Metal Halides Making a Come Back? Don’t call it a come back?

[A. grandis]

You can tell yourself whatever helps you sleep at night.

The reality is that marketers are going to market what is in supply and profitable and in demand by consumers. The problem is that supply has been removed (globally) and marketers have moved on to what they can supply and profit from. It has nothing to do with viability to grow coral.

Ok, so... you stick with that though to sleep well tonight.

 

[djf91]

Good luck with that.

It’s the way everybody did it between 2000-2010. Go look at all of the Reefkeeping tank of month threads. 90% of them say undetectable phosphates and nitrates yet their tanks look incredible.

 

[BeanAnimal]

"Reefing" is what dictates them to be out of that direction you are talking about. Halides and T5s aren't banned to specialized industries like horticulture and aquarium.

Not yet - but that is irrelevant. The products are now "niche" and cost exponentially more to manufacture.

I will take advantage here to ask you 3 questions: do you think the actual qualities of light to be perfectly replaceable bewtween the 3 different types of technologies discussed (T5, MH, LED)?

It doesn't matter. Two of those three technologies are going the way of the wagon wheel, like it or not. "reefing" or growing weed is a blip o the global radar.

Would you agree that we all should have the freedom of choice between them?

It doesn't matter if global manufacturing and/or your price tolerance do not give you that choice. This hobby is meaningless on the global economic scale and on that scale discharge and plasma lighting technologies are being phased out.

 

[A. grandis]

Not yet - but that is irrelevant. The products are now "niche" and cost exponentially more to manufacture.


It doesn't matter. Two of those three technologies are going the way of the wagon wheel, like it or not. "reefing" or growing weed is a blip o the global radar.


It doesn't matter if global manufacturing and/or your price tolerance do not give you that choice. This hobby is meaningless on the global economic scale and on that scale discharge and plasma lighting technologies are being phased out.

If everyone would follow your line of thoughts we wouldn't have a brand new company producing metal halide lamps and another with a brand new T5 system. I guess we just have to wait and see how it goes. 10+ years ago people use to come here to laugh and say that halides would be banned in 3 years, obsolete and all that. I'm just so glad that we still have so many tanks running them and supply of lamps. I'm also glad that Radium decided to produce them again and they are available. That alone shows that all you said isn't really what is going on. Aqua Bright Solutions published their wish to produce fixture and ballasts. ReefBrite is producing a new magnetic MH ballasts. That could be the beginning of a serious "come back". If that happens I will send you a message to try to explain what happened. LOL!

 

[jackson6745]

@JNalley Holdout as in holding on to an obsolete technology, not hoarding equipment because of a lack of availability due to regulation and lack of demand.

Use of halide to gain optimal efficiency is really subjective to the best reflectors or fixtures. Of course T5 eliminates shadowing in any point source light. A 55g is a terrible tank to utilize halide because of the 12" width. 2x halides in spider reflectors is horribly inefficient on that dimension. An ATI 4 bulb or 6 bulb for total coverage would be the best IMO. You must utilize the entire spread of a halide for it to make sense.

The math, bulb life, and coverage of the light is where we differ greatly. I can't speak of kessil, never used them. On my particular 200g I would need 5 XR-30 (or 4 and some light strips) to get the coverage that I have with 3x250w halides, 4 t5, and 2 reefbrite XHO. I'm all in for $2000 ($800 for reefbrites) with 3 bulbs changes taken care of + a backup ballast. $3k more for the radions, reef breeders are like $3500 for complete coverage. I run halides 6 hours per day and ramp up with led+t5 Before, after, and during MH photoperiod. I get well over a year on halides before I start seeing par drop, but useable much longer. T5 bulbs I always ran 18 months- 2years. Never used a dimming fixture for those.

Electrical consumption is the same more or less. LED don't last forever and their resale value is dependent on future generation fixtures. Purchase price of the LED is the main difference.

For the high light energy reef types that I run, with dense growth, high light acro colonies, I need a full panel of led. Very pricey. I will be doing either full radions or reef breeders over my growout system soon. I do love the spectrum and color pop from LED that is superior to halides IMO.

 

[BeanAnimal]

If everyone would follow your line of thoughts we wouldn't have a brand new company producing metal halide lamps and another with a brand new T5 system.

You are missing the big picture. They are producing a niche/boutique product. The industry is all but gone and is not coming back and at best will remain niche/boutique. Mainstream lighting has moved on and so has the reefing segment as a direct result.

I guess we just have to wait and see how it goes. 10+ years ago people use to come here to laugh and say that halides would be banned in 3 years,

They are mostly banned and other technologies have replaced them. The market will continue to decline due to lowering demand. Then next round of regulation will take another bite as well.

