Metal Halides are the bomb

[Magellan]

You could have almost certainly used lower wattage MH, then. I remember people dropping big cash on that Solaris when it came out and it ended up dying a quick death when multi-color stuff came out - don't remember it doing all that much better than "just fine." Don't recall people saying that it was an awesome light, or anything. Time does fly.

150w HQI might have been your jam... way less heat too.

What I have. One $15 fan running a couple hours a day keeps my tank cool no problems even on hot days.

 

[Dana Riddle]

What I have. One $15 fan running a couple hours a day keeps my tank cool no problems even on hot days.

Luminaire geometry plays a huge part in focusing of light. It is quite possible that a 150-watt MH lamp would have provided enough radiation. But, in my case, it didn't - a 400-watt lamp was required.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I will say this, I am a pretty smart guy and ran a commercial grow facility for about 5 years. We spent a LOT of time testing bulbs, reflectors, different combinations of lights. The LED guys were pushing us HARD to invest in LED. I spent on average about $9,000 /month on electricity. Two 3 phase 600 amp panels maxed out plus a third 240 400 amo panel.

Anyways, save 4k a month on power? Sure I will bite. The par numbers looked good, as did the wavelength. First trial was aweful. We doubled the wattage. Meah.. about the same as the HPS in terms of quantity but the aromatics were not there.

Finally I made my own units. Highest quality bin LED, meanwell drivers, huge heat sinks. They were blindingly brite, I thought this is it! We put those units against a 1,000 HPS bulbs, exact same strain, co2, nutrients, everything. It came in with 30% less yield.

So, right then and there I never looked back. Corals and plants are both photosynthetic although they use different wavelengths. I kind of laughed when LED manufacturers were creating little pucks to light wide areas? Why? For less disco affect I guess. It just doesnt align with the physics of light energy and the whole inverse square thing.

Form factor is definately a win for LED, as is the heat thing. Hawaii and halides... ummm no. Simplicity.. MH is a BIG win. It doesnt work? It's the bulb or the ballast, either one is less than $100.

And BTW.. quit spending money on "aquarium" ballasts. You can get much higher quality digital ballasts for less money. Especially on Ebay. A 600 watt adjustable ballast will drive 250 and 400 watt bulbs using the 50% and 75% setting respectively.

Anyways.. thought it was interesting that there is something besides pure par going on.

 

[jda]

I have told this story before, but I valued a grow facility near me a year or two ago, so I had a big interview with them and about 10 of their peers. All of them used HPS, MV and MH and a few spent about $20k on LEDs that were in a corner collecting dust. All of them said that saving a few grand in electrical cost was stupid to make $75-100k less in product. I did not get into bud quality with them, just yield. These are real facilities making real money and they would just belly laugh about the literature that you see online about the "savings."

Saw the same thing in an organic Basil facility and one that grew a certain strain of Heirloom Tomato Seeds.

The people Colorado hit the tree harder than Sonny Bono, so yield is a big thing... I imagine that this is true everywhere.

Hydro reflectors are really good over large tanks, too.

 

[Dana Riddle]

I have told this story before, but I valued a grow facility near me a year or two ago, so I had a big interview with them and about 10 of their peers. All of them used HPS, MV and MH and a few spent about $20k on LEDs that were in a corner collecting dust. All of them said that saving a few grand in electrical cost was stupid to make $75-100k less in product. I did not get into bud quality with them, just yield. These are real facilities making real money and they would just belly laugh about the literature that you see online about the "savings."

Saw the same thing in an organic Basil facility and one that grew a certain strain of Heirloom Tomato Seeds.

The people Colorado hit the tree harder than Sonny Bono, so yield is a big thing... I imagine that this is true everywhere.

Hydro reflectors are really good over large tanks, too.

A grow facility - marijuana? Please, we can't compare requirements of terrestrial plants to aquatic species.

 

[C. Eymann]

I got my first 175w metal halide retrofit kit back in 2001 so I could start attempting to keep acropora and other SPS and I still believe it is the best artificial light source. I have used powercompacts ,T12's T5s, VHOs over the years but nothing really compares IME.
Sure LEDs and T5s can get some amazing colors to pop, but so can halides AND growth rate with halides is still unmatched.

I personally am not a big fan of the blacklight poster look thats popular these days, I want my box of water to look like a slice taken from a coral reef, plus most of the color pop you get from LEDs is just the lighting settings/blacklight fluorescence. Most of these "insane" corals look pretty meh under a more natural lighting scheme.

Im still considering hanging my old 2x250w/t5 hammy fixture over my new tank VS the 10 bulb sfiligoi T5 fixture I picked up.


Just my .02

 

[LadyTang2]

Noob question - can you use a 1000 w ballast to power two separate bulbs like 2 radiums?

