulbs on the market. Giesemann too. If anything, MH is making a resurgence. All of this is just for reefing. Most of these are improved bulbs. What happened is that MH got stale and this is where PC (they were once the heir-apparent), T5 and LED took over... companies jumped on these bandwagons... but in the last few years some people have grown tired of the never ending promises of LED manufacturers so some manufacturers saw the increase in MH sales, innovated and came up with some really good new bulbs. Have you not seen these new bulbs? These companies would not have done the R&D if there were not customers to buy them. Some of these bulbs are supposedly very low on IR and have significantly less heat (this will upset me since I live in Colorado and love the heat).

While true that Radium 20k was an import from another purpose/industry, there are a lot of bulbs that are made just for reefing.

If somebody wanted to tell me that everybody will be using dual/tri acr MH over their tanks in 10 years, then I might believe that.

MH lights are intrinsically heat generating due the fact that bulbs need to be hot to function. You can reduce the heat produced by IR, but that doesn't make run cold. It just prevents them from heating the environment with IR.

I work at an research institution that developed genetically modified plants, we used to order 200+ MH bulbs a year, we (or anyone who grows plants in greenhouses) no longer order new MHs. All is being replaced with LEDs. And you might like heat generated by MH in your house, but in a green house, or factory, or depot where tens of MH bulbs are running in a small space, the added cost of cooling is significant. And it is much cheaper to heat something than cooling it.I will not even go into storage and waste procedure of used bulbs due to mercury. Even all major captive coral growers that use artificial lights are switching to LEDs or T5s. No body would use a Giesemann megachrome bulb that costs $100. This is what happens when something is produced for a small consumer base, it gets ridiculous expensive comparable to similar products. A phoenix 14k that is mass produced is half the price of Giesemann megachrome. Lower the sales, more expensive individual bulbs will get, until it becomes unprofitable. And 14k phoenix bulb production probably restarted because they converted their facilities that produced other types of MH bulbs to this, this is a classical way how phase outs are made. You switch production to goods that still have a market while gradually phasing out non selling ones. This way production equipment and facilities are at least utilized as they are slowly being replaced. Most of those new MH tech were probably already known, they probably just didn't apply it to products since it used to made the bulbs more expensive and not attractive for widespread use. Since now a MH bulbs are more expensive and serve to a specific consumer base that is willing to pay more, producing MH bulbs with new tech become profitable, for now.

MHs always had a small market share and the moment the market gets even smaller nobody will produce them. I am not talking about lights for aquariums here, I am talking about light bulb industry as a whole. Some hobbits buying 4 bulbs a year is nothing compared to thousands bought by some large horticulture and agriculture companies. Just look at all those companies you listed how many new MH bulbs fixtures they developed in last 5 years compared to new LED and T5HO bulbs and fixtures they developed? It is not a resurgence of MH, it is just a phase out. Of course it will not go out over night, they will try to make as much of profit as possible while phasing out.

New technologies were also applied to CRT screens while all screen producers phased them out and sales of CRT TVs increased since they were offered cheap as a wide scale manufacturer driven closeout sale. Now days, fixing a CRT TV is more expensive them buying a LCD screen TV because few produce their parts.

 

[jda]

I do not think that you know what you are talking about here. The new Giesemann Megachrome 17.5k is selling like crazy, even for the higher price.

Have you ever actually used MH to any big degree? A 6500k bulb is considerably more hot than a Radium 20k - a Radium 20k can effectively be cooled by just a fan. IR is the big deal here... 250w of electrical heat is the same in a p-n junction or fluorescent bulbs without the IR. Nobody is saying that they will ever be cool, but the heat is a red herring for most people and if you do not live in a desert or in Florida, the only people who cannot deal with it are people who do not want to. BTW - IR is being found to be very necessary to coral and some LED panels are getting IR put into them... expect these to start to heat up some tanks a bit.

I did an appraisal for a grow facility here in Colorado. They grow the ultimate profitable crop - hippie lettuce. This place has 200+ 1000w and 600w MH fixtures to supplement the sunlight. They do not even consider using LEDs since the crop suffers - HO T5s are fine, but too many bulbs to change since 1000w MH are not expensive. I visited and called 11 other grow houses in the area to determine run costs, etc. and none of them used LED (all HPS or MH) and all had massive electrical bills as well. This company can be plenty profitable with $150 a day in electricity and still make some bank, so this is not a big deal to them... when performance matters with big money on the line, they still use the MH. The heat helps them here in Colorado for about 11 months out of the year, but I can imagine that the heat is not good for everybody.

Have you not been paying attention to the people who are driving MH sales higher than ever before? Some this is probably somewhat attributable to more people entering the hobby, but the people who are choosing MH are experienced folks who have been in the game for a while. The people who have been migrating to better lighting are in for the long-haul and are MH users for life now. This is an expanding market with the best kind of customers.

