Metal Halides - Back to the Future?

Graffiti Spot

Cat and coral maker
View Badges
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Messages
4,320
Reaction score
3,676
Location
Florida’s west side
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
10k 400 watt Hamilton and 2xG4 Pros over my 150 Deep Dimension. The halide is hibernating while the fresh reboot stabilizes, but it will end up doing the heavy lifting. I need to get my canopy built to minimize light spill.

83717BC5-619C-424F-8F3B-80DBB57FDDEE.jpeg

Is that a yeti watching your tank? :) I had that same tank setup two years ago. Love it. But can’t get rid of it now. Not even for a few chunky frags! :(
 

jda

10K Club member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 25, 2013
Messages
14,325
Reaction score
22,134
Location
Boulder, CO
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Daylight, full spectrum from 350-850nm to have corals get true color and then "blue it up" as you see fit to illuminate them. People who only use LED miss out a lot on the first part of this.
 

Breadman03

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 30, 2015
Messages
2,249
Reaction score
2,022
Location
Luzerne County, PA
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Is that a yeti watching your tank? :) I had that same tank setup two years ago. Love it. But can’t get rid of it now. Not even for a few chunky frags! :(
A 150 DD? Yeah, cubes dropped off of the radar pretty hard. I don’t have much usable wall space in my house and this is essentially as big as I’ll be able to do in it. Our next house will be chosen with plans for something longer.
 

SeaDweller

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
3,369
Reaction score
4,776
Location
.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I bet the part of the tank that gets hit by the MH and the Radions will look the best in terms of growth and color
 

C. Eymann

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Messages
2,743
Reaction score
4,934
Location
Winter park FL.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My ideal setup would be using 10-12k halides for the heavy lifting, then Radions or Orpheks for supplemental blue.

However, I just cant justify the cost and heat of halides down here in FL.
Im setting up another reef here very soon,
I'm currently looking at maybe two reef breeder LEDs with 4x T5s, might seek out some used Radions though if I can find them.
 

SeaDweller

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
3,369
Reaction score
4,776
Location
.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
My ideal setup would be using 10-12k halides for the heavy lifting, then Radions or Orpheks for supplemental blue.

However, I just cant justify the cost and heat of halides down here in FL.
Im setting up another reef here very soon,
I'm currently looking at maybe two reef breeder LEDs with 4x T5s, might seek out some used Radions though if I can find them.
get 'er up! Can't wait to see what you can do with some stuff!
 

C. Eymann

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Sep 30, 2019
Messages
2,743
Reaction score
4,934
Location
Winter park FL.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
get 'er up! Can't wait to see what you can do with some stuff!

Well, your pics/corals are what kinda have me sold on the reefbreeders, I still have quite a bit to learn with LEDs, so it may be a challenge at first, but I have been doing lots of homework. ;)
 

SeaDweller

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
3,369
Reaction score
4,776
Location
.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Well, your pics/corals are what kinda have me sold on the reefbreeders, I still have quite a bit to learn with LEDs, so it may be a challenge at first, but I have been doing lots of homework. ;)
I was looking at the sales they're running for the AI Hydra 52 HDs and I think that unit uses the exact same diodes as my Reefbreeders (Cree, SemiLED, Osram). I was toying with the idea of getting some, but then I realized I probably wouldn't be gaining anything different seeing how the spectrums produced would be similar. So... I scrapped that Idea.
 

Graffiti Spot

Cat and coral maker
View Badges
Joined
Oct 8, 2012
Messages
4,320
Reaction score
3,676
Location
Florida’s west side
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I love my 250w MH Radiums and Radion combo. About to add two more XR15’s.

F04C8AA8-FDC7-405D-B0B6-4D399B8E3E92.jpeg

Love it! I was going to go with fixtures but I couldn’t justify the cost while they would be hard to find ones that fit. So I went with the orpek bars. Four of them is equal to a decent sized fixture it seems. So far I like them.
 

JP Reef

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Dec 17, 2015
Messages
313
Reaction score
294
Location
Pittsburgh Area
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I use MH and radions in my 6' 125g. I only use 175w Hamilton 20k bulbs, but the corals have never looked better. The radions give me the ramp up/down, but the Halides are what are truly giving my corals the color and growth.
 

SeaDweller

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
Jul 11, 2016
Messages
3,369
Reaction score
4,776
Location
.
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
ok, we're 3 weeks into this and can already tell which acros respond, and which do not. it's about 50 50 so far. will update later. ;Cat
any in particular and any that you thought would, but wouldn’t? I was contemplating adding some MH too.
 
OP
OP
pigmo

pigmo

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jun 7, 2019
Messages
339
Reaction score
396
Location
los angeles
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Without being tooooo specific, in general most all the US old school acros we have liked the MH.

However, some Aussie imports did not like it, surprise! We got great growth on hyacinthus and stags tho. (But I don't like stags at all.) Shortcakes not really. Coloration, well, were nowhere as nice as under Radions. We even hung another Radion G4, all blues at 100% to supplement, next to the MH, and even that didn't work to pull interesting coloration. We lowered the lights so PAR eventually got way past 1000, but still no interesting colors! By interesting I mean killer. Just normal is not good enough lol.

And with this 250W radium 20k, our electricity went up almost $100 month!

So we actually took the MH down after about 9 months, because definitely we have way more new school acros, and NO WAY do we appreciate acros looking so dull under 'whites.' Plus Socal is so hot, we couldn't take the heat. In the end for us, it was not worth it.

So I have a satisfactory answer now, and my brother @jzw agrees -- are LEDs the chicken or the egg -- they're definitely the egg that makes many chickens!

;Clown ;Clown ;Clown
 
Last edited:

kevin.st

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 17, 2016
Messages
115
Reaction score
61
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
^^Wow. Thank you for the thorough response. I have been contemplating putting my halides back up, instead of my hydras. But maybe I will add more fixtures or t5's.

Thanks, again.
 

Superlightman

Well-Known Member
View Badges
Joined
Apr 9, 2020
Messages
983
Reaction score
240
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I love my 250w MH Radiums and Radion combo. About to add two more XR15’s.

F04C8AA8-FDC7-405D-B0B6-4D399B8E3E92.jpeg
how did you fix this ? I' thinking about ad halides to the radions that deceived me, everything was better under halides. but for ramp up and down they are good, I'm looking for a way to fix them to the giessman infinity fixture

 
Last edited:
Back
Top