 

[oreo54]

Lol

Anyways, save 4k a month on power? Sure I will bite. The par numbers looked good, as did the wavelength. First trial was aweful. We doubled the wattage. Meah.. about the same as the HPS in terms of quantity but the aromatics were not there.

Finally I made my own units. Highest quality bin LED, meanwell drivers, huge heat sinks. They were blindingly brite, I thought this is it! We put those units against a 1,000 HPS bulbs, exact same strain, co2, nutrients, everything. It came in with 30% less yield.

So, right then and there I never looked back. Corals and plants are both photosynthetic although they use different wavelengths. I kind of laughed when LED manufacturers were creating little pucks to light wide areas? Why? For less disco affect I guess. It just doesnt align with the physics of light energy and the whole inverse square thing.

Form factor is definately a win for LED, as is the heat thing. Hawaii and halides... ummm no. Simplicity.. MH is a BIG win. It doesnt work? It's the bulb or the ballast, either one is less than $100.

And BTW.. quit spending money on "aquarium" ballasts. You can get much higher quality digital ballasts for less money. Especially on Ebay. A 600 watt adjustable ballast will drive 250 and 400 watt bulbs using the 50% and 75% setting respectively.

Anyways.. thought it was interesting that there is something besides pure par going on.

HPS "were" more efficient than LED.
HPS and MH ..apples and oranges..
W your Diy LEDs did you emulate the hps spectrum?

Inverse sq law is weak at normal tank distances..
Light falloff is roughly linear in short distances

Even I would have a hard time justifying replacing HPS w/ LED's..
But they are not MH's..

HPS vs LED Grow Lights: The Spectrum Efficiency Showdown – The Green Sunshine Company

The HPS vs LED grow light matchup is a clash of the titans. Find out which is more efficient for plant growth when the scientific results are revealed!

thegreensunshineco.com

due to the high red content note the stretching on the leaflets..
smaller the leaves.. less growing power?
I'll leave that alone ..

things progress eh..

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

A grow facility - marijuana? Please, we can't compare requirements of terrestrial plants to aquatic species.

And why would that be? Because one didn't evolve utilizing solar radiation to produce carbs?

I absolutely respect your knowledge base, but there are more similarities between the two than there are differences.

 

[oreo54]

And why would that be? Because one didn't evolve utilizing solar radiation to produce carbs?

I absolutely respect your knowledge base, but there are more similarities between the two than there are differences.

Actually not.. In the ocean "red light " denotes high light concentration not shade as w/ terrestrials..
Most red/IR and UV is attenuated out at depth as well..

In a sense everything is as backwards..

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Noob question - can you use a 1000 w ballast to power two separate bulbs like 2 radiums?

NO. The digi ballasts send a short pulse of power to make sure the bulb is there and intact, then it sends a series of pulses to fire or start the bulb.

There are some lumatek dual 600 ballasts still out there but they are really old and only run on 240v. Avoid.

 

[oreo54]

I have told this story before, but I valued a grow facility near me a year or two ago, so I had a big interview with them and about 10 of their peers. All of them used HPS, MV and MH and a few spent about $20k on LEDs that were in a corner collecting dust. All of them said that saving a few grand in electrical cost was stupid to make $75-100k less in product. I did not get into bud quality with them, just yield. These are real facilities making real money and they would just belly laugh about the literature that you see online about the "savings."

Saw the same thing in an organic Basil facility and one that grew a certain strain of Heirloom Tomato Seeds.

The people Colorado hit the tree harder than Sonny Bono, so yield is a big thing... I imagine that this is true everywhere.

Hydro reflectors are really good over large tanks, too.

For "fun" though not sure what Cannabis has to do w/ anything here...

HPS vs. LED for Cannabis Cultivation

Cannabis cultivators find themselves in a dilemma called HPS (high pressure sodium) lighting versus LED (light emitting diode) lighting. On the one hand, HPS has been around in agriculture for …

www.valoya.com

An academic research titled ‘The Effect of Light Spectrum on Cannabis Sativa Morphology and Cannabinoid Content’ (G.Grassi, G.Magagnini, S.Kotiranta) has been presented at the Cannabinoid Conference in Cologne in September 2017 which presented a two-year long comparative study of HPS versus LED lighting for cannabis cultivation.
As for the compound accumulation in the flowers, treatments NS1 and AP673L had higher CBD and THC concentrations than HPS treatment. Treatment NS1 had the highest CBG Level. Spectrum NS1 is rich in short wavelength irradiation (blue and UVA) and had the highest R:FR ratio of all tested spectra. In addition to high cannabinoid content, spectrum NS1 enhanced the compact growth habit of the measured plants. The research suggests that the lower wavelengths, blue and UVA, could contribute to the higher cannabinoid yield in treatment NS1 compared to AP673L and HPS, respectively. In the rounds of the research the amount of THC produced under LEDs ranged from 26-38% more than compared to the HPS treatment.

