ADVICE on Metal Halide, Thinking of switching from LED's

[Alabamareef]

I currently have a SPS LED system thats about 3 years old. I have had good growth but have never been happy with coral color. I have a Vertex Illumina LED fixture that has all the bells and whistles but no mater what I do my coral color, greens, reds do not seem to do well. I've had my white lights down to 10% and things did color up a little but not the crayon color we all look for. Ive read an article that talked about light intensity that made a lot of sense, basically you need the right intensity as well as photo period, a balance I've yet to achieve. So I've considered switching to MH system. I have a 180 gallon system that is 6'X2'X2' that has a canopy. I'd like to put all the lighting inside the canopy and I'm wanting suggestions. Also if your making a suggestion please include a link so that I can look up the system. Also if you know of someone selling a used MH system I may be interested.
I'd like to see what your suggestions are, ie: MH light and what bulb as well as accent lighting and cooling method.

 

[OceanRevive]

I'm not very familiar with the fixture you have now. I'm curious how many and how big they are, or how many leds you have over your 180g tank? And is it all blue and white leds? If not, how many leds and what colors are they?

I ran AquaMedic MH's with 4 of the 250 watt bulbs for 4 years over my 180g tank and things were healthy and growing. Everything was great. I switched to EverGrow leds exactly 2 years ago and I can hardly tell any difference in health, growth or color. However my electric bill came way down (btw, I have 4 tanks and 2 refugiums). The fixtures use less, my 2 chillers almost quit having to run and my house A/C works less. You're in Alabama and it gets hot in the summer, be prepared, MH do put out some heat and inside a canopy it can really heat up the water. I also quit replacing bulbs. The point is that in just 2 years I paid for my fixtures in electricity and bulb savings. I also love the sunrise/sunset feature, but then I work from home and I get to see the change that goes on all day long.

 

[Alabamareef]

The BRS link below gives you some good info and has a cool video with a breakdown of my light. Here is a breakdown on my LED fixture, color and number of LEDs:
White 80, White LEDs at 7000Kelvin
Blue 40 Blue at 470nm
Royal Blue 52 Royal Blue at 450nm

2 Multicolor pads: Red 2 Diodes: Cree XPE-- 625nm -- 87 lm/w driven @ 700mA
Green - 1 Diode: Cree XPE-- 520nm -- 100 lm/w driven @ 750 mA
Warm White - 1 Diode: Cree XTE-- 3500K -- 114 lm/W driven @ 1000Ma
NUV (Upper UV-A range) - 1 Diode: Seoul Semi-- 390nm -- 280mW Driven @ 700mA
Violet - 1 Diode: Seoul Semi-- 405nm -- 280mW Driven @ 700mA
Indigo-Violet - 2 Diodes: Seoul Semi-- 420nm -- 320mW Driven @ 700mA

1 UV Aux Module: - 3 Diodes: Seoul semi --@700mA

1 RED Aux Module:- 4 Diodes: Cree --630nm --43 lm/w@700mA

So thats a total of 195 LEDS in a 5ft fixture. Here is BRS web page about the light, Vertex Illumina SR260 LED Light Fixture - Bulk Reef Supply. I added extra royal blue, multi color(all three spectrums of UV) and REDS.

 

[Bpb]

No hate for LEDs here (I use MH/LED combo lighting), but with the right halides, and if you can tolerate the electricity and temperature, you will be thrilled at what they can do for growth and color.

My advice would be to avoid the cheaper all in one hqi units like the current marine hqi or the coralife hqi fixture type units. If you MUST go with an all in one fixture, look into the giesemann spectra, or one of the all in one Hamilton mogul/t5 based units. That being said, I think it's far better use of space to use large pendant style units hung inside your canopy.

Look into the Hamilton cabo/cayman sun reflectors or the coralvue lumenbright reflectors. Spectacular spread and power. Those are about your only options on brand new quality reflectors. If you can find some second hand sunlight supply lumenmax reflectors (discontinued but super easy to find) or some lumenarc reflectors (discontinued and hard to find), those would be great as well.

For ballasts, you cannot go wrong with a Hamilton m80 ballast which will fire all double ended bulbs and most (but overdrive) single ended bulbs. It's the closest ballast to spec for the almighty radium bulb. A lumatek or coralvue or galaxy selectable wattage EBallast would also be an appropriate.

Hope that helps. Most of the bigtime old school amazing metal halide sps dominant tanks you see are using the old large lumenarc reflectors. Again those are fairly hard to find, and any of the others suggested would be a perfectly reasonable substitute

 

[fishmommy]

Thanks for this thread and its great responses. I too am on the cusp of dumping my high end LEDs due to coral color looking washed out.
I would add this question.....what color temp mh bulb is best?

