Post LED versus MH Testing - By Steven Pro

[revhtree Verified Admin]

It seems just about every month, LEDs are making the aquarium news circles either with a new brand entering the marketplace, a new or upgraded model being released by an existing manufacturer in the industry, or some advancement in LED technology. With all this constant buzz, it is hard for hobbyists to discern if now is the right time to jump into LEDs, what brand and model would be a good choice given their particular circumstances, and what is the return on investment on these devices?

I guess I should start by simply stating that over the last year or two, I have seen in person enough reef aquarium displays solely illuminated by LEDs and witnessed growth in those same aquaria to be convinced that LEDs are certainly capable of supporting coral growth. I did not always feel that way. Early version LED fixtures seemed to demonstrate great coral coloration, but growth seemed to be lacking. All that said, there is a wide range in brands and models and their respective quality. Based on the units I have witnessed in use and being able to examine a number of fixtures at tradeshows, I decided to further investigate the performance of one brand and its two available models.

I chose to look at the Acan Lighting units because they were one of a few brands I would consider spending my own money on. I was able to get two models and sizes, the A103AC-12B and the A101AC-12B. At the time, the 103 was their higher output design while the 101 was made for more modest lighting situations. I wanted to compare them to a metal halide fixture of similar size and wattage. For that, I borrowed a 75-watt double-ended metal halide pendant from a friend. It was a no name brand. I would describe it as a Chinese made copy of a German model. On the plus side, it did have a relatively new (it had been used for only 4 months at 8 hours per day) Ushio 10,000 Kelvin lamp in it. The Ushio 10,000 Kelvin lamp is known as a high PAR value lamp, but it is a little white for most aquarist tastes. It is even more so when lit side by side with the blue heavy LED fixtures in my testing.

For my test, I used an Apogee PAR meter to record lighting levels and a watt meter I bought at the hardware store to compare power consumption. I also took all my readings through water. I wanted to see how well the LED fixtures penetrated water in comparison to the MH.

As you can see from my readings, the Acan Lighting 103 unit used only two-thirds of the wattage of the MH unit, but put out more than twice the average PAR values. This gives the Acan Lighting 103 model more than three times the PAR output per watt used in comparison to the MH.

-Steven Pro

 

[bct15]

Interesting but I have a lot of questions about this article

What am I looking at in the plots? Maybe a labeling of the axes or something? Just looks like a table of random numbers, and a plot of the table. Perhaps normalizi the plots to the same scale would make them easier to compare (green means same thing on each plot, red means same thing on each plot etc)

What depth is the par measured?

Height of the light?

How far from center were the measurements taken?

Why is the par per watt so much less for the second led?

Is the Chinese reflector comparable to any reflectors on the market?

Some of my questions for a follow up...

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Very interesting but just cant make any sense of the charts. Thanks for the article, keep em comming.

 

[ColaAddict]

In my opinion, its like comparing apples and oranges. Even PAR readings dont really translate to LED use because you can grow SPS even with 100 of PAR with LEDs. Its really hard to compare the two.

 

[Tabasco1]

Similar questions as above. It didnt really seem like an apples to apples test. I question that it seemed like he tested fairly decent quality LED fixtures, but tested a generic MH with a color temp that most people are not running. Still useful to know all there is to know when comparing MH and LED. Thanks for posting.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Your title hooked me instantly... unfortunately, the amount of data and explination left me VERY lacking. If you are going to do an article, you need offer way more info. And you used a 70W MH. Really! I have a 70w MH over a 6" deep frag tank and it's just barely enough. Sure a 250w MH is going to use way more electricity, but at least it's something many of us use.

 

[Poseidon]

When I read the article, I gathered that a 70W Halide was used as it was the closest option in Power Consumption to the two LED Fixtures being compared. In this manner, Steven is trying to be as close to Apples to Apples as he can be.

