Halide fixture ... Need help deciding

[Cblair]

Hi everyone, i have a 30x24x24 75g cube which is mainly sps and i would like to go back to metal halide lighting. Ive decided on two fixtures the 250w reefbrite hybrid or the 250w hamilton cebu sun with 4 t5's. My goal is to run either fixture off my old pfo hqi(m80) ballast with a radium bulb. So basicallly it comes down to led or t5 as supplemental lighting. If anyone has any experience with either fixture or a prefference for led or t5 supplemental lighting i would love to hear it, will help me decide. Thanks

 

[KSzegi]

Welcome to R2R!

I don't have any experience with either fixture - but have used the different combinations of lighting you ask about. Personally - my favorite has been a combination of all three - but second choice and what i am running now is the MH/T5 combination. To me, the 4 T5's just give a lot more flexibility in supplementing your halides - but I think it is mostly going to be your own personal preference. You said you are 'going back' to MH lighting - what do you have now and what do you and don't you like about it??

 

[Cblair]

Thanks for the response, current lighting is a radion gen 2. The reason i want to switch is on one of my colonies i am starting to see tissue recession on the underside shaded area. The sides facing the light are growing and healthy. I have researched this and seems this can be a problem with led and the directional nature of the light... So rather than risk loosing the colony and possibly other corals i will be making the switch back to metal halide. All tank parameters are looking good so im thinking the light does have somthing to do with it

Nitrate .25
Po4 .01
Alk 7.8-8.0
Calcium 420
Magnesium 1325
Ph 8.05-8.2
Sg 1.026

 

[KSzegi]

I think you will be happy with the switch back to MH - no matter what you decide on for supplemental light. I had some similar problems along with a few other things when I went to the LED's with t5 supplementation. Sure seems to work for some people but after giving it a real try - I just wasn't happy with it. I had spent a ton of money on the led/t5 fixture so really fought changing it ..... but have been very glad that I did. I went with the t5 supplements vs the led's just because I liked the added versatility of the t5 and having run t5 only tanks - also was confident in them.

And I am a bit different I guess in that I'm not a fan of the 'black light' effect of running the blue led's for dawn and dusk. I like the 'pop' that they add but don't really care for the artificial look that I think they give when run solo. So I really prefer having my T5's for dawn and dusk and longer viewing hours on the tank.

So - once again, I think it really comes down to personal preference! Everybody will have an opinion but it is going to boil down to what you like and think!!

Good luck and share your decision!!

 

[labas39]

I have a 65 gallon 3 foot tank. I have two old Hamilton HQI fixtures with Phoenix 14ks. I run that for only 6 hours. The rest of the 11 hours is lit with two Kessil a150 ocean blue 14k's. I like their look. They're too dim for growth. The tank is primarly acros.

My frag tank has a Lumenmax with a Radium. That's supplemented by a blue only LED. The Lumenmax narrowly focuses the light. Just be aware of the spreed of the reflector.