I'm just so glad that we still have so many tanks running them and supply of lamps.

Enjoy it while it lasts and horde what you can if you can’t live without them.

 

[A. grandis]

You are missing the big picture. They are producing a niche/boutique product. The industry is all but gone and is not coming back and at best will remain niche/boutique. Mainstream lighting has moved on and so has the reefing segment as a direct result.



They are mostly banned and other technologies have replaced them. The market will continue to decline due to lowering demand. Then next round of regulation will take another bite as well.


Enjoy it while it lasts and horde what you can if you can’t live without them.

Not missing the big picture.
I understand your point and know how hard it will be to have any significant "come back", and it will be basically impossible to have anything compared to what we had before, but I also know that the hope is the last one to die.

If you wish to have metal halide fixtures and ballasts available, please send an email to Aqua Bright Solutions, or simply reply to their post below.

Contact

Supplier of high quality aquarium products

aquabrightsolutions.com

Radium metal halide bulbs will not be produced anymore!

That's all the writing I can find on it

www.reef2reef.com

 

[JNalley]

Holdout as in holding on to an obsolete technology, not hoarding equipment because of a lack of availability due to regulation and lack of demand.

Let me ask you a question here... Are Tube amplifiers obsolete? By my definition of the word, I would consider them to be. Do you?

Use of halide to gain optimal efficiency is really subjective to the best reflectors or fixtures. Of course T5 eliminates shadowing in any point source light. A 55g is a terrible tank to utilize halide because of the 12" width. 2x halides in spider reflectors is horribly inefficient on that dimension. An ATI 4 bulb or 6 bulb for total coverage would be the best IMO. You must utilize the entire spread of a halide for out to make sense.

One tank ran similar to these type of fixtures:

The other ran similar to this:

Each tank had 2, until I switched over to a single fixture that had 2 Halides and 4 T5's. (You can see that fixture on page 7 of this thread)

The tank was 4ft x 14" x 22" or something along those lines if I recall correctly. But I chose Halides because of the shimmer and temperature, I needed the T5's to fill in for shadows.

The math, bulb life, and coverage of the light is where we differ greatly. I can't speak of kessil, never used them. On my particular 200g I would need 5 XR-30 (or 4 and some light strips) to get the coverage that I have with 3x250w halides, 4 t5, and 2 reefbrite XHO. I'm all in for $2000 ($800 for reefbrites) with 3 bulbs changes taken care of + a backup ballast. $3k more for the radions, reef breeders are like $3500 for complete coverage. I run halides 6 hours per day and ramp up with led+t5 Before, after, and during MH photoperiod. I get well over a year on halides before I start seeing par drop, but useable much longer. T5 bulbs I always ran 18 months- 2years. Never used a dimming fixture for those.

A Single AP9X will cover a 36" x 24" area with suitable light for an SPS Dominant tank(900+ PAR 9" below the surface running at only 85%, 600+ Par 20" down), but it will have sharp shadowing and require fill light. Kessil is the closest thing to MH Light currently offered in the LED market, and IMO, they come very close, almost indistinguishable visually, though some say they have more shimmer than a MH, and depending on how you're deploying your Halides the shadowing could be more or less. Spectrum wise is a different story and I feel like comparing any lighting can be done for pros and cons in each department. So this isn't about that. None of them compares to the Sun whose light is collimated and then scattered by particles and other surfaces within both the atmosphere and the ocean causing some of the light to be polarized but the majority of it to be either direct or diffuse. All 3 technologies are trying to replace the sun, none of them does a perfect job...

Electrical consumption is the same more or less. LED don't last forever and their resale value is dependent on future generation fixtures. Purchase price of the LED is the main difference.

As I stated, LEDs have a rated lifespan of about 11.5-12 years on the low end. Higher end Diodes will get more life out of them, with some exceeding 22 years. I took the low estimate when making my cost comparison. Also, I gave you the wattage of both to cover a 3' x 24" x 24" tank. MH + T5 works out to 100 watts more. I also gave the bulb lifes 2 years on MH and 1 Year on T5.

For the high light energy reef types that I run, with dense growth, high light acro colonies, I need a full panel of led. Very pricey. I will be doing either full radions or reef breeders over my growout system soon. I do love the spectrum and color pop from LED that is superior to halides IMO.

What are the dimensions of your 200G? Is it a 6' tank? If so, pretty sure you can light it, with LEDs, have a very similar, nearly indistinguishable look from MH + T5, for far cheaper than 5 XR30's, or even 4 and some LED strips...

