Anyone Thinking of Dumping LEDS and going back to Halides

[Wazzel]

ok, i see what you are saying.

I ran my LED tank in the 12-14k range which looked pretty white.
Still failed IMHO, but rather than intensity, I think it was overall coverage that was the weak point. I've been saying all along that we need twice as many pucks/fixtures/etc than what the manufacturers are recommending for a given tank size. The reason I don't think intensity is the problem, even at whiter temps is that we can still burn coral if turned up too high.

I don't know if they need more diodes, but they definitely need to be spread out more. You can run LED's really hot if you take your time acclimating them. I spent months going from 50% power to almost 100% power.

 

[Khemul]

Does anyone think if the light manufacturers could come up with some LED clusters that were pre-designed to be 10k, 14k, 20k etc. the lights would be better used? I know that the user can dial in the look they want but lets get a tight scientific range of numbers for each spectrum like a MH bulb offers and make it so that the user could select, as I said, 10k, 14k, etc.

There are manufacturers doing that. There are essentially two problems with the concept though;

1) It's more of a guideline then a scientific standard. Which is why there is some difference across different brands for the same color bulb.

2) Manufacturers are essentially using what is available. There isn't anyone out there making reef-specific bulbs. It just so happens that there are LEDs produced for other uses that happen to fall into our usable range. Otherwise we'd probably have LED's that match the Radium spectrum and be done with all the different colors and balancing and such. But since we are extremely small in scale compared to other industries, we get to play with the leftovers and be happy with that.


In fairness, the same problems existed with MH too at one point. It just so happens that some industry that mattered required a bulb that was perfect for reef tanks. We just need some industry to do the same thing with LED and we'll be done with all the tinkering. :lolspin:

 

[jda]

What industry uses reef type MH bulbs?

 

[Wazzel]

What industry uses reef type MH bulbs?

None that I know of, but IIRC the first Mh bulbs used on tank were industrial lamps, with "day light" color temp, around 8K I think. Looked like someone took a leak in your tank with out heavy actinic supplementation.

 

[alton]

If you want to match MH look with LED try Build My Led. There 12K XB is close to ATI Aqua Blue Special, the 14K is close to Phoenix or Radium in color. Turn it on, adjust to 85% and you are good to go. Where most get in trouble with LED is they adjust to there eyes and not using a meter. On my 300 I use 3 x 250MH for 4 hours in the summer and 8 in the winter with 2 - 6' 14K BML's running 10 to 11 hours day. I am still not ready to trust thousands in corals to LED alone. Plus until I find a fixture that last 5+ years I will continue to move slowly. Sunlight is 6500 kelvin by the way

 

[rtparty]

What industry uses reef type MH bulbs?

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong but Radium bulbs were not designed for reef tanks. They were an industry bulb for something else. They just happened to fit our needs extremely well

 

[sirreal63]

I believe it was blue accent lighting for walls.

 

[rtparty]

I believe it was blue accent lighting for walls.

That sounds right

 

[rgulrich]

The first halides I used were 175W Iwasaki Eye...6500K I believe...in the mid-80's. I think they were used for photography then. Nice bulbs back in the day. From what I see, they're still producing some nice bulbs....hmm.

 

[nynick]

Minor note here, why are people replacing the MH with LED and using T5 actinic supplementation? If there is one thing LED can do it is blue!

 

[rtparty]

Minor note here, why are people replacing the MH with LED and using T5 actinic supplementation? If there is one thing LED can do it is blue!

Blue and actinic (violet) are not the same thing.

Until recently most main stream fixtures had nothing below the 440nm range. Hence people using T5s to cover the lower end of the spectrum.

 

[fewponds]

And there are still problems with leds having narrow green peak around 555nm. If anyone could take a look at spectrums of "classic" reef light sources (T5, MH) would find there is almost no emmision at caroten absorption band (ca. 500-540nm) LEDs actually supply caroten needs, which is not good for us reef hobbyists...

 

[dwebster86]

I'm doing this. Switching from radions to mh. Trying to decide on a fixture. Giesemann or Hamilton. And trying to find M80 ballasts which are hard to find

 

[origreefer]

What industry uses reef type MH bulbs?

Cannabis growers

 

[jda]

They use daylight bulbs, not anything that we would use on a reef. They don't use LED either.

 

[Aquatron]

I'm doing this. Switching from radions to mh. Trying to decide on a fixture. Giesemann or Hamilton. And trying to find M80 ballasts which are hard to find

Cebu Sun dual MH w/T5's is a nice choice they are a heavy quality built product. Best part quality customer service here in US if ever needed plus they have other quality product's too.

 

[overexposed]

Minor note here, why are people replacing the MH with LED and using T5 actinic supplementation? If there is one thing LED can do it is blue!

In addition to what others have said - for the even light spread. Solves some of the shadowing issues inherent to LED fixtures.

 

[SPS_Addiction]

I'm doing this. Switching from radions to mh. Trying to decide on a fixture. Giesemann or Hamilton. And trying to find M80 ballasts which are hard to find

hamilton still makes magnetic/M80's. aquarium specialty sells them.

 

[Tweaked]

hamilton still makes magnetic/M80's. aquarium specialty sells them.

Or direct from Hamilton. The Cebu Sun is a great fixture too.

 

[doctorwhoreefer]

I don't think I would ever even consider going back to metal halides or t5's...

The heat and operating cost is just like comparing a window ac to a whole house ac.
Yes it does the job, at a fraction of the efficiency. This takes money from other areas that could have been spent in a better way.

One personal favorite, being able to schedule change my light output from 20k to 10k through the day, that's priceless.