 

[Bpb]

The best bulb comes down to taste. I think you'll find the most popular answer on the best MH bulb currently to be the Radium
Bulb...250 watt paired with the m80 ballast and 400 watt paired with the m135 ballast, specifically. This is majorly a matter of taste though. I recently switched from the 250 watt radiums, to XM10k bulbs for better growth. It all depends on how white you like your tank. Some people like that super blue look

 

[seargentslice]

I am going MH / T5 on my 150 build I will be using lumenbright mini reflectors 13inch off bottom of reflector to waterline. Bin doing a-lot of research here are some links to help
Reefkeeping's Product Review - Reefkeeping.com
RS Lumen Bright Thread - Reef Central Online Community
As for ballast going with a select e- ballast so I have the option to take 400watt for a spin if I want.
Understanding Radium Metal Halide Lamps | Premium Aquatics
You wont find many online beside the mini and large you can find them in the for sale section on forums cheap.
Good Luck

 

[Alabamareef]

Any advice on a Vertex ballast, 400w? I can get them at a really good price....

 

[jackson6745]

I would add this question.....what color temp mh bulb is best?

400w radiums in diamond style reflectors, running on lumatek adjustable electronic ballasts (gives option of using 250's as well)

You can see what this looks like here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/110930925@N05/

 

[fishmommy]

Thanks, but what color temp radiums? 14000.....20000.....100000k?

 

[jackson6745]

Radiums are 20k bulbs.

 

[seargentslice]

Take the time to read the last link I posted you will find your answer there

 

[seargentslice]

Any advice on a Vertex ballast, 400w? I can get them at a really good price....

Here are the stats

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/6/review

 

[StikHedRon]

I love my Sunlight Supply Maristar fixture, it has 3 250W Metal Halide and 4 39W T5 bulbs for actinics. Gives the tank a great look, I started out with 14K Phoenix and was a very nice look with 4 ATI Blue + T5's, I just recently switched to Ushio 250W 20K's and the color seems very similar to the Phoenix but has less par. I really like a blue looking tank and T5's seem to be the best at controlling the color of the tank, I would look into an ATI Sunpower 60" 6 or 8 bulb light.

 

[buckroe07]

I love my Hamilton 250w x 4 24w T5 fixture. I currently use Hamiltons 14k metal halide bulb, 2 ATI actinic bulbs, and 2 ATI blue plus. I don't know what made me try the actinic bulbs because the blue plus is a mix with actinics but when it was time to change bulbs I gave an actinic bulb a try and made some colors stand out more like different shades of green, bluish green, and even blues show up more. I used to run 3 ATI blue plus, 1 KZ fiji purple. I also use aquatic life led strip lights and a kessil 360 led light just for the blues for a lot more pop. The actinic T5's still show different shades of colors...not completely different but they as a collective, all help to show what colors my corals are capable of showing!

 

[blufin]

What do you guys think about the Coralvue LuxCore adjustable ballast paired with 250w Radiums? Is this a good pair or will something be lacking?
Sorry, I just read the link posted above regarding the 250w radium bulb and it looks like the luxcore is just fine for the radium. You give up some wattage and white spectrum but not much.

 

[d2mini]

I run the 72" Hamilton Cebu Sun which has 3x 250 MH Radium Bulbs, 4x 60" T5's and led moonlights.
Got mine with the M80 ballasts. Will drive the bulbs correctly, producing a nice crisp white light with a hint of blue and maximizing bulb life. A year minimum.
This fixture comes in several different sizes.
You can even add Reefbright Strips to the outside.

I put this over my tank in February after a couple years of running 4 Radion Pros and my sps exploded in growth and color.
The tank is so much brighter looking overall, too.
No more messing with spectrums, intensity, etc. Just plug and play!

Hamilton has really good customer service, too. Right here in the USA.

I do run a chiller but so what.
Small price to pay for optimum coral health.
Plus my heaters run less!

 

[buckroe07]

Forgot to mention that I use an electronic ballast instead of the magnetic one. It's completely quite when it turns off and on. Also, premium aquatics and aquarium specialty sell sells Hamilton lights.

 

[Alabamareef]

ok lot of good info, thanks guys. I think right now I'm running my whites at 20% only. From a lot of reading I'm not sure my photoperiod + intensity is optimal. So right now my plan is to raise that intensity and see how the corals respond. My friend had best results when his LED's were at 80%. Here is my tank today and the plan is to raise my LED's 1% a week to around 50% then see how everything responds.

Please le me know if you cant see the video!

http://vid921.photobucket.com/album...3-4092-437D-BE1C-9CE4810FA263_zpsok9yf4f5.mp4

 

[seargentslice]

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