 

[Reefering1]

The reality is that marketers are going to market what is in supply and profitable and in demand by consumers. The problem is that supply has been removed (globally) and marketers have moved on to what they can supply and profit from. It has nothing to do with viability to grow coral.

Halides and T5s are the best lighting options from a color/spread perspective. You do trade things off by going with LED, but you also gain things by going with LED.

Depends on which results you're talking about, but there is a difference in the lights, and those differences translate to different results, and those results are visible...

These are about the most objective statements made by any led proponent I've heard yet(and i agree) , thank you. Though I disagree about the 12 yrar replacement of LED. Do they light up, sure maybe. But are you guys measuring spectrum and par of these leds and replacing them at 20-25% loss/shift? That's how mh and t5 intervals were conceived, they will light up for many years. I've experienced otherwise with my hydra64s at almost 3 years..
But regardless, we all agree are different/ have benefits over led and have declined for other reasons. Let's focus on that and how to keep them around. Many reefers never even seen a packed acro tank under halides, they should be able to

 

[JNalley]

These are about the most objective statements made by any led proponent I've heard yet(and i agree) , thank you. Though I disagree about the 12 yrar replacement of LED. Do they light up, sure maybe. But are you guys measuring spectrum and par of these leds and replacing them at 20-25% loss/shift?

UVs and purples (high-energy wavelengths) are generally the first to shift due to poor lens materials being used on the Diodes themselves (unless you're AI and you designed a poor secondary lens that yellows/browns after only a couple of years). I don't have the luxury of a Spectrometer, so I can't speak to how the spectrum is on my Hydra 26's, all I can tell you is that they were still growing healthy coral after 9 years, and they're currently growing a bunch of macro-algae, and the PAR output is still where it was day 1(in fairness, they've spent the entirety of their lives running at 35% output). In both MH and T5s, the gas and coatings degrade over time from heat and electrical charge. In LEDs, the degradation typically comes from the lens or sometimes low-quality substrates.

That's how mh and t5 intervals were conceived, they will light up for many years. I've experienced otherwise with my hydra64s at almost 3 years..

Remove your 64's secondary Lens (the one produced by AI), and inspect them. Sadly I think the back of the lens (the part closest to the diode) will be browned/melted, especially if you've run them at 70+ percent on the Purple channels. Then inspect the diodes, if the diodes are also browned/have melt on them, take a Q-Tip with some IPA and clean the primary lenses as best as you can. Once clean, run them without the AI lens and just get a Diffuser for them. You'll probably have much better results. AI's Lenses suck bad.

But regardless, we all agree are different/ have benefits over led and have declined for other reasons. Let's focus on that and how to keep them around. Many reefers never even seen a packed acro tank under halides, they should be able to

They'll continue to be around, just like Tube amplifiers, but the cost will continue to rise because of scarcity. That was kind of my point from the beginning.

 

[Battlecorals]

While we're at it, maybe we should discuss the relevance and hopefully the resurgence of premium lime wood airstone skimmers! lol. I mean, nothing created more bubbles than those things and nothing ever will.

Just breaking the tension here. (or trying to).

 

[BeanAnimal]

While we're at it, maybe we should discuss the relevance and hopefully the resurgence of premium lime wood airstone skimmers! lol. I mean, nothing created more bubbles than those things and nothing ever will.

Just breaking the tension here. (or trying to).

Ohh nobody is stopping you from sticking your fingers together with CA trying to keep up with building them faster than they clog

I still have a huge alita linear pump from the 6' tall DIY recirc skimmer. Though, I did cheat and go with fine pore ceramics from aquatic eco.

 

[jackson6745]

What are the dimensions of your 200G? Is it a 6' tank? If so, pretty sure you can light it, with LEDs, have a very similar, nearly indistinguishable look from MH + T5, for far cheaper than 5 XR30's, or even 4 and some LED strips...

It’s 72” x 30” footprint. Those glitter lines are shadows. With full coverage you really don’t see that much. The T5 and reefbrites fill in the gaps of light from a halide where shadows would occur, but it’s minimal with 3 halides overlapping spread anyway.

The frag tank footprint is 72x36. What would be your suggestion for complete coverage with an LED that is know for its SPS abilities?

 

[jackson6745]

While we're at it, maybe we should discuss the relevance and hopefully the resurgence of premium lime wood airstone skimmers! lol. I mean, nothing created more bubbles than those things and nothing ever will.

Just breaking the tension here. (or trying to).

In the early 2000s I would sit there and watch my dual Beckett skimmer pull full size mysis shrimp into the cup lol. Old skimmers were savage!