This whole argument parallels to all-diesel, electric or hydrogen cars from the 1970s until now. For four decades, gas cars were going to be obsolete in the next decade. After a while, you just have to assume that if it was possible, it would have happened by now. If LED was going to get to the point where it is as good as a MH, then it would have happened by now. There is a good portion of the newer generation that started with LED because they were told that they were just as good, that are now switching because they have found out otherwise.

 

[Joe0813]

i just switched over to MH from radion gen2s... i bought a giesemann spectra with radium bulbs and i will probably never go back.

 

[Braver69]

Please. I have already been hearing for ten years already that nobody was going to be making MH bulbs in ten years. Instead, there is new MH tech coming out right now.

Until LED are an ACTUAL replacement, there are still massive amounts of people who use T5 and MH. Heck, there is still enough of a demand for VHO that they are made still just for the aquarium industry - people have been prematurely calling for the death of VHO for probably 15 years.

PEC stopped making 14k phoenix bulbs, and then started again after they realized their error. Hamilton just designed new bulbs. ReefBrite also has new bulbs on the market. Giesemann too. If anything, MH is making a resurgence. All of this is just for reefing. Most of these are improved bulbs. What happened is that MH got stale and this is where PC (they were once the heir-apparent), T5 and LED took over... companies jumped on these bandwagons... but in the last few years some people have grown tired of the never ending promises of LED manufacturers so some manufacturers saw the increase in MH sales, innovated and came up with some really good new bulbs. Have you not seen these new bulbs? These companies would not have done the R&D if there were not customers to buy them. Some of these bulbs are supposedly very low on IR and have significantly less heat (this will upset me since I live in Colorado and love the heat).

While true that Radium 20k was an import from another purpose/industry, there are a lot of bulbs that are made just for reefing.

If somebody wanted to tell me that everybody will be using dual/tri acr MH over their tanks in 10 years, then I might believe that.

You might seen some uptake by the Halide manufactures for the Saltwater hobby, but that is mainly due to most industrial lighting being switched to led's. You will notice most traffic lights and street lights are being switched out due to the massive savings in electricity. So the Halide Industry has idle lines they need to put to some use or tear them out, question is if there is enough demand for them to justify continuing with it. As long as they can turn enough of a profit to justify it then you guys that like Halide lights should be safe.

 

[Tripod1404]

I do not think that you know what you are talking about here. The new Giesemann Megachrome 17.5k is selling like crazy, even for the higher price.

Have you ever actually used MH to any big degree? A 6500k bulb is considerably more hot than a Radium 20k - a Radium 20k can effectively be cooled by just a fan. IR is the big deal here... 250w of electrical heat is the same in a p-n junction or fluorescent bulbs without the IR. Nobody is saying that they will ever be cool, but the heat is a red herring for most people and if you do not live in a desert or in Florida, the only people who cannot deal with it are people who do not want to. BTW - IR is being found to be very necessary to coral and some LED panels are getting IR put into them... expect these to start to heat up some tanks a bit.

I did an appraisal for a grow facility here in Colorado. They grow the ultimate profitable crop - hippie lettuce. This place has 200+ 1000w and 600w MH fixtures to supplement the sunlight. They do not even consider using LEDs since the crop suffers - HO T5s are fine, but too many bulbs to change since 1000w MH are not expensive. I visited and called 11 other grow houses in the area to determine run costs, etc. and none of them used LED (all HPS or MH) and all had massive electrical bills as well. This company can be plenty profitable with $150 a day in electricity and still make some bank, so this is not a big deal to them... when performance matters with big money on the line, they still use the MH. The heat helps them here in Colorado for about 11 months out of the year, but I can imagine that the heat is not good for everybody.

Have you not been paying attention to the people who are driving MH sales higher than ever before? Some this is probably somewhat attributable to more people entering the hobby, but the people who are choosing MH are experienced folks who have been in the game for a while. The people who have been migrating to better lighting are in for the long-haul and are MH users for life now. This is an expanding market with the best kind of customers.

This whole argument parallels to all-diesel, electric or hydrogen cars from the 1970s until now. For four decades, gas cars were going to be obsolete in the next decade. After a while, you just have to assume that if it was possible, it would have happened by now. If LED was going to get to the point where it is as good as a MH, then it would have happened by now. There is a good portion of the newer generation that started with LED because they were told that they were just as good, that are now switching because they have found out otherwise.

I am not saying megachrome is not selling, i already said it is selling because its target consumers are a very specific bunch who are not cost driven. But will demand from how many aquarium keepers will be able to keep MH industry alive?. If you have a manufacturing plant that produced 1 million bulbs a year, will aquarium industry alone will be able to make that sector profitable on its own. Demand from the aquarium sector might be increasing, but that will never compliment the reduction in demand from, say street lights. You cant use a manufacturing plant with 1M capacity to produce 10k bulbs a years and keep operating. As more big producers exit the MH market, it will get even more expensive for smaller producers like giesemann to keep producing them. Because raw materials and part required to produce these bulbs will get even more expensive with reduction of demand from big players.

