From LED's to MH/T5

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
So as many of you know and are aware of I am a huge fan of the misunderstood creature that is reef capable LED lighting, what you may not realise is it wasn't always this way. When I first walked into a LFS and starting to seriously look at my new potential tank and the things I would need, I was immediately drawn to the acropora sp. tank at the front of the shop and from that exact moment I knew I was going to be an sps keeper. As I was drawn to that lovely tank that had recently been filled from a delivery, the discussions began about them. What was needed, why they're fussy and that I was the sort of reefer that had every intention of making this a life long hobby.

Through the many discussions metal halide lighting was the number one thing that I wanted to be on my list as they were the best you can have to keep the pretty coloured stick gardens, however the more I research the harder that choice became to justify to myself... in the end my research of LED's slowly grew and I knew that this was going to be the lighting of choice that I was going to grow my reef with, locking away that desire to give metal halides a go.

Flash forward nearly three years and this dilemma had risen again. I've love my LED's and would recommend them to anyone along with giving the proper explanation of how they should be used and run over a reef tank, they're a different beast to T5's or MH's so they require a little more attention in the beginning! My corals are showing fantastic colour and growth is good but I've always felt a little something has been missing from getting the perfect happiness from my beloved acropora sp. corals. I spent countless hours looking at LED fixtures, T5/LED hybrid fixtures and looking at how I can upgrade and get the most from my LED's. I changed the lighting times and program on my unit and got a little more from it but it still wasn't enough!
I then made the decision that I was going to implement a second type of lighting and I got a couple of T5 tubes running over the tank for a few hours a day, I'm not sure if this weak effort ever made any impact but it got me thinking more about hybrid units so I researched and researched and decided I was going to get a Nano Box Reef hybrid with my tax return to bring out a little more life in my corals.

Fast forward another two months and as I was browsing the classifieds here, I spotted something, something that really caught my eye in terms of potential lighting that I would jump upon! A hybrid 250w metal halide, 4x 24w T5 lighting unit, A 2ft Cebu Sun unit. Immediately (for fear of missing out) I bombarded the seller with questions and my feelings on it all, he out of great kindness put up with my interrogating and persistent questions. Answering everything, sending me pictures of the unit and talking me through it. Well I was settled by the end of this but didn't quite have the amount of cash that I would happily allow myself to spend on a new light so cautiously asking, I asked if I were to put a deposit would he hold the unit for me and he was more than happy to, success! I had myself some new lights!

Come delivery day of the lights I nearly wet myself with excitement and because of this, what should have been a two person job to mount the lights, I did on my own because I couldn't wait for help to get it mounted and fired up!! And once I did and turned everything on I was blown away... by the noise of the bloody fans! My LED's were whisper quiet and this thing sounded like it wanted to take off haha ah well I thought and moved on to the tank and.. I was blown away! The tank looked brighter, clearer and nicer than I had ever seen it during high light (my LED's would have been close to a 7000-8000K rating which is quite white-yellow).



So now that I have my silly story out of the way, I thought I'd take a more serious note and start a thread to do with the change of lighting and what I do and don't like and what I've found so far and along the way in future :)

The number one thing I like so far about the change in the lights is the colour temperature between my led's and my cebu sun during high light (max intensity). The led's were quite white-yellow maybe even a 6500K rating which makes certain things look rather ugly and not very enjoyable, especially give I am home around the middle of the day lots. I couldn't change this either as the lights were cranked up as high as possible and running for 13hrs so turning down the whites would have meant a slight loss on the corals. The new lighting currently has a 14K Hamilton halide in it with 3 blue and one coral plus t5 tubes in it, giving the tank a very 15K look during the period of maximum intensity which for me is perfect! I much prefer the look of having a slightly blue hue to the tank lighting as things look a little nicer that way. I'm going to be taking that a set further and going a little bluer again with a 20k Radium metal halide bulb, the best in the hobby and chaning the t5 tubes to 2 actinic and 2 coral type tubes. Hopefully this will give me the nicest and more eye pleasing colour rendition and excellent growth and colours in my corals!