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

It’s the way everybody did it between 2000-2010. Go look at all of the Reefkeeping tank of month threads. 90% of them say undetectable phosphates and nitrates yet their tanks look incredible.

What's interesting about that is it tells us a lot about quality of light and how the corals use it. I was a Reefer back then, starting a reef in 1994. There were no aminos, no coral food really, nothing like today. Oh I forgot a revolutionary piece of equipment I bought when it came out, "The Skilter" hang on back protein skimmer .

All jokes aside, no phosphates, no nitrates, etc, just MH lighting and husbandry. It is pretty substantial proof that corals can sustain themselves with quality light and fish waste. Fish waste being the key component back then I'm sure.

It's personal choice. As I posted earlier, I've had success with both and I think doing basic maintenance and water changes, leaving setting alone and letting corals adapt, are the quickest ways to success. I think people often add dosing, carbon dosing etc and it is just too much too fast.

Many also treat a GHA or Dino breakout like it's WW3 and the nukes start flying.

 

[minus9]

Let me ask you a question here... Are Tube amplifiers obsolete? By my definition of the word, I would consider them to be. Do you?

One tank ran similar to these type of fixtures:

The other ran similar to this:

Each tank had 2, until I switched over to a single fixture that had 2 Halides and 4 T5's. (You can see that fixture on page 7 of this thread)

The tank was 4ft x 14" x 22" or something along those lines if I recall correctly. But I chose Halides because of the shimmer and temperature, I needed the T5's to fill in for shadows.

A Single AP9X will cover a 36" x 24" area with suitable light for an SPS Dominant tank(900+ PAR 9" below the surface running at only 85%, 600+ Par 20" down), but it will have sharp shadowing and require fill light. Kessil is the closest thing to MH Light currently offered in the LED market, and IMO, they come very close, almost indistinguishable visually, though some say they have more shimmer than a MH, and depending on how you're deploying your Halides the shadowing could be more or less. Spectrum wise is a different story and I feel like comparing any lighting can be done for pros and cons in each department. So this isn't about that. None of them compares to the Sun whose light is collimated and then scattered by particles and other surfaces within both the atmosphere and the ocean causing some of the light to be polarized but the majority of it to be either direct or diffuse. All 3 technologies are trying to replace the sun, none of them does a perfect job...

As I stated, LEDs have a rated lifespan of about 11.5-12 years on the low end. Higher end Diodes will get more life out of them, with some exceeding 22 years. I took the low estimate when making my cost comparison. Also, I gave you the wattage of both to cover a 3' x 24" x 24" tank. MH + T5 works out to 100 watts more. I also gave the bulb lifes 2 years on MH and 1 Year on T5.

What are the dimensions of your 200G? Is it a 6' tank? If so, pretty sure you can light it, with LEDs, have a very similar, nearly indistinguishable look from MH + T5, for far cheaper than 5 XR30's, or even 4 and some LED strips...

Tube amps are definitely not obsolete, at least in the music world. In fact, there are more tube amp (guitar) manufacturers now than there were in the 90's. Are there more solid state and simulator options now? Yes. Are they better than tubes, that's subjective, but I definitely wouldn't say better.

(This is for everyone) In general, this whole back and forth bickering about lighting doesn't help the hobby at all. It's like a bunch of 3rd graders are arguing about who's brother is better or what super hero is better. It's utterly pointless. How many threads are there here, that turn into this? Instead, maybe we should talk about how we can improve on new technology and recognize the merits of old technology. There's still a place for halides in the hobby, which is fine. The individual reefer must make up their own mind on how they want to light their animals. I know I'm happy that halides are still an option, they're not for everyone, but to shun them or say they are completely obsolete is wrong. Regardless of what lighting technology you choose, it will all end up in a landfill at some point, so don't fool yourself by saying one is more harmful than the other. When comparing technologies for lighting a tank, the animals or type of system matters and will determine what lighting and how much should be used. In some cases LEDs are a clear winner, but in others, not so much.
@Lousybreed I'm patiently waiting for the "Helix".

 

[BeanAnimal]

Let's focus on that and how to keep them around. Many reefers never even seen a packed acro tank under halides, they should be able to

They will be around as long as a boutique vendor is willing to take the risk investing in the equipment and materials to make them.

The raw components and raw materials will become scarcer as time passes and global demand dwindles and the specialized machinery breaks with no source for replacement parts.

