No love for MH?

[jda]

I went diving on the Florida Keys last Summer and was left, as I usually am after that kind of experience, dissatisfied with ALL of the reef aquarium lighting choices …..

Stay away from the South Pacific or the Coral Sea. You don't even have to go underwater to see some awesome stuff there. There is even more if you just stand in waist deep water and put your face in with a mask on.

 

[jda]

Yea they buy 90W of LED's and wonder why things don't grow as well as under 250W of MH's Gee go figure..

Or the converse where people blame the lighting for heat and electricity cost issues with 400w of MH when their 90w panels and a few T5s are working just fine now at around 150w.

 

[shred5]

I totally agree with you, that the savings in electricity between the 2 type of lights is minimal if you are using the same wattage lights, but if you live in a warmer climate you also need to take into account, the cost of running a chiller, and in my case the extra cost of air conditioning my fish room, because of the heat generated by my M/H - VHO fixtures. You want to see a PearlBerry look good, put it under a Mitra LX7206 light.

Someone correct me if I am wrong on this but I do not think you are right here.
1 watt of energy is one watt of heat so 100 watts of energy would create the same amount of heat no matter what the lighting source.
Basically A 100 watt incandescent vs 100 watt fluorescent vs 100 watts of led all produce the same amount of heat.
Basically a halide only feels hotter because the heat is in a smaller spot. Leds disperses the heat through a heat sink it is still the same amount of heat per watt.
The only reason led fixtures produce less heat is because they are usually less wattage and people use less watts to light their whole tank because of efficiency.. A watt of energy is a watt of energy.
I hope I explained and said it right I probably didn't..

 

[jda]

That is true in the range that LED produce light (visible range). 100w is 100w in this range. The extra heat from the MH is from IR. LEDs forsake this spectrum for a bunch of reasons, but chiefly because the diodes are expensive and short lived. IR can be useful up to about 850nm, but heat comes along with them. Orphek has 850nm diodes in their Atlantik V2 panels - these diodes produce heat too. Some MH bulbs have more IR than others - for example, 14k phoenix run pretty cool for a MH bulb.

 

[shred5]

That is true in the range that LED produce light (visible range). 100w is 100w in this range. The extra heat from the MH is from IR. LEDs forsake this spectrum for a bunch of reasons, but chiefly because the diodes are expensive and short lived. IR can be useful up to about 850nm, but heat comes along with them. Orphek has 850nm diodes in their Atlantik V2 panels - these diodes produce heat too. Some MH bulbs have more IR than others - for example, 14k phoenix run pretty cool for a MH bulb.

I was going to add that too there is some UV produce heat....
I know my Iwasakis produced some UV. I felt it.
To me a little UV is important.
Yea the UV diodes are expensive. They will come down some in time.

 

[oreo54]

Or the converse where people blame the lighting for heat and electricity cost issues with 400w of MH when their 90w panels and a few T5s are working just fine now at around 150w.

Agreed w/ extremes like that but still (actually best to re-read that statement):

Metal halide bulbs emit a significant amount of heat (roughly 10-15% of the total energy consumed is emitted as heat). In some circumstances this could be beneficial, however, it is a generally a bad thing as heat losses represent energy inefficiencies. The ultimate purpose of the device is to emit light, not heat.
LEDs emit very little forward heat.

https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/led-lights-versus-metal-halide

Yea an LED supplier...

Where LEDs really shine, however, is in their system efficiency (the amount of light that actually reaches the target area after all losses are accounted for). Most values for LED system efficiency fall above 50 lumens/watt.
Metal halide lights are very efficient compared to incandescent lights (75-100 lumens/watt source efficiency). They lose out to LEDs principally because their system efficiency is much lower (<30 lumens/watt) due to all of the losses associated with omnidirectional light output and the need to redirect it to a desired area.

Which is why one can use less LED Watts than MH watts.. just not crazy talk like 90 =200 though I suppose w/ bad MH reflectors one could go that high..
Wouldn't ever be my recommendation..

Only real good comparisons are at equal wattage..or like 0.7:1 (ballparking)

MH heat is transferred much more efficiently to "objects" than is an LED since much is in the form of IR which LED's have little of..

It's complicated..but the fact is even if the 2 sources ar the same you "can" do w/ less in an LED system..How much less and how much it matters is ????