Obviously as the new lights have only been running 5 days, I can't really talk about much in the way of changes. Given the metal halide is only on for 2.5hrs a day as of tomorrow, working my way up to a max of 6-8hrs. I can however talk about some small immediate changes I've noticed since installed the new lights. The first is the polyp extension on a large amount of my sps corals. Generally each day within about 10-15 minutes of the MH coming on, the extension goes crazy! To the point of it being similar to that that I get at night! Which is a very pleasant surprise for me.
The biggest surprise that I have noticed and definitely wasn't expecting is the reaction from my entire zoanthid collection! They are loving it, everything looks much fuller and expanded and they are all in generally looking a lot happier!

Now the tank is still only in early days so any of this could change but I'm keeping a close eye on the differences and have taken some shots of every coral so that I can note the changes that the tank goes through over the coming months and how the corals react :)

Now for those of you who suffered through my long post and the lovely ramblings of this reef junkie haha here's some comparison shots to start with.
This is my most recent FTS of the tank taken while it is under LED's


And here it is under MH and T5's:


As you can see there is a very large difference in the shadowing and the way that the tank looks. The tank is much whiter in the led picture as you can see. As the time goes by I will keep this thread updated with FTS's and coral shots so that the nature of the changes can be tracked fairly closely :)

Here's a shot of the tank so you can see the unit and the way it's mounted
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
As you can see, just because the lighting is considered "old school" doesn't mean it's bad light. MH does give good light.

At the same time, I think what your seeing is that good light of one type is better than not so good lighting of another type. In other words, had you upgraded to a high end LED lighting system, you would have seen similar results.

On my own 125 gal reef system I was running 3 250w MHs with 4 27w PC actinic blue bulbs. I got great light and all the other stuff that went with MHs,. High electrical cost and high heat.

Upgrading to LED lighting required a lot more than I though. I initially tried 4 AI Hydras, and found that to too little light for the tank. I added two additional Hydras, for a total of 6 to get similar lighting as I was getting before. Note that this is a lot of fixtures, and such fixtures are not cheep.

I ended up spending almost double compared to what I spent on the MH / PC combo when it was new.

But there is still more. I purchased the AI upgrade kits to upgrade 4 of the original Hydra's to Hydra 52's. This allowed me to go back to only 4 fixtures, and get similar lighting. I got excellent light, and at this point it's much better than what they replaced, but you can see I spent a bundle to get there.

To be fair the MH's went through several major upgrades over the years I was running them. The original fixture was built for the European market, which uses 204 volt AC. To make it work for the US Market the manufacturer front ended the original coil and core ballasts with step up transformers, This was very inefficient from a power consumption standpoint. I switched everything over to electronic ballasts and got a reduction of almost 50% in power consumption. Since I put the electronic ballasts in a ballast box and not in the fixture, the fixture itself lost about 85 lbs in weight.

I've really been "through the mill" in both MH and LED lighting. I don't think I'd ever go back to MHs. The LEDs offer much more control, a lot less power consumption, and a lot less heat output.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
I would consider doing two things with your MH lighting.

If possible, suspend the lighting fixture. in my opinion, tank mounted MH lighting is much too easy to end up in the tank. Plus you can raise or lower the fixture to work on the tank. MH's run hot and you often don't want to touch them.

You also seem to have a ballast box. Check it out and see if it's using a coil and core ballast or an electronic ballast. If it's a coil and core ballast, consider upgrading it to an electronic ballast. Everything will run cooler, and you'll get a good size reduction in power consumption. The upgrade to an electronic ballast usually pays for itself in power savings in under a year.
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
I thought you'd be here pretty quick @DaveK :) thanks for your input first of all, much appreciated :)

I agree with you in saying that a second high quality LED unit could have been added to the tank which would have achieved the same effect that the MH/T5 lighting unit has created. The spread would be similar as well as the power consumption too so in all it was one or the other. The main reasoning behind going away from LED's is a personal one in wanting to try out the other forms of lighting, I enjoy testing for myself and may end up back with LED's after my time with the MH. The other aspect is the cost, this unit (secondhand) is much cheaper than any of the led units I could have added to the tank so the outlay is much cheaper (half the price) and while the running costs will be higher I still want to see what happens for myself :)

