Best lighting on the market? Is there one?

[A. grandis]

I never said they did. I was talking about the sun lights. The tanning lights have been refered too from the halides back in the 90s. I never did halides but ive heard good things despite the big heavy ballast and heat.
D

Metal halides is the closest we can get to natural sunlight!

 

[A. grandis]

Broad spectrum LEDs and narrow spectrum halides....got it.

LOL!

 

[A. grandis]

Btw, Iwasaki 6500k bulbs with actinic VHO's were the bomb, just saying.

...THAT LAMP I LIKE IS NOT COMING BACK IN STYLE....:(

So it has happened, Just last week. I don’t want to say finally, as in I have some feeling of relief about this, but I knew this day would eventually greet me. And I’ll confess, I am not without mixed emotions about it. You see, with only a few months left on my last three running Iwasaki...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[bobnicaragua]

T5 and Kessil are a solid combination, plus they look great. I've run them on a 3 foot sps tank with good results.

The "best" combination is t5 and halides for growth and coral health.

More people are running halides these days and mixing them with LED instead of t5. Less heat, more pop, and controllable.

The best isn't what most people are looking for.

 

[ca1ore]

Define “best”.
If all you care about is growth and health of the corals MH+T5’s, in my opinion, still reigns supreme.
All light sources have their pros and cons. The best light is dependent on your wants, needs and application.

Mostly what I was about to type .... thanks for saving me some time!

 

[oreo54]

Metal halides is the closest we can get to natural sunlight!

No.....

 

[A. grandis]

 

[A. grandis]

 

[oreo54]

stuff

And... how many people use those?

A "particular" one may/is close and not a very popular one atm.

sooo now that we had our spitting match between 2 err "unpopular" lights.. Now what?
Didn't even use their "daylight" led..

 

[A. grandis]

You can try whatever you want to fool newbies comparing any LED in the world with metal halides using your graphics and such, but results don't lie. The only reason why the LED companies keep comparing their "new" products with metal halide is because they know the halides are the best and unbeatable, no questions about it.
Every thread is the same thing... you come with graphics to try to prove your points, but experience is what dictates the facts. There is no arguments against facts, period. All the qualities of metal halide still holds them up on it's throne. The king of artificial reef lights!
The videos are of 10000K bulbs and they give superb coloration and growth. Either 10K or 14k bulbs with the right reflectors and ballasts will show the same results found in nature. The video of the Kyocera is a joke comparing to halides! I'm sorry...

 

[A. grandis]

...and if you can't hear that from me, please hear from all those people that are changing their LEDs for T5s and/or metal halides. The numbers are growing every day around the world. Many don't even use LEDs for supplementation anymore. They prefer T5s instead.
To reproduce sun light and sky light over a reef tank: metal halide/t5.

 

[oreo54]

To reproduce sun light and sky light over a reef tank: metal halide/t5.

No..................

please hear from all those people that are changing their LEDs for T5s and/or metal

People change socks too...
Anyways doesn't matter.. Did you EVER hear me say "use LEDs".. no because I didn't.

Full honesty even all your MH/t5 talk... Ceramic Metal Halides are better..and if there is common sense anymore halide users should all be switching to them.
New ballasts.. new bulbs..

See I supported your cult of the halide right there

 

[Jack Ravensbergen]

Philips coral care full led works for me .

 

[Ghost25]

Maybe not cheaper but Radions are considered by many to be the best on the market. I don't own them but I've seen very nice systems with extremely fast growth using exclusively Radion's G4.

 

[A. grandis]

No..................


People change socks too...
Anyways doesn't matter.. Did you EVER hear me say "use LEDs".. no because I didn't.

Full honesty even all your MH/t5 talk... Ceramic Metal Halides are better..and if there is common sense anymore halide users should all be switching to them.
New ballasts.. new bulbs..

See I supported your cult of the halide right there

Anyways... the only people that wouldn't actually know halides are the very best growing corals would be those who never had a reef tank (you) and/or those who never saw nor had halides over their own tanks.

 

[Tamberav]

I would rather ditch the kessil and have a pure 8 bulb ATI fixture then waste the space. The Orphek or red brite strips are a good way to add led pop without sacrificing T5 space.

I would love to try MH someday.

 

[rgulrich]

I love these threads...they're a lot like walking into a rodeo bar and sayin' "My pickup can kick all your Silverado/Ram/F-150/Tundra/Colorado/Canyon/Frontier/Titan/Ridgeline/etc. etc. etc. backsides!"

After coming running T-12 fluorescents over a 100 gallon Mediterranean aquarium in the 80's in Athens, I came back to the US and started up a 225 with a combo of VHO T-12s and some homemade halide fixtures. My AC bills did go up a up bit in Tucson, but I got things to work. My favorite bulbs were the Iwasaki Eye Clean Ace for halides, and URI's VHO Actinic White and Actinic03 (one of the original tanning bed bulbs I think...).

I tinkered with a number of different light sources and managed to get things to work one way or another, with varying levels of success: keeping things alive to getting things to grow and even getting some things to look good. My current setup has gone through an array of six 250W metal halides, a couple different LED fixtures, and landed on the current LED array. The metal halide starters and fixtures are still in the garage after six years of LEDs, although I did loan one starter out to a friend a month ago to test out whether his 250W had failed or not. He uses that halide over one of his (way too many) frag systems. The rest are LED.

In the end, I like the results from the LED and enjoy great coral growth, natural coloration (yes, you can make things look like a 70's discotheque if you wish, but I don't), glitter lines from point source lighting like halide provides, and a much cooler living room in the summer. Yes, the LED array does run cooler than my six 250W halides did. And yes, the array is very tunable and it consumes much less power for more PAR/PUR than my halide array did. So it works for me.

Bottom line - different folks like different aspects about their particular lighting approach and there are plenty of tradeoffs to be made when we pull things in from the reef and try to keep them in our living room/bedroom/basement/greenhouse/sunroom/etc. I've been lucky to have tried a number of them over the past, um, many years, and currently settled on an LED array. Other folks I'm sure have found something they like to use as well. So keep looking, keep asking, and enjoy the hobby.

Cheers,
Ray

 

[Deep]

I run the giesemann Spectra - the halide , T5 hybrid. I run a 250 W SE Reeflux MH bulb with 4 ATI T5 bulbs. Love the spread that I get.

 

[Scubatricky]

, but experience is what dictates the facts. There is no arguments against facts, period.

The most unscientific verse ever uttered...

Every time I dance, it rains. Therefore my dancing makes it rain.




My experience is that dancing makes it rain...therefore that is a fact, and you cannot argue with it

 

[Scubatricky]

When you compare a system lit by the sun and a system lit by metal halides you just can't tell much difference! That doesn't happen with other types of lighting. Results don't lie.

Incorrect