Vacuum tubes are an interesting analogy, albeit they were not "outlawed". Most of the global production shut down decades ago due to lack of demand. There were a few remaining factories supplying but the major one of them burned to the ground. A few boutique manufacturers popped up. There is still a decent market of NOS tubes, but it is drying up. Tubes that cost a dollar or two in the 1970s are easily $50-$500 each depending on how rare they are. NEW tubes for audio are very expensive also, as they are boutique.

Tube amps are definitely not obsolete, at least in the music world. In fact, there are more tube amp (guitar) manufacturers now than there were in the 90's. Are there more solid state and simulator options now? Yes. Are they better than tubes, that's subjective, but I definitely wouldn't say better.

There may be more than there were in the 90s, but they are still boutique and exponentially more expensive.

Obsolete is maybe not the proper word. They are nostalgic and arguably produce a sound that can't be digitally simulated easily (or some would argue at all) but tubes will never be "back" even if they do stick around for another decade or two. I wish i still had the early 70's Fender Twin Reverb, it was a classic.

 

[minus9]

They will be around as long as a boutique vendor is willing to take the risk investing in the equipment and materials to make them.

The raw components and raw materials will become scarcer as time passes and global demand dwindles and the specialized machinery breaks with no source for replacement parts.

Vacuum tubes are an interesting analogy, albeit they were not "outlawed". Most of the global production shut down decades ago due to lack of demand. There were a few remaining factories supplying but the major one of them burned to the ground. A few boutique manufacturers popped up. There is still a decent market of NOS tubes, but it is drying up. Tubes that cost a dollar or two in the 1970s are easily $50-$500 each depending on how rare they are. NEW tubes for audio are very expensive also, as they are boutique.


There may be more than there were in the 90s, but they are still boutique and exponentially more expensive.

Obsolete is maybe not the proper word. They are nostalgic and arguably produce a sound that can't be digitally simulated easily (or some would argue at all) but tubes will never be "back" even if they do stick around for another decade or two. I wish i still had the early 70's Fender Twin Reverb, it was a classic.

I have a few hybrid amps, tube preamp and solid state power section that sound great and retain that feeling, but there's nothing like an all tube amp. Those Twins were beasts. I have an early 50's Danelectro amp that's pretty cool.

 

[X-37B]

I

@JNalley Holdout as in holding on to an obsolete technology, not hoarding equipment because of a lack of availability due to regulation and lack of demand.

Use of halide to gain optimal efficiency is really subjective to the best reflectors or fixtures. Of course T5 eliminates shadowing in any point source light. A 55g is a terrible tank to utilize halide because of the 12" width. 2x halides in spider reflectors is horribly inefficient on that dimension. An ATI 4 bulb or 6 bulb for total coverage would be the best IMO. You must utilize the entire spread of a halide for it to make sense.

The math, bulb life, and coverage of the light is where we differ greatly. I can't speak of kessil, never used them. On my particular 200g I would need 5 XR-30 (or 4 and some light strips) to get the coverage that I have with 3x250w halides, 4 t5, and 2 reefbrite XHO. I'm all in for $2000 ($800 for reefbrites) with 3 bulbs changes taken care of + a backup ballast. $3k more for the radions, reef breeders are like $3500 for complete coverage. I run halides 6 hours per day and ramp up with led+t5 Before, after, and during MH photoperiod. I get well over a year on halides before I start seeing par drop, but useable much longer. T5 bulbs I always ran 18 months- 2years. Never used a dimming fixture for those.

Electrical consumption is the same more or less. LED don't last forever and their resale value is dependent on future generation fixtures. Purchase price of the LED is the main difference.

For the high light energy reef types that I run, with dense growth, high light acro colonies, I need a full panel of led. Very pricey. I will be doing either full radions or reef breeders over my growout system soon. I do love the spectrum and color pop from LED that is superior to halides IMO.

I am running 2 RB 50's over my 59×30×21.7. I can get 400 par on the bottom. At 50% im getting 250-300 at the top of my scape, around 6-8". No shadowing and the cost of 2 RB 50's at $1700 is why I went with them. I will run xr15's on my frag system.
I would have ran 3 250 halides if had kept them but did not see any advantage over the leds.

 

[BeanAnimal]

I have a few hybrid amps, tube preamp and solid state power section that sound great and retain that feeling, but there's nothing like an all tube amp. Those Twins were beasts. I have an early 50's Danelectro amp that's pretty cool.

My twin was wired for overdrive, flip a switch and channel one basically fed the input of channel 2. (not exactly, but easiest way to explain it). So, DIY built in overdrive distortion.

The recent project ( I went overboard and copper plated the xformer shells, black nickel plated the chasis, etc.) Hand cut dovetails for the case.

Anyway - back to the regularly scheduled programming...