Lighting Website Updates

[Siffy]

Anyone know of any studies of light intensity from LEDs under tank circumstances (ie, 16" of water or more)? I'm curious if there might be the possibility of a change from MH over to LEDs in the next few years. Lower operating costs, lower wattages, less heat, higher efficeincy, etc.

 

[Reefvet]

Anyone know of any studies of light intensity from LEDs under tank circumstances (ie, 16" of water or more)? I'm curious if there might be the possibility of a change from MH over to LEDs in the next few years. Lower operating costs, lower wattages, less heat, higher efficeincy, etc.

LEDs are not even in the ball park yet, much less a replacement for MH. For example, LEDs have finally found their way into tail lights on cars, but you don't see them used for headlights and MH is much brighter than a conventional car headlight.

The efficiency has a long way to go before LEDs are anything more than moonlight in a reef tank.

 

[Waidesworld]

http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cfm/newsid/2050418.005/general/1.html

LEDs as car headlights are a lot closer than you think.

 

[Waidesworld]

LEDs as car headlights are a lot closer than you think. But my original post was not the LED replacing the HIDs but for the blue night effect, LEDs are available and should be taken into consideration.
Headlights


DRAGON Tape

 

[Sanjay]

Yes, a lot of people are using blue led as moonlight.

As for LED's replacing HID lighitng... I personally think they are still far away from actual application given the cost right now. In the future it may be possible when the costs come down.

After all photons are photons, and if you can cram enough photon generators you can match the intensity.

sanjay.

 

[Siffy]

Sanjay,

But where are LEDs on your testing schedule? I have no idea how long it takes to set up your testing equipment, but it might be interesting to see the spectrum (likely very narrow) and intensity of a 1 Watt white or blue LED. No doubt the world couldn't replace its HID lamps tomorrow with them, but advancements in LEDs have been pretty quick in the past few years. The technology isn't very old, and I see it evolving much more over the next decade.

 

[Waidesworld]

LED technology in terms of brightness and power is doubling abut every nine to ten months at present.

 

[Herbert T. Kornfeld]

I like the fact that you can find 420, 410, and 450 nm, and pure white LEDs, and lace them together to get one larger light source.

Over at nano-reef.com, many people have been swapping around, toying with, and building entire light canopies out of LEDs (superbrights and regular). All seem to have great results.

The best example is a 2.5g that runs entirely on LEDs to grow not only softies, but SPS and LPS as well.

 

[Siffy]

Sweet. That's the kind of stuff I was wanting to see. Herbert, you have any links/threads on nano reef you could PM me?

 

[Herbert T. Kornfeld]

There are so many...just go to NR and do a search in their new & improved forum search engine...it works very well.

 

[Deuce67]

Hi Sanjay! What would you recommend as a minimum PPFD one should have on an sps tank thats 24" deep? Thanks!

 

[Sanjay]

Hi Sanjay! What would you recommend as a minimum PPFD one should have on an sps tank thats 24" deep? Thanks!

Based on my personal experience, if you pick a lamp with a PPFD of 100 or more in my tests you will be fine in a 24" deep tank. Assuming you have a decent reflector.

This gives you enough light in your tank to have clams at the bottom of the tank (not in the corners) and grow SPS corals about 2/3rds of the way from the top of the tank.

sanjay.

 

[Deuce67]

Thanks Sanjay. Im running a pair of 250 phoenix on PFO minis. The PPFD on the phoenix is 88 shielded on a PFO M80. Is this something I should be concern about?

 

[wfgworks]

Sanjay

Have you received a Ushio/BLV 14K yet to test?

 

[Sanjay]

Thanks Sanjay. Im running a pair of 250 phoenix on PFO minis. The PPFD on the phoenix is 88 shielded on a PFO M80. Is this something I should be concern about?

No.. because when I said 100... I should have mentioned I was talking about the unshielded numbers.

sanjay.

 

[Herbert T. Kornfeld]

Huh? So you mean more like 80 then for sheilded DE or unsheilded SE then?

 

[Herbert T. Kornfeld]

Where can I find the actual running wattages for 400watt ballasts? I want to know if 3x250wattHQIs (which can add up to 350watts each x 3 = 1050) could actually end up being more than dual 400s on HQI which can go up to what wattage?

 

[Sanjay]

Huh? So you mean more like 80 then for sheilded DE or unsheilded SE then?

Yes, if you want to use the shielded numbers for the DE then for a SPS tank about 24" deep, you would have no problem growing SPS corals in the top half to 2/3rd of your tank with DE lamps that have Shielded PPFD values of 80 - ofcourse this is assuming you have good clean reflectors.

sanjay.

 

[Sanjay]

Where can I find the actual running wattages for 400watt ballasts? I want to know if 3x250wattHQIs (which can add up to 350watts each x 3 = 1050) could actually end up being more than dual 400s on HQI which can go up to what wattage?

Did you check the lighting website. It has data for actual watts used for each lamp/ballast combo that I tested.

sanjay.

 

[B.PETERSEN]

Yes, if you want to use the shielded numbers for the DE then for a SPS tank about 24" deep, you would have no problem growing SPS corals in the top half to 2/3rd of your tank with DE lamps that have Shielded PPFD values of 80 - ofcourse this is assuming you have good clean reflectors.

sanjay.

Sanjay,

Would spider reflectors be considered good in this case. I know they are not the best ones....