Cry Havok, Let Slip The Question of War

[Servillius]

I really don’t want to start any trouble here. I’m just a harmless little old man doing a bit of math.

I watched the WWC 500 gal and something struck me that I hadn’t really thought through carefully before. That tank has 6 Radion G4 Pro and 4x80W t5. Some rough math says:

190w x 6 + 80w x 4 = 1360 watts of light.
$800 x 6 + ~$300 = $5100 worth of lights plus another few hundred for mounting.

So I went and watched some of the older vids. In particular the ATI Sunpower. The par ratings in that video appear to be comperable or better than those for the 500. At the very least, they don’t appear particularly deficient. So let’s look at ATI. Two 60” 8 bulb fixtures yields.

640w x 2 = 1280 watts of light.
$600 x 2 = $1200 worth of lights.

And one big difference. $400 worth of bulbs.

Those are some surprising numbers. I won’t even try to convince anyone established tanks look better without too much shimmer. I’ll just point out you can buy a lot of shimmer for the $3500 left over.

I’m really not so interested any more in the can whatever lights grow coral arguments. I’m just a bit taken back and want to ask why bother?

 

[Antics]

It's been discussed at length over the years but essentially the argument that LEDs are cheaper in the long run, etc. is pure fantasy. The cost savings people use to point to such as needing a chiller, bulb replacement, etc only make sense over a 5 to 10 year period.

These high end LEDs are obviously very popular, but even WWC is supplementing with T5. Perhaps the more budget friendly LEDs make sense but it's hard to use price as a justification for leaving T5 or even MH.

Not knocking LEDs, I have radions myself. But I couldn't sit here and explain why the cost is justified. The benefits of LEDs are their controllability, modular form factor, and relatively low operating cost. But at the scale of a 500 gallon tank I think you're right to scratch your head a bit at "shimmer".

 

[paphater]

I think on a large tank like that, diy leds are a strong contender for power and price.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

I really don’t want to start any trouble here. I’m just a harmless little old man doing a bit of math.

I watched the WWC 500 gal and something struck me that I hadn’t really thought through carefully before. That tank has 6 Radion G4 Pro and 4x80W t5. Some rough math says:

190w x 6 + 80w x 4 = 1360 watts of light.
$800 x 6 + ~$300 = $5100 worth of lights plus another few hundred for mounting.

So I went and watched some of the older vids. In particular the ATI Sunpower. The par ratings in that video appear to be comperable or better than those for the 500. At the very least, they don’t appear particularly deficient. So let’s look at ATI. Two 60” 8 bulb fixtures yields.

640w x 2 = 1280 watts of light.
$600 x 2 = $1200 worth of lights.

And one big difference. $400 worth of bulbs.

Those are some surprising numbers. I won’t even try to convince anyone established tanks look better without too much shimmer. I’ll just point out you can buy a lot of shimmer for the $3500 left over.

I’m really not so interested any more in the can whatever lights grow coral arguments. I’m just a bit taken back and want to ask why bother?

You're right on. It's been like this forever. For tanks under 30" of depth generally T5HO has always been the most forgiving, cost effective way to grow in a tank. I've crunched the numbers too many times. Halides are next in line and takeover on deeper tanks or larger systems where scaling effect comes into play. LEDs just have too much upfront investment in a product that likely will be obsolete before 10 years rolls around and you get your investment back in power use/bulb savings. I'll always take the smaller initial investment coupled with roughly fixed annual bulb maintenance item that essentially gets me a new light every time I do it. For personal taste I know what I like and I can't judge anyone else for liking other types lighting more. It's all preference at a certain point. I will say if someone is advocating that an array of ecotech lights is a cheaper way to light a tank long term than T5HO, I won't be able to take them very seriously.

 

[klm2500hd]

Real world results, my electric bill over the course of running LED vs. Metal Halide/VHO/T5 has been a reduction average of $93 per month on the electric bill. The heaters on the tank run more often, A/C on house less often, chiller non existent now. With an investment cost of around $1500 to go LED, I reached the break even point at about 1-1/2 years. The trade off has been slower coral growth observed.

 

[Servillius]

Real world results, my electric bill over the course of running LED vs. Metal Halide/VHO/T5 has been a reduction average of $93 per month on the electric bill. The heaters on the tank run more often, A/C on house less often, chiller non existent now. With an investment cost of around $1500 to go LED, I reached the break even point at about 1-1/2 years. The trade off has been slower coral growth observed.

Yep, I believe that. But it’s worth noting halides are definitely more power hungry than t5. I cut my power consumption in half when I went to t5 from halide/t5 combo and my PAR went up. Halides and high electric bills definitely improve the math for LED, but at least in my case, the t5s just crush the options.

 

[Servillius]

Or to put it another way, I think two G4 Pro would be barely enough for my 60” x 30” footprint, but they’re already 380W vs. the 400W of t5 I’m using and I could happily cut my lights back quite a bit and still have more and better PAR. It just doesn’t seem like the electric bill could make up that difference.