Back to halides?
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Yanir34
Well-Known Member
which ballast operates the halides?I want to give a big shout out to @ScottW for helping me with my purchases! My fixture arrived today so I got to get my have dirty when I got home, I cleaned up my hybrid fixture and removed the radions. I adjusted my brackets to better fit the new fixture. While trying to adjust my DIY brackets ft or my xho units I broke a bracket, oops. I'll go to home depot tonight.
Old setup
New setup minus xho blue
Anyone care to share their light schedule with MH, T5, & LED??
Ok. I’ve listened to a lot of talk over the years regarding LEDs saving money over time in heat, no bulb replacement, etc. I think too many times people parrot what they hear a lot of others say or like to listen to their favorite farming operations (which may be getting their LEDs at a deep, deep discount (or even for free) wink, wink. So, let’s do the math as comparative as possible. Let’s say we’re lighting a standard 6x2x2 180 gallon tank. Regarding halides we’d need 3 reflectors, 3 bulbs and 3 ballasts. Let’s say for supllental lighting we use 2 led bars...Orphek for arguments sake.
Bulb: Radium 250 watt @$80 x 3 bulbs = $240
Ballasts: @$150 x 3 = $450
Reflector: @ $150 x 3 = $450
Orphek Light Bars: @$325 x 2 $650
Total: $1,790 to have a wall to wall SPS tank
Using an average killowatt cost of .15 for comparison on a 10 hour day photoperiod:
Halide Power Usage for a 5 hour peak photoperiod = 750 watts x 5 hours = 3500 watts = 3.5 kilowatts @ .15 per kilowatt = @.53 per day x 365 days per year = $193.45 per year
Orphek Light Bar usage (70 watts each) for a 10 hour photoperiod = 70 watts x 2 strips = 140 watts x 10 hours = 1,400 watts = 1.4 kilowatts = @ .21 per day x 365 days per year = $76.65
Halide and Orphek Material Cost: $1,790
Power Consumption per year: $270.10 x 5 years = $1,350.50
4 more years of radium bulb replacements @ $240 per year = $960
Total: $4,100.50
Now, many may not realize the Radion G6 is a 215 watt led fixture. I’m not convinced you’ll only need 3 of these to cover a 6 foot SPS tank but let’s say you’re using 3. Regardless of your intensity setting, the fixture will always pull 215 watts at the wall. That said:
215 watts x 3 fixtures = 645 watts per hour x 10 hours = 6,450 watts = 6.45 kilowatts @ .15 per kilowatt = .97 per day x 365 days per year = $354.05 per year x 5 years = $1,770.25 electric usage.
$1,770.25 power consumption
$2,700 fixtures
Total: $4,470.25
Now, I know many want to add a bunch of other variables. No, I’ve never needed a chiller. With the right reflector (Lumenmax Elite) I can easily hang my halides 18” off the water and have never seen more than a 1.5 degree rise in temperature. However my LEDs have always kicked on my heater much more often because they run cool.
Even with bulb replacements, unless you’re a techy that needs the new bells and whistles, you’re paying more to run LEDs. Furthermore, how many people still have their led fixtures over their tanks from 5 years ago? Not many at all. So in year 6 halides beat the pants off led in both growth and cost. If you’re using t5, you’re saving even more money and growing and coloring up corals better.
IMHO, LED manufactures and the industry pushing everyone in that direction is trickling down to the final cost of what we pay for frags these days that grow slower as the farmers try to recuperate the cost of all their led fixtures
The math is there and hard to ignore once upon see it.
Bulb: Radium 250 watt @$80 x 3 bulbs = $240
Ballasts: @$150 x 3 = $450
Reflector: @ $150 x 3 = $450
Orphek Light Bars: @$325 x 2 $650
Total: $1,790 to have a wall to wall SPS tank
Using an average killowatt cost of .15 for comparison on a 10 hour day photoperiod:
Halide Power Usage for a 5 hour peak photoperiod = 750 watts x 5 hours = 3500 watts = 3.5 kilowatts @ .15 per kilowatt = @.53 per day x 365 days per year = $193.45 per year
Orphek Light Bar usage (70 watts each) for a 10 hour photoperiod = 70 watts x 2 strips = 140 watts x 10 hours = 1,400 watts = 1.4 kilowatts = @ .21 per day x 365 days per year = $76.65
Halide and Orphek Material Cost: $1,790
Power Consumption per year: $270.10 x 5 years = $1,350.50
4 more years of radium bulb replacements @ $240 per year = $960
Total: $4,100.50
Now, many may not realize the Radion G6 is a 215 watt led fixture. I’m not convinced you’ll only need 3 of these to cover a 6 foot SPS tank but let’s say you’re using 3. Regardless of your intensity setting, the fixture will always pull 215 watts at the wall. That said:
215 watts x 3 fixtures = 645 watts per hour x 10 hours = 6,450 watts = 6.45 kilowatts @ .15 per kilowatt = .97 per day x 365 days per year = $354.05 per year x 5 years = $1,770.25 electric usage.
$1,770.25 power consumption
$2,700 fixtures
Total: $4,470.25
Now, I know many want to add a bunch of other variables. No, I’ve never needed a chiller. With the right reflector (Lumenmax Elite) I can easily hang my halides 18” off the water and have never seen more than a 1.5 degree rise in temperature. However my LEDs have always kicked on my heater much more often because they run cool.
