Metal Halides are the bomb

[A. grandis]

Yeah, when I went from T5 to MH my lps and soft corals suffered. on average I’m seeing 200-250w on the sand bed.

after a few months and creating some lower light locations the frogspawn and hammers are better. Not great, but better. The torch loves the light.

i plan to place plating monti to help shade corals...the monti are growing like mad.

overall, please I switched. One concern I don’t have, is enough light. Near the top I read 750-800 watts with the par meter But as said above, it’s just a metric, I let my eyes be the judge as to how the coral is doing under the MH at any particular spot.

PAR is actually reported as: 200-250 molm2sec (micromole per square meter per second) or 750-800 molm2sec, not W (watts).
The corals will only suffer when we don't adapt them correctly. If we do it slow they won't manifest anything wrong. You can see them adapting in terms of changing colors a bit in the process and sometimes they even stop growing in the beginning, but when they start to process and balance everything, including their zooxanthellae population, in the right rates, they get on track for their best growth and pigment production. I do not change them to a "better spot", never did. They don't need that at all. What we should do is to choose the best spot and leave them there, adapting the light slowly. Even the so called "deep water Acros" can support and do really well under halides at the top. So adaptation is the key. Trust me... any light change needs to happen slow and don't change it anymore. Only when changing bulbs. Try to get the same bulb always and adapt them to the new bulb. Changing spectrum or even ballasts could provoke new adaptation cycles. Not a big deal.

 

[Butcher333]

Photo bombing! LoL. Aussie Highlighter.... It’s under Metal Halide, so..... totally counts for this thread.

 

[A. grandis]

Photo bombing! LoL. Aussie Highlighter.... It’s under Metal Halide, so..... totally counts for this thread.

What is your halide setup? Fixture, bulbs, ballast?

 

[Butcher333]

@A. grandis. 400w Radium, icecap select a watt ballast.

 

[JCOLE]

I changed out my LEDs to all T5s 8 months ago. Corals are doing great. However, this thread is making me want to throw some Halides on my tank ASAP

 

[A. grandis]

@A. grandis. 400w Radium, icecap select a watt ballast.

Thanks, what fixture are you using? Pics of the system under halides?

 

[Butcher333]

20” Hamilton

 

[A. grandis]

20” Hamilton

Looks clean (except for the 2 wood on ceiling). What matters the most is the result!! So nice!! Great job! That tank will explode with life!

 

[Butcher333]

The wood is fastened to the crossmembers which don’t run centerline to the tank. This way I could have a real solid support of the fixture and put the fixture dead center. I then put insulation like is used under the hood of a car in case heat would be an issue.
Thanks. The progress of the tank will all be here, and it’ll be interesting to see where it progresses to over time.

 

[jmichaelh7]

I’d like to see a BRS comparison of LED and Metal Halide long term.

 

[A. grandis]

The wood is fastened to the crossmembers which don’t run centerline to the tank. This way I could have a real solid support of the fixture and put the fixture dead center. I then put insulation like is used under the hood of a car in case heat would be an issue.
Thanks. The progress of the tank will all be here, and it’ll be interesting to see where it progresses to over time.

I know why you did that. It wuld be great if you could place a piece of plywood to cover it though, as a square shield attached to them. Anyways.. that's minor. What matters is the quality of light! Nice system! Cheers!

 

[A. grandis]

I’d like to see a BRS comparison of LED and Metal Halide long term.

No need comparison... they already made videos saying that metal halides and T5s are the golden standard of reef lighting. And that is the truth. That is the reason why LED companies will always compare to those 2 types of lights.
Besides, today they basically removed most of their halide gear from their site to sell those expensive LEDs. But we can't blame them if they say "they were not selling their halide stuff", right? They should do what they want.

 

[zalick]

20” Hamilton

Where did you score that Cozumel? I’ve been searching for months and months! Looks great!

 

[A. grandis]

Where did you score that Cozumel? I’ve been searching for months and months! Looks great!

They said they will have Cozumel back in stock.
I think they are producing them right now.

 

[zalick]

They said they will have Cozumel back in stock.
I think they are producing them right now.

ETA for in stock is July. Can’t wait to get my hands on them! Currently have Lumenmax elite which are not quite wide enough spread for my 3’ wide tank.

 

[jmichaelh7]

No need comparison... they already made videos saying that metal halides and T5s are the golden standard of reef lighting. And that is the truth. That is the reason why LED companies will always compare to those 2 types of lights.
Besides, today they basically removed most of their halide gear from their site to sell those expensive LEDs. But we can't blame them if they say "they were not selling their halide stuff", right? They should do what they want.

I was saying they should do a comparison so we can actually see the growth difference for lets say.. 8 months. That would really convince others to jump back in the halide route.

Personally, if i would have my reef tank not in my living room i would have dropped the thousands on metal halide since day 1. But i cant have all of that above my tank, in my living room. Its just not appealing

.... AND so i dont have the growth like metal halide users right. I still would like to see the comparison is what all im saying. You never know, in the future, metal halides and t5 is what most likely ill be running! By then they will have radion g8 which mimicks the metal halide

 

[A. grandis]

I was saying they should do a comparison so we can actually see the growth difference for lets say.. 8 months. That would really convince others to jump back in the halide route.