I assume one wants more THC than stems..but what do I know..

Cannabinoid Yield: HPS resulted in a significant decline of THC concen-tration in flowers compared to both LED treatments in both experiments, while no significant differences be-tween the two LED types were observed. The amount of THC (% w/w) was highest in treatment NS1 and lowest in treatment HPS in both experiments 1 and 2 (Fig. 2e). In experiment 1, HPS had 38% less (9.5%) THC com-pared to NS1 (15.4%), in experiment 2, the equivalent number was 26%. One-way ANOVA between the two ex-periments showed a slight but significant (p < 0.05) dif-ference in the THC concentration in treatments HPS and AP673L but not in treatment NS1. The drop in the THC concentration under HPS led to a corresponding decrease in CBD, THCV, and especially CBG,

paper

 

[jda]

Come on... you all use studies and links to things with terrestrial plants when it suits your needs.

I am sure that these are the kind of literature that these growers were talking about. If you all had half a million dollars a month on the line, you would laugh at this stuff too.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

EXACTLY.

I hate when people just dismiss something when its "marijuana" related. I can assure you the stress, money, and employees I had to deal with on a daily basis would dwarf what most people have to deal with.

What can I say, it was my mid life crisis activity. Some guys buy a Corvette, some guys research, grow weed legally, absolutely toil in the garden, expand, build out, expand, build out, expand. Clear a cool 1.5 in 2 years... parachute out when the bubble popped.

I have not done any coral research, but I do know my way around some lights.
One of six, 50,000 watt flower rooms...

 

[KrisReef]

Most reefers don't grow their stuff until it flowers and then hang it up to dry. But we do trim it if it's growing good.
Lumens, photons, everything looks good after baking in UV. Then it wrinkles, fades, and sometimes gets buried at sea.

Nutrients, alkalinity, current, and light all dumped in a box to grow a fragment into a colony stunted, unlike anything it could have had in the sea.

God has a reef, unlike anything we've ever lit.

 

[A. grandis]

Hello Dana, I know you must be very busy. I would appreciate very much if you could leave your detailed comments on post #56 when you have some time and please feel free to add to it, as you wish. Thanks in advance.

 

[naterealbig]

Most reefers don't grow their stuff until it flowers and then hang it up to dry. But we do trim it if it's growing good.
Lumens, photons, everything looks good after baking in UV. Then it wrinkles, fades, and sometimes gets buried at sea.

Nutrients, alkalinity, current, and light all dumped in a box to grow a fragment into a colony stunted, unlike anything it could have had in the sea.

God has a reef, unlike anything we've ever lit.

This is mad deep bro.

 

[Dana Riddle]

And why would that be? Because one didn't evolve utilizing solar radiation to produce carbs?

I absolutely respect your knowledge base, but there are more similarities between the two than there are differences.
Respectivfully disagree.

And why would that be? Because one didn't evolve utilizing solar radiation to produce carbs?

I absolutely respect your knowledge base, but there are more similarities between the two than there are differences.

Of course I agree with you that we should avoid blanket statements. Problem in any aquarium forum is that people will state what they notice and choose the results they like showing pictures and videos. Therefore such division of preferences and some times harsh arguments. At the same time we know that the majority posting their opinions here will never have access to any scientific device to measure any of the previous data suggested. We depend on people like you to try understand more.
I agree also that we should examine in details as to why such results are happening. But how? Who could do that? And what are exactly the facts for the results we see and what to look for as for real factors?

Another problem we often face here is that "good results" have many meanings to so many different people. It is so hard to determinate a based pattern in order to drive such comparisons besides approaching the natural original aspects of the coral colonies in question. That is MHO. Specially because of the large diversity of qualities the same coral species will show under so many different "diluted environments" offered by people in the hobby.

I think an experiment should have different fresh daughter wild colonies from the same mother colony to be exposed to the different types of light to start with with proper acclimation to the individual light sources in the very same system (water parameters/system maintenance).
It is important to note that results are different and personal preferences will determinate what people like here in this forum. So what one thinks is "best" will not necessarily will be to another. And after all that we still have the differences among the types of light.

Besides all the previous aspects of light on the table, including PAR, PUR and intensity measurements, and all the variations of them, specially pointing the long term aspects of exposure (differences in photoperiod, as an example), what would be the points you would think we should consider to determinate the different results of light on corals namely: "colors and growth rate" normally published by many?

