Speaking of electric bills....

[Angela Short]

Hello all East Tn reefers! I was wanting to toss this out since I value many of your clubs members opinions. I love my club also but since the topic of electricity is going on over hear this is my delema...
I am just real torn over useing Halides over my new in wall tank or T-5 or LED's. I have a 270 in wall room divider tank in the works. I have 4 400 watt halides but didn't sell my 4 250's incase the 400's were too much, but now with it being in a enclosed wall cavity and moisture concerns ( I am venting outside which will up my electric bill in and of itself ) and the price of electricity going up, and the price of 4 new halide bulbs every 8-12 months, added heat and the cost of running a chiller because of the halides I am really wondering if some other light may be better in the long run! I love the look of halides but wonder if other light options would be a much better way to go? I could sell my chiller, all 8 halides with electric ballests and have a pretty good chunck to put in a new more energy efficient lighting system. Ah, the choices!

Would 400 watt halides be super overkill anyways? I know Dave ran 400's for a time but I think he went back to 250's. Are you out there Dave (cee) ? I just wanted the tank real bright as its the center of the house and I picked up the 400"s for a steal is why I was even concidering them. Gotta run but feel free to coment on what way you would light the tank if it was yours. Its a 7'x24"deepx 31"tall so one strip of LED's would not really cover such a wide spread I am thinking and who could afford to double them!!??

Thanks!!

 

[cee]

I've been back on 250's for almost 2 years now. After finding the right ballast/bulb combo, I'm extremely happy. If you saw my tank today, you'd be amazed as it has never looked better. I run either HQI or CoralVue ballasts (cranked up a bit) with Radium bulbs on LumenArc reflectors. Granted, my tank is only 18" deep, but I can grow colorful SPS on the bottom and actually have most of the LPS in partial shade. I'll not go back to 400's anytime soon but know others who have recently upgraded to 400 on HQI ballasts.

Dave

 

[Angela Short]

Thanks for the input Dave! Right now I have 4 400 watt blueline electronic ballasts and 4 250 watt icecap electronic ballasts all with regular spider reflectors. I loved the hamilton 14k colors on the 250's and have not fired the 400's up yet. I need all new bulbs for whatever way I go as it is. I seemed to get good light with the 250's on the sand in the other same size tank so for heat concerns and energy savings I am leaning to the 250's. I bet I would get great light penetration if I got the better reflectors, those spider reflectors are not that great.

But then the thought of just ditching the halides all together and going T5 or something. The guy who got my old tank outfitted it with T5's and is very happy. I need to go see how bright it is and the look he gets from the T5's I guess!