Now, could he compare a 250W, 400W, or heck a 1000W Halide to the LED's, sure he could! Would this be more apples to apples? No, I don't think so, not at all.

I am putting my current tank together with an Eye on Wattage consumed, as well as quality of light and color/growth. My last system used 480W of T5 lighting, it grew SPS like CRAZY, great color, great growth and between those 480W and the 150W return pump, and all the other stuff, I spent $70 a month on the power bill! A big part of the appeal to an LED system is the reduced wattage consumed for a given level of light produced. In Steven's work here, he shows that a light consuming just over 1/2 the wattage of a 70W halide produces TWICE the Par of that halide. How can that be argued?

Yes, this is a brief article, maybe to brief, but in our digital world, the average person won't take the time to read a 5 page paper, heck I bet 1/2 of you skipped to the end of this post just now...

 

[macawmagic]

Does anyone else find it funny that this multi thousand dollar fixture was compared to a 70 watt halide? I use LED's, not this fixture, and have par tested them against 250w halides and they were about even.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Does anyone else find it funny that this multi thousand dollar fixture was compared to a 70 watt halide? I use LED's, not this fixture, and have par tested them against 250w halides and they were about even.

I do

 

[Ron Reefman]

I fully expect a costly led system will out do a 70w MH, who are we kidding? And I care less about wattage than I do about keeping healthy fish, corals and inverts. So yes, compare the led to a 250w MH and lets see the results. I understand the led will use less electricity, but will it be as good for my animals as a 250w MH? That is the question.

 

[gmoney243]

I fully expect a costly led system will out do a 70w MH, who are we kidding? And I care less about wattage than I do about keeping healthy fish, corals and inverts. So yes, compare the led to a 250w MH and lets see the results. I understand the led will use less electricity, but will it be as good for my animals as a 250w MH? That is the question.

That question has been answered many times now. There's tons of people keeping corals and such with leds.

The question should be how much is cost vs effectiveness on lights. MH may grow faster corals but is that better? MH cost vs effectiveness is the worst out of the 3 types we use these days. For my 180 if I had MH I would be paying like an extra $2000+/year in bulbs/electric costs. By far the most expensive and the growth difference is minimal I doubt you could even tell.

Sent from my Vortex using Tapatalk 2

 

[fsu1dolfan]

:wink: I actually read you whole post LOL
Good point BTW.

When I read the article, I gathered that a 70W Halide was used as it was the closest option in Power Consumption to the two LED Fixtures being compared. In this manner, Steven is trying to be as close to Apples to Apples as he can be.

Now, could he compare a 250W, 400W, or heck a 1000W Halide to the LED's, sure he could! Would this be more apples to apples? No, I don't think so, not at all.

I am putting my current tank together with an Eye on Wattage consumed, as well as quality of light and color/growth. My last system used 480W of T5 lighting, it grew SPS like CRAZY, great color, great growth and between those 480W and the 150W return pump, and all the other stuff, I spent $70 a month on the power bill! A big part of the appeal to an LED system is the reduced wattage consumed for a given level of light produced. In Steven's work here, he shows that a light consuming just over 1/2 the wattage of a 70W halide produces TWICE the Par of that halide. How can that be argued?

Yes, this is a brief article, maybe to brief, but in our digital world, the average person won't take the time to read a 5 page paper, heck I bet 1/2 of you skipped to the end of this post just now...

 

[WesF]

That question has been answered many times now. There's tons of people keeping corals and such with leds.

The question should be how much is cost vs effectiveness on lights. MH may grow faster corals but is that better? MH cost vs effectiveness is the worst out of the 3 types we use these days. For my 180 if I had MH I would be paying like an extra $2000+/year in bulbs/electric costs. By far the most expensive and the growth difference is minimal I doubt you could even tell.

Sent from my Vortex using Tapatalk 2

It's not just growth difference. Overall long term health is the big question mark. There may be tons of people using them, but there are not tons of people with extraordinary reefs on 100% LED that I have seen. Maybe a few, but I havnt seen enough long term success to agree.

