Lighting comparison

[gooyferret]

they are halogens not halides

 

[dustybrannum]

ok so where can you find t5 ho lights and ballasts? btw i have a 180 6' long x 2'x2'

 

[wseaton]

Thanks for the link for HelloLights.....I've been looking to retrofit one of my tanks to MH and I'm severely dissapointed in pre-fab MH designs. Over priced and under engineered. Real reefers do it themselves.

My $.02 on this entire topic.

Who are we to criticize anybody on the topic of lighting efficiency comparison when so many of us are pushing this absurd 'watts per gallon' standard that would get us kicked out of physics 101? I mean seriously, 'watts per gallon' is like asking how many gallons of fuel can I fit in the tank of an SUV with wheel base of 120". How long is a piece of string? I get a bang out of it when a minimum wage pet store attendant tells me how my current PC's "suck" compared to his 175watt MH's when his lights are suspended 3feet off the surface of a 100 gallon tank. Somebody must have been asleep when the math teacher talked about the law of squares. I'll me more than happy to compare the lighting efficiency of dual PC's sitting 6" off the surface of one of my tanks with numerous corals less than a foot below vs a 175" watt MH suspended a yard above the tank to dissipate heat.

Photosynthetic arganisms only care about two basic characteristics of light; intensity and wavelength, and with no two 10,000k florescent lights from different manufacturers being even close to the same advertised color temp, I'm not sure why we're spending so much time bantering about ballasts. Ask an owner of a tanning salon how often he changes his UV bulbs vs how often we change ours. Save your money on fancy ballasts and change your bulbs more often.

Aethestics are another factor. I personally don't find reef tanks to be attractive when they are lit by high intensity - high K bulbs that could double duty selling black velvet posters at the mall.

When gets me back to the point that I don't think *any* florescent bulb of any type can compete with MH in terms of raw absorbtion efficiency. MH might not be efficient in terms of heat dissipation or energy use as VHO or PC, but MH wins by saturating the electromagnetic spectrum while even multicoated florescent bulbs only deliver slivers of specific wavelength that we "guess" our corals like to absorb.

 

[jamal-188]

If anybody wants to read a great thread on 250W MH and differene in ballasts and bulbs check this thread out of RC http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=254667

 

[Bang Guy]

Great thread!!!! Thank you for pointing it out.

It corrected an error I made last week about Mercury Vapor bulbs.

It appears that the Iwasaki Mercury Vapor doesn't put out almost twice the PAR as the Coralife bulb Metal Halide, it puts out almost THREE times the PAR. WOW!!!!

 

[xray]

Helios Lights

has anyone heard about the Helios T-5 lights. my local store had them very cheap, but i heard from someone else that they are dangerous (i.e. could burn your house down.) Has any one used them, my local store guy said they were coming out with a new fixture with rubber end caps. I don't know if this is because of the problems that they have had in the past. I don't know if this will fix the problems.

Thanks for any help
Xray

 

[nutrak]

I think you fellas missed the most important point. The cost of electricity varies from town to town, city to city. In boston i know i pay a bundle more than 11 cents a dollar. I've seen a dramatic, and i mean dramatic increase in my electricity bill. Aside from having adequate light, that'd be a point to elaborate on.

joe

 

[Aquamemnon]

From Reefrunner

I also know that if going by the standard watts per gallon that is used so often in this hobby, two things are going to happen.
1) PC users are going to have one helluva algae problem, not to mention burning some corals....
2) MH users are going to more often than not, under light their aquariums.

Could you elaborate on why these would be the problems if one followed the watts per gallon method. And if the w/g method is so bad, does any one have a better method?

I am most curious as to why PCs would "burn corals."