As for the ballast box, unfortunately I've resigned myself to a magnetic ballast as that gets the best results from the Radium MH bulb I plan on running over the tank. Running costs are a very unfortunate part about this upgrade but for the moment I have considered them and am willing to put up with them for the testing period, it will be re-visited later down the road as to how happy I am with them...
On to the mounting, the legs are temporary as I do have a proper suspension kit that will be put on the tank and used to mount the lights a little better but for the moment until I have the time to be able to install the mounting unit, legs will have to pass. I check everything twice a day though so hopefully I don't miss anything! :)
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Very interesting thread. I'm curious to see what your thoughts are long term.
I'm hoping to get a little more of a current, non-biased review and insight into the two different lighting choices. Many people seem bias towards one light or the other type and being very hard-line about it. I honestly don't care what lights I have as long as my corals are doing the best under them. I've got a pic of just about every coral as they are and in a few weeks I'll take all new ones for a direct comparison that can't be argued, I also won't be changing anything else during this period so it can be put down to the lighting alone :) Glad you enjoyed it though
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
...
As for the ballast box, unfortunately I've resigned myself to a magnetic ballast as that gets the best results from the Radium MH bulb I plan on running over the tank. ...

Check out Sanjay's Reef Lighting Guide here (offsite) - http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting

You can compare most any bulb and ballast combination and see what the results are. I think you'll find that any decent electronic ballast will preform equal to a coil and core ballast, while using a lot less power. If you can't find exactly what you have, you should be able to find something very close.

Keep on mind that this just might make the difference in having to invest in a chiller.
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Thanks Dave, I've read about half a dozen of Sanjay's writings on the subject. He has some great stuff to say!
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Halides were on for 4 hours today, frags for the person that can guess the temperature increase in the tank from the start to end of that period. Starting temp was 24.8 and house temp was 20 (Celsius) and no chiller on the tank
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Seeing as no one wants to guess... haha

Halides are currently running for 5hrs a day and the temp will only go up a degree, this is with the heater running the entire time and the house sitting at 20 degree with the ducted heating set to that. So overall I'm pretty impressed with the completely underwhelming temperature difference! As we head into summer in a few months down here I will be installing a 5 fan unit on the back or the tank or sump (haven't decided which yet) and see how that holds up in keeping the tank cool, I'm happy to double my evaporation if it means no chiller ;) But we shall see what happens in the end :) I'm not fussed really!

The other main thing is as Dave mentioned it would be best to have them on a proper hanging kit, well I finally got that done Dave and it looks shmicko :p haha


Colours, growth and polyp extension are all still increasing as time goes on :) I will be changing the flow up a little in the next day or two and see what that leads too :) Hopefully a little extra happiness!
 

rostervandross

Active Member
Nice pictures I enjoyed them. I currently have an LED fixture over half of my 75g and just installed a 250w MH fixture over the other half. So I am going to be doing the same sort of trial between the two.

How's it going for you?

I also have a question in general between LED and MH- I have a few pieces of glass and acrylic to cover portions of my tank to help with evaporation but am debating whether to even use them or not.. Do either glass or acrylic block MH or LED light more or less that would outweigh the benefit of less evaporation ?
 

Wrangy

Acropora Nut
RS STAFF
PREMIUM
Nice pictures I enjoyed them. I currently have an LED fixture over half of my 75g and just installed a 250w MH fixture over the other half. So I am going to be doing the same sort of trial between the two.

How's it going for you?

I also have a question in general between LED and MH- I have a few pieces of glass and acrylic to cover portions of my tank to help with evaporation but am debating whether to even use them or not.. Do either glass or acrylic block MH or LED light more or less that would outweigh the benefit of less evaporation ?
Thanks mate, I appreciate the comment. I would to have loved to have a chance to be able to run the different lights side by side.

I am absolutely loving the swap still, I think that installing MH on the tank has been the best decision I've made to date for the tank. The colours and growth on my sps corals are just beyond anything I was getting with my LED's, I still love LED's as they are still very capable lights but they're just missing something that MH can bring :)

Personally I wouldn't, they're a lot of work to get little reward and they also reduce the amount of oxygen transfer that you'll be able to achieve without a lid.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
...
I am absolutely loving the swap still, I think that installing MH on the tank has been the best decision I've made to date for the tank. ...

Your electric company thanks you! (grin)

Actually, a single MH bulb over a tank like that isn't too bad. On a larger system with multiple bulbs, power consumption is a big factor.
 
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