Say led lumen efficiency doubles (it's close now) that of MH and you also get a 25% decrease due to efficient delivery and assuming they generate the same amout of heat you will have substantially more at 125% differential.
2.25 to 1 "watts" worth of heat...yet the same "PAR"

 

[jda]

I tested some reef MH bulbs in a integrating sphere with a spectrometer that read from 200 to 10,000nm (IIRC) and 14k Phoenix and 20k Radium had about 2% of their total output outside of 350-850nm - there was just barely a trace below 350, so most of that was over 850. I do not consider 700-850 a loss. The 10-15% is wide, seems made up at worst and probably cherry picked at best with some 4300K daylight bulb. Given that Dell Aquila had some evidence that non-white LEDs are less efficient than MH, this is probably close to 1:1 if you count power supply and ballast loss as relative equals.

 

[oreo54]

I tested some reef MH bulbs in a integrating sphere with a spectrometer that read from 200 to 10,000nm (IIRC) and 14k Phoenix and 20k Radium had about 2% of their total output outside of 350-850nm - there was just barely a trace below 350, so most of that was over 850. I do not consider 700-850 a loss. The 10-15% is wide, seems made up at worst and probably cherry picked at best with some 4300K daylight bulb. Given that Dell Aquila had some evidence that non-white LEDs are less efficient than MH, this is probably close to 1:1 if you count power supply and ballast loss as relative equals.

Fair enough.. but that 15% is "usually" considered wasted "light".....

How much 800nm light do you think reaches the bottom of a 3ft-ish ..light to sandbed tank?

 

[jda]

That seems to depend on whom you ask and what type of water - I have seen studies in the Great Lakes, Hawaii and South Pacific. In the Coral Sea, the scientist there said 3 meters... which is in the range of one-breath where most all of the stuff that we keep comes from. Orphek had some science that backed them using 850nm diodes in aquariums. The short answer is that I don't know for sure, but it seems likely that there is some in my 24 inch deep tank.

I know that these get it, and then some, and they have the energy to overcome being out of the water and then thrive:

 

[oreo54]

Mr. Riddle had a comment regarding those low tide corals..Sadly don't exactly remember what it was..anyways
Also always remember that 10% of sunlight IR isn't equiv to 100% of the total IR of MH..
i.e 100% of 10w of IR is not the same as 10% of 1000W of sunlight IR..(just numbers as an example)

You could equal real sunlight power w/ them.. just need proof..
don't feel like really crunching any real #'s..
Simplistic but you get the idea..

 

[Perry]

250 watt SE Radium and Kessil A360WE over 24" x 24" 21" deep, lol So far results are blowing away 4xt5 and Kessil a360we combo. Only straight blue on Kessil and peak at 70% Best of both worlds 5 hours a day with halide

 

[Oliver d]

Only reason for not using them is the amount of electricity they use.I love the look they give to a tank so much more natural.

 

[naterealbig]

Hi Everyone,

I have used halide + t5 for a very long time, and had planned on using them for my "Niji No Niwa" build up until a month or so ago. I got up to the point where I purchased a Giesemann Infiniti 2 x 250w , 48" fixture, along with 4 x Giesemann true actinics, and 2 x Ushio 10k bulbs. I was going to supplement with 2 x reefbrite XHOs.

The issue that I'm trying to gain some clarity on, is whether or not halide bulbs and ballasts will be around in a few years.... Bulb and ballast selection has already diminished greatly, and I don't want to die a slow and painful metal halide death, where I find I am settling for bulb combinations I don't like, or piecing together ballasts as this technology fades away.

I want to keep t my fixture, but if halides and t5s are going away in 2020, I'd rather make the switch to LED now. Does anyone have any definitive evidence that metal halide bulbs and ballasts, or t5's aren't going away with the mercury convention, or new lighting efficiency standards?

Below is a pic of my tank, as it currently stands.

Best,

Nathan

 

[biecacka]

They bulbs and ballasts are going to be around for awhile I think. Hamilton technology has a great selection of stuff and I’m currently running 2 of their 250 bulbs and love them. 14K

Corey

 

[TaylorPilot]

My question is, why does the time of year change whether or not your tank in your house needs a chiller or not. The inside of my house stays 71 degrees year round. The temps around here swing from 40-110. With it being 95+ for about 9 months out of the year. Do you guys not run AC during the summer? If so, how?! If my AC is off for 15 minutes in the summer, we are checking into a hotel....I can't sleep when the house is over 74.