Personally, if i would have my reef tank not in my living room i would have dropped the thousands on metal halide since day 1. But i cant have all of that above my tank, in my living room. Its just not appealing

.... AND so i dont have the growth like metal halide users right. I still would like to see the comparison is what all im saying. You never know, in the future, metal halides and t5 is what most likely ill be running! By then they will have radion g8 which mimicks the metal halide

There is a huge misconception thinking that any of the 3 lights (halides, T5s, LEDs) available to us reefers would b able to SUBSTITUTE each other.
But you used the right word for it and it's worthy to make a bolt statement about it: MIMIC, which is simply IMITATE.
Well, the QUALITY of light the corals need, at it's optimal, doesn't come from LEDs IMO. The qualities that metal halides have simply can't be substituted by any LED simply because they are different in nature (spectrum, distribution and delivery of photons).
We don't need to wait for any Radion to try MIMIC halides (by the way.. that is probably one of the market strategies they will probably **pop** in the future, but we already have Kessils. So... but they still can do it.. it's about money anyways!
They should compare their LEDs to other LEDs, not to halides or T5s. But they will always compare to the best, not the worse. That is the fact!
I just can't believe we still have people waiting for their "next generations" of LEDs to waste their money or serve as "testers" paying for that. Not referring directly to you, jmichaelh7, I'm talking in general here. LEDs won't evolve per say. They will add features and change design.
BRS removed their halide equipment from their site and I don't think they will get them back. BUT we never know. If everyone knew how good halides and T5s are really there wouldn't be any LED company surviving. Only if the priorities of this hobby would be the maintenance of the organisms, and not the visual appearance or the features connected to their Iphones. That's my opinion.

 

[JCOLE]

There is a huge misconception thinking that any of the 3 lights (halides, T5s, LEDs) available to us reefers would b able to SUBSTITUTE each other.
But you used the right word for it and it's worthy to make a bolt statement about it: MIMIC, which is simply IMITATE.
Well, the QUALITY of light the corals need, at it's optimal, doesn't come from LEDs IMO. The qualities that metal halides have simply can't be substituted by any LED simply because they are different in nature (spectrum, distribution and delivery of photons).
We don't need to wait for any Radion to try MIMIC halides (by the way.. that is probably one of the market strategies they will probably **pop** in the future, but we already have Kessils. So... but they still can do it.. it's about money anyways!
They should compare their LEDs to other LEDs, not to halides or T5s. But they will always compare to the best, not the worse. That is the fact!
I just can't believe we still have people waiting for their "next generations" of LEDs to waste their money or serve as "testers" paying for that. Not referring directly to you, jmichaelh7, I'm talking in general here. LEDs won't evolve per say. They will add features and change design.
BRS removed their halide equipment from their site and I don't think they will get them back. BUT we never know. If everyone knew how good halides and T5s are really there wouldn't be any LED company surviving. Only if the priorities of this hobby would be the maintenance of the organisms, and not the visual appearance or the features connected to their Iphones. That's my opinion.

That is the same reason I switched my Black Box LEDs over to all ATI T5s. I was looking at Radions and I told myself, "Why spend over $3,600 on a light that imitates the ATI AB+ spectrum, when I can spend less than $600 and get the same thing it is "trying" to replicate."

I also didn't know about that with BRS. I just jumped over there and you're right. The only item they have in the halide section is hangers. I get not storing them in inventory but atleast offer them as a direct buy from the manufacturer to the customer.

 

[A. grandis]

That is the same reason I switched my Black Box LEDs over to all ATI T5s. I was looking at Radions and I told myself, "Why spend over $3,600 on a light that imitates the ATI AB+ spectrum, when I can spend less than $600 and get the same thing it is "trying" to replicate."

I also didn't know about that with BRS. I just jumped over there and you're right. The only item they have in the halide section is hangers. I get not storing them in inventory but atleast offer them as a direct buy from the manufacturer to the customer.

They way BRS always sold Hamilton (as all other online stores always did) and ReefBrite halide gear, was simply displaying the images on their BRS site and the goodies were shipped directly from the manufacturers to the customers. They probably had the same deal with Giesemann.
That said, the fact they removed halides out of their web site has to be to promote the more expensive LEDs. There is no other option left IMO.
They said in one of the videos that the main reason was because it wasn't selling. Now you guys tell me... why in the world, after we know that so many people are getting back to halides, and even newbies are willing to try them out after so many good reports, are they actually "loosing their sales" that way? It has to be a market strategy. I don't thing that is anything good for the hobby. But they do what they want.

 

[Cory]

They way BRS always sold Hamilton (as all other online stores always did) and ReefBrite halide gear, was simply displaying the images on their BRS site and the goodies were shipped directly from the manufacturers to the customers. They probably had the same deal with Giesemann.
That said, the fact they removed halides out of their web site has to be to promote the more expensive LEDs. There is no other option left IMO.
They said in one of the videos that the main reason was because it wasn't selling. Now you guys tell me... why in the world, after we know that so many people are getting back to halides, and even newbies are willing to try them out after so many good reports, are they actually "loosing their sales" that way? It has to be a market strategy. I don't thing that is anything good for the hobby. But they do what they want.

Probably because people are just buying all the used metal halide/t5 fixtures for almost nothing. Jokes on those guys who dont know how good they are lol. Thats what i did. Love my cebu sun.