I tried using 100% LED over my frag tank and was disappointed in the results so I went back to MH.

Totally worth the increased electrical consumption for me.

I'm hoping the newer full spectrum multicolor LED fixtures do better than the blue/white fixtures.

That extra $2000/year sounds extremely high. I don't spend anything near that on my 250g.

Comparing a pricey LED fixture to a Chinese generic 70w halide with used bulb and questionable reflector is a joke.

If you want to compare similar wattage, he should have at least chosen a reputable brand bulb/fixture combo.

 

[Ron Reefman]

It's not just growth difference. Overall long term health is the big question mark. There may be tons of people using them, but there are not tons of people with extraordinary reefs on 100% LED that I have seen. Maybe a few, but I havnt seen enough long term success to agree.

I tried using 100% LED over my frag tank and was disappointed in the results so I went back to MH.

Totally worth the increased electrical consumption for me.

I'm hoping the newer full spectrum multicolor LED fixtures do better than the blue/white fixtures.

That extra $2000/year sounds extremely high. I don't spend anything near that on my 250g.

Comparing a pricey LED fixture to a Chinese generic 70w halide with used bulb and questionable reflector is a joke.

If you want to compare similar wattage, he should have at least chosen a reputable brand bulb/fixture combo.

I agree with you. If gmoney243 is paying out $2000 a year in electricity and bulbs, I want to know where he lives because his electricity is way too expensive, or how many fixtures he has, or how he can possibly run them more than 24 hours a day to get that kind of cost! And just how often do you replace MH bulbs? I use a PAR meter and do mine when I can't make my minimum PAR reading at the bottom of the tank. That's about every 18-24 months. And before anybody says it, there is almost no spectrum shift in MH bulbs, that's a fluorescent bulb issue... and do we even know if LEDs color shift over time? And then there is the issue of all the cheap LED fixtures out there. Even some of the big name brands like Marineland sell LED lights that are just about worthless. I won one at MACNA 2 years ago. It couldn't keep color in sps corals in an 8" deep frag tank! Oh, and the power cord plug corroded away in just over a year (I ended up using it just for lighting up under my stand). And if you bought an LED light 2 years ago, how disappointed are you now that the newer ones are so much better? I just traded an old MH fixture I wasn't using anymore for an EcoTech Radion LED fixture that was only 4 months old. It's over a spare frag tank now and we'll see how it works. BTW, my other small frag tank has a 70w MH and things grow well there too!

 

[kuyatwo]

I agree $2000 a year is spendy I run 2 x 400 radium and 8 x t5's that I switch out every six months plus a chiller and don't hit $2000 a year.

I use to run ai sol blues before I switched to sfiligoi mh before i never could get ALL my corals to look good under leds but with mh I get 100% of my corals to look good.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Young Frankenstein]

Thats about 1200w in Miami Florida thats about $ 13.00 W extra charges and tax for 100W 24/7 per month. So lets figure 12 hrs. 1300w. 13x13=169/2=84.5 per month x 12 months = 1014 per year + bulbs.............lets say 1500 per year. With LED it would probably be 700 but also remember after 5 years you need new fixtures, thats if the drivers dont fail sooner. Coral growth i trust more with MH anyway thats my .02 i could be wrong.

 

[Pappy]

I'm guessing the people that have used LEDs ....
1 either used an inferior Chinese fixture
2 used a fixture like ai sols as stated that are not full spectrum and certainly don't cover the area they advertised.
3 tried a DIY and botched it up because they didn't know what they were doing
BECAUSE
The dude that did my DIY fixture for me did it right and the growth and color I've gotten far out does any commercial led fixture and other bulb combo I've seen. LEDs are without a doubt a far superior product than any other when done correctly IMO. I can speak from my own experience only!

 

[DrewF]

Its alot of info to take in, what a good Led lamp to run on a 74g