 

[vanpire]

My question is, why does the time of year change whether or not your tank in your house needs a chiller or not. The inside of my house stays 71 degrees year round. The temps around here swing from 40-110. With it being 95+ for about 9 months out of the year. Do you guys not run AC during the summer? If so, how?! If my AC is off for 15 minutes in the summer, we are checking into a hotel....I can't sleep when the house is over 74.

I guess it depends on preferences. The main reason for not using a chiller is most people keep their houses cooler in the winter months than the summer months. The cooler house temp cools the tank in the winter. I do not use a chiller but in the summer months, I do use a fan in the sump for my tank. In the winter months, I keep my house at 75 degrees and that is because I don't want to spend money to make it warmer. I prefer to be warm than cold. In the summer, I keep my house at 78 degrees, which is perfect for me. I grew up in AZ so I am used to it.

I read (I forget where but I think it was a Borneman article but not totally sure) an article about experiments that showed corals, or at least for the tropical corals, grew best at 82. So I try to keep my tank at 80-82 in the summer. I travel to Asia a lot, and many of the places I dive there are very warm, especially in the top 5-10 meters where I see ~80% of the corals. In the winter, my tank only gets to a high of 79 around with halides on. I would prefer it gets warmer but I don't want to heat the tank. I am cheap. I have a 300 gallon rimless. I find that rimless tank doesn't capture retain heat as much as rimmed tanks (just my anecdotal experience). My tank also fluctuates about 2 - 2.5 degrees daily. These temps seems to work for me.

 

[oreo54]

Hi Everyone,

I have used halide + t5 for a very long time, and had planned on using them for my "Niji No Niwa" build up until a month or so ago. I got up to the point where I purchased a Giesemann Infiniti 2 x 250w , 48" fixture, along with 4 x Giesemann true actinics, and 2 x Ushio 10k bulbs. I was going to supplement with 2 x reefbrite XHOs.

The issue that I'm trying to gain some clarity on, is whether or not halide bulbs and ballasts will be around in a few years.... Bulb and ballast selection has already diminished greatly, and I don't want to die a slow and painful metal halide death, where I find I am settling for bulb combinations I don't like, or piecing together ballasts as this technology fades away.

I want to keep t my fixture, but if halides and t5s are going away in 2020, I'd rather make the switch to LED now. Does anyone have any definitive evidence that metal halide bulbs and ballasts, or t5's aren't going away with the mercury convention, or new lighting efficiency standards?

Below is a pic of my tank, as it currently stands.

Best,

Nathan

not in the US probably ..we like mercury../s
In certain countries like Japan and a few other civilized nations they may go away..
Worst case is just price increases....

People are very slow to change.. thus we still have incandescent..
Gotta keep Chinese factories busy..

 

[DCR]

My question is, why does the time of year change whether or not your tank in your house needs a chiller or not. The inside of my house stays 71 degrees year round. The temps around here swing from 40-110. With it being 95+ for about 9 months out of the year. Do you guys not run AC during the summer? If so, how?! If my AC is off for 15 minutes in the summer, we are checking into a hotel....I can't sleep when the house is over 74.

The difference is the humidity of the air which affects the ability of your body and a reef tank to cool itself by evaporation. The humidity is much higher in the summer than the winter at the same normal house temperatures. High humidity reduces the evaporation rate and consequently the cooling. Running an AC unit in the summer reduces reduces the humidity by condensing out the water at low temperatures. I feel more comfortable in a house at 78 F in the summer with the AC on than I would at 74 with the AC off in Houston. People tend to focus solely on the room temperature rather than considering both .

 

[ca1ore]

Stay away from the South Pacific or the Coral Sea. You don't even have to go underwater to see some awesome stuff there. There is even more if you just stand in waist deep water and put your face in with a mask on.

Yup. Been to Palau twice. Just spectacular. Highlight was a HUGE Gigas - pushing 4’.

 

[ca1ore]

My question is, why does the time of year change whether or not your tank in your house needs a chiller or not. The inside of my house stays 71 degrees year round. The temps around here swing from 40-110. With it being 95+ for about 9 months out of the year. Do you guys not run AC during the summer? If so, how?! If my AC is off for 15 minutes in the summer, we are checking into a hotel....I can't sleep when the house is over 74.

Yuk! My house is 67 from October (well, maybe November these days) until June. No chiller needed even when I still ran MH. Once the house hits 78 (which is where I typically set the AC) chiller runs regularly. I figure that the combination of higher Summer humidity and heat sources keeps the tank about 4-5 degrees above ambient. When I ran MH it was closer to 8-9. Helpful when the house is 67 though as I needed very little purpose heating.