I think the real spectrum of each source (well represented often by limited charts) is what makes the differences. The photons produced/emitted by halides are different than the ones by LEDs in terms of limitation. Due to the broadband spectrum properties of halide bulbs independent of labelled Kelvin numbers on the halide's boxes, I think the photons produced by halides are better at resembling the natural photons produced by the sun. That is, the photons halides can produce embrace and offers a better quality to the living organisms. As we know the photons by LEDs are different in nature basically because of the way they are produced. Halides and T5s photons are produced by gases. The LEDs are different, produced by 2 electrodes. Effects and results will have to be different on living organisms. Another major difference is CRI (Color Rendering Index). LEDs have 65-95 and halides have probably the best source of high CRI white light in the market. If we talk about Foot Candles we normally see the advantage of LEDs in numbers, but we know the use of good quality fixtures will distribute the light from halides and therefore make up for the know losses in comparison associated with omnidirectional light output transfoming the environment and providing a blanket favoring as a whole. There are so many aspects...

Lighting Comparison: LED vs Metal Halide Lights

Metal halide lights are a familiar site to baseball fans, but how do they stack up against LED lights? Learn about energy efficient lighting solutions.

www.stouchlighting.com

I do trust graphics to some extent, but also see them more as a reference, many times commercially speaking when by companies, to what really happen. That is why is so hard to trust and lay on them 100% IMHO. They are very good references in their majority, I would say.
Another fact to spectrum is blending and direction emitted in terms of LED. Again UV and IR are also what I think makes a huge difference using halides. I would like you to leave here your detailed comments on that part as well. I've been waiting for that long time, please.

To be specific we can talk about a coral that you and I know: Porites lobata. If we see some of the strains in the ocean, they are so bright yellow in shallow water that is like a magnet to our eyes. Truly beautiful. Such coral can maintain those natural pigments (and natural colony shape) under metal halide bulbs but not so much under LEDs alone. I believe that was also the case with Dr. Sanjay Joshi with his yellow Porites sp. How can we stipulate, in that specific case, what determinate maintaining the color of the coral (or similar Porites spp. in the same terms)? When he had halides over his tank the coral was bright yellow and after he changed to LEDs it became dull gray. I know this is an isolated case, but we need to bring something here as a comparison and unfortunately there is no way to really find out because we are not sure if he did any other changes in the system that would affect, even if he claims not to change anything. I just want to know your thoughts on possible ways in regards to light alone, if you can.

I really wish you could go deep in your thoughts here and try to expose possibilities and question marks to bring some of the light properties in order to explain what we read so many times when people report their changes from LEDs to halides like in this thread. That way most of us would be able to have in mind all the aspects of results and try to understand more about the results and the facts posted.

Maybe we will need an article after your explanations here.

I appreciate your help very much!!

Let me slay one dragon at a time. Here's a link to an article about UV I wrote years ago.

Feature Article: Playing With Poison - Ultraviolet Radiation

This article documents the results of an experiment designed to examine the effects of artificially-produced UVR on symbiotic zooxanthellae. We'll also examine inexpensive ways to test your system and, if necessary, corrective measures one can take.

www.advancedaquarist.com

 

[Dana Riddle]

EXACTLY.

I hate when people just dismiss something when its "marijuana" related. I can assure you the stress, money, and employees I had to deal with on a daily basis would dwarf what most people have to deal with.

What can I say, it was my mid life crisis activity. Some guys buy a Corvette, some guys research, grow weed legally, absolutely toil in the garden, expand, build out, expand, build out, expand. Clear a cool 1.5 in 2 years... parachute out when the bubble popped.

I have not done any coral research, but I do know my way around some lights.
One of six, 50,000 watt flower rooms...

I'm not trying to dismiss your hard work and knowledge in your field. I can relate (I think) - when I was running the coral farm back in the 90's, I often worked 16 hour days, sometimes at 30-day stretches. I had to deal with employees, volunteers, bosses, customers, etc. all while maintaining 5 different systems totaling about 10,000 gallons. This was almost 25 years ago when our knowledge base was a lot less than it is today. In addition, the owners gave me full reign to conduct research with corals I would dream of owning as just a hobbyist.
My point is that terrestrial systems have significant differences from aquatic ones. Sure, terms such as compensation and saturation points are valid in both, but there are intensity and spectral differences (much more so than 'sun' and 'shade' terrestrial types.) I have never used HPS lamps for corals but I suspect their red-shifted spectra would bleach them in short order.
I've attached a photo of one of the books on photosynthesis in my library. Kirk goes into great detail about the differences.

 

[oreo54]

I think the photons produced by halides are better at resembling the natural photons produced by the sun.

The "not quite" magic photon argument.
high CRI COBs plus 410nm Viosys chips vs Iwasaki 6500K (raise the k i.e 14000K and match gets worse)
And dotted line sunlight at a 10m I believe.. or close.
Note the 440nm-ish mismatch..which is actually "fixed" in higher K lamps

nm "fix"

Sunlight at surface:

None of these lights are "natural" per se..and personally.. Led potential is much better at it then mh..
Secondary point.. Who actually wants it "err" Natural?
2.5M comparison. Most "natural" light source I know of.. @ 2.5M ocean depth.