Again, using ultimate profitable crop might not be cost driven, but if you were to grow something less profitable, or do something for research, MH cost become important. Especially here in Washington state where I work, in which summers can hit +100F and there is intense waste management on mercury ( like we had to give away our mercury thermometers ).

And yes, I have been in this hobby for 20 years. My dad was in before me,so I had experience with tanks even before I had my own. For the first 10 years I used MH. They were great for growth but I hated the heat radiating from the fixtures as if I am next to the stove even when just standing next to the tank. I than started using T5HOs and now I have a custom RB V2 and T5HO combo.

And about the cars, number of diesel car sales has been more than gas cars in Europe since 2009 until first half of this year. 10 years ago their market share were probably less than 10%, so there is takeover in that sector in certain parts of the world as well.

 

[jda]

I do not think that I am being clear enough...

There is no risk of losing MH as long as it is the superior source for light. Until LED is truly better, then MH will be fine - this has been promised for a decade and not yet close to a reality. Camera film has always been more detailed and has better depth than digital - film has always been produced and is making a comeback. Vinyl Records always had a place, was still produced and is making a huge comeback since it was always better than digital with better sound quality and dynamics. Neither of these truly ever went away even though they were dwarfed but the front-running and convenience-driven market of new people entering the space. The professional photographer that got in during the digital age is now finding film to be amazing. Audiophiles are into vinyl like crazy once they heard them.

People made money selling turntables to those who demand the best. My McIntosh amps still have tubes in them that are still being made - yes, tubes are still being made. Turntables and tubes in 2018... the stuff is even made in the USA... it is total anarchy!

The same thing is happening here. There is a good mass of people who got in during the LED craze and forsook MH are now seeing that they were oft led improperly and are switching. They are happy with their switch.

The best tech is not much of a risk for getting lost. You can make all kinds of arguments to predict the future, but looking back of a decade of promises that tubes and bulbs will be obsolete and everybody will have LEDs has proven to be both false and not even close to true yet. Once LED truly is better, then start the decade-long clock on dogma, upgrades and phase out.

BTW - if you are the kind of person who can tell a difference in a lossless digital copy of a song and one on a good piece of vinyl (and there is a substantial difference if you are good with details and your ears are good), then even a larger difference between the same tank on LED and MH awaits you. Some people cannot tell. Some people are happy to have the convenience of songs on a phone and do no care about the differences. Ahhh.... but some want the best and vinyl will always be around for them. ...and those that want the best have money to spend and there will always be companies to sell stuff to them.

 

[shred5]

As a person who actually specifies what lighting goes into a job let me tell you the answer is somewhere in the middle of the argument just like politics.

Tripod is right when it is not profitable anymore they wont make them but that is no where near.

First of all their are so many existing installations of metal halides out there they need the bulbs to be there for the future. They are not ripping them out just to install led. Believe me there are more existing halide lit buildings than led.. Led may have a larger portion of new buildings but not existing buildings.

There are also allot of new buildings going up with halides up even though there are more and more led installations everyday. There are several reason why people still choose halides and florescent fixtures.

One of the biggest reason is allot of buildings are rented out and the owner wants cheap. He does not care about energy because in most cases it is on the renter. He also does not care about maintenance saving money and time changing bulbs unless it is his responsibility. Even if the building is not rented the initial cost of led can be allot higher and with limited budgets they do not want to spend money there and rather put it somewhere else. The price is getting closer between them every day..

Another reason is not everyone is sold on led.
Some just do not like the look .


We are specing more and more led but halides are here for a long time.

Again look at compact florescent which really were bad form day one in the hobby, you still can get them anyway you want.

Halides might be more vulnerable than most other lighting because where they are used led does do a decent job like out door lighting especially in cold weather. One issue is too the same issue is they are too directional.

As far as led Traffic lights they are such crap. you cant see them during the day.

 

[oreo57]

Data available if one really wants it..
https://theanalystfinancial.com/919...ructure-future-demands-including-key-players/

 

[Tripod1404]

Data available if one really wants it..
https://theanalystfinancial.com/919...ructure-future-demands-including-key-players/

Too bad the full article need to be purchased . Ony data I could find on their sales is this;

Basically from 2011 to 2014, there was 20% reduction in sales. If this trend continued the same way, today they should be around 60% of the sales in 2011. 10 years from now it can very well be around 20 percent of 2011. Unless market has resistance at some point that prevents further drop ( liek [MENTION=1408]shred5[/MENTION] explained). But a lot of things can happen in 10 years, new tech can also make them obsolete.

https://www.nema.org/news/Pages/HID-Lamp-Shipment-Indexes-Relinquish-Recent-Gains.aspx

 

[oreo57]

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/12/f46/lmc2015_nov17.pdf