Even with bulb replacements, unless you’re a techy that needs the new bells and whistles, you’re paying more to run LEDs. Furthermore, how many people still have their led fixtures over their tanks from 5 years ago? Not many at all. So in year 6 halides beat the pants off led in both growth and cost. If you’re using t5, you’re saving even more money and growing and coloring up corals better.
IMHO, LED manufactures and the industry pushing everyone in that direction is trickling down to the final cost of what we pay for frags these days that grow slower as the farmers try to recuperate the cost of all their led fixtures
The math is there and hard to ignore once upon see it.
acropora4u
Valuable Member
3 hr minimum if you have other lighting in line
bobnicaragua
Well-Known Member
I would run halides the traditional 6 to 8 hours, you’ll get better results than just the minimum you can get by with.
Big E
Valuable Member
2-3 hours a day is plenty if the other combo lighting you have runs for 8-10 hours.
I’ve never run mine more than 5 hours regardless of what supplemental lighting I’ve had. Longer halide photoperiods just seemed counter productive and more harmful than good.
After seeing Jason Fox’s gorgeous 900 gallon SPS system only running them for 4 hours a day (and sometimes backed off to 3 when nutrients are lower) I saw no need to do much more. And after seeing Dana Riddle’s presentation on photosynthesis and how more light can actually shut down photosynthesis it seemed a much better approach to see how little light I could run; not how much.
Halides have more UV than any other light source we can use over our tanks. That’s been measured and proven. That said, it stands to reason we need much less of it to get amazing results.
After seeing Jason Fox’s gorgeous 900 gallon SPS system only running them for 4 hours a day (and sometimes backed off to 3 when nutrients are lower) I saw no need to do much more. And after seeing Dana Riddle’s presentation on photosynthesis and how more light can actually shut down photosynthesis it seemed a much better approach to see how little light I could run; not how much.
Halides have more UV than any other light source we can use over our tanks. That’s been measured and proven. That said, it stands to reason we need much less of it to get amazing results.
RedoubtReef
Valuable Member
generally, yes.
Heck yeah. Hang them high too so you can really get some great spread. The ballast, bulb and reflector combinations really matter as well.
I have the Lumatek ballasts. Don’t know much about the Bali Sun reflector but I believe it’s much like the Reefbrite reflector if I’m not mistaken. The Lumatek is a good ballast. I do get much more par and a brighter crisp white out of my Radium 400 watt bulbs on a frag tank with my older Galaxy ballasts though. My guess is that the Galaxy ballast overdrives the bulb a bit...even past the Super Lumen option on the Lumatek.
Either way you’re good to go and can grow any sticks you want under that setup.
PeterErc
Well-Known Member
Well, now I can officially say growth is better with 3x250w pheonix, galaxy electronic, and reef optix iii. Then it was with 4x80w T5. Everything else stayed them same. Plus my wife has not said anything other than the tank looks good. When the blue wave 7 ballasts were on the dining room floor next to the tank, she wasn’t thrilled. I was able to hide the electronics on the back of the canopy.
On another note I recently took 4x24w T5 with diy led bar off a 36 gallon. It’s a softy tank and I put a Smat Farm LED fixture over it. Pleasantly surprised and everything is happy and I like it more than the T5. So in this instance LED is great. Would I put 6 or 9 Smat’s over a 150g to replace the lights. I don’t think so
Superlightman
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Electricity is cheap in US, 0,18€ in France and it should increase 45% the next years (hope not) and Germany already is at more than 0,37€.
I not unterstand this: " Regardless of your intensity setting, the fixture will always pull 215 watts at the wall. "
If your led is only used at 50% you should not use 215 watt but he half?
Basically, from a cost perspective, it’s going to be a wash compared to metal halide. Being that leds DO in fact degrade over time, experts in the aquarium lighting field have claimed they’ll need to be replaced or serviced within 4-5 years. Give the price of led aquarium fixtures these days, I’m sorry but that’s just not good enough. My comparison above was at minimum only 3 radion xr30 fixtures on a 6 foot tank, and I don’t know anyone with wall to wall sticks that only uses 3.
Now, if you’re just looking for the newest fixture or want the latest bling with all the bells and whistles by all means have at it. I have LEDs an honest try. There’s too much guess work, and when I saw my sticks in daylight full spectrum they looked pale and not as fully saturated with color as they did under halides.
When nothing else changes and all you do is put halides back on and watch your alkalinty consumption and growth rates take off, the proof is in the pudding. Some people say “well you just need more fixtures”. Hmm...well for the cost of a used car sure. But I’d rather spend that money on corals and have a plug and play known method that just works. LED’s are constantly being tweaked and “improved” every generation. When are they going to finally catch up?
Now, if you’re just looking for the newest fixture or want the latest bling with all the bells and whistles by all means have at it. I have LEDs an honest try. There’s too much guess work, and when I saw my sticks in daylight full spectrum they looked pale and not as fully saturated with color as they did under halides.
When nothing else changes and all you do is put halides back on and watch your alkalinty consumption and growth rates take off, the proof is in the pudding. Some people say “well you just need more fixtures”. Hmm...well for the cost of a used car sure. But I’d rather spend that money on corals and have a plug and play known method that just works. LED’s are constantly being tweaked and “improved” every generation. When are they going to finally catch up?
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