Plamsa lighting

[rgfast]

well there finialy here $1035. shipped really thinking of orderring one for my frag system. It's a new build so won't be up grading,looking at price seems pretty steap but when I think about replacing two mhs every 9 months $200 compaired to 5to6 years with the plasma $280 for two ballast ,$250 for refectors and $200 for the bulbs kind of makes them not so bad what do you guys think?

[solRNY]

very interested, do u have a link of where to buy these?

[rgfast]

http://straylightoptical.com/slot/ca...69BA1D2EA59544
this is where I found them

[Thumbster]

Cool that they are in Indiana! You'll have to post some pictures and opinions. I've been looking into LED but I might hold off if this looks promising

[rgfast]

I think these are the first true replacement for MHs lighting output of 400watt mh with less than 280 watt draw

[TheDogFather]

Originally Posted by rgfast

I think these are the first true replacement for MHs lighting output of 400watt mh with less than 280 watt draw

No doubt plasma can light a reef tank but it's not the only MH replacement out there. At 58 lumens/watt efficiency plasma is still well below current high power LED's . Cree and Rebels are at/near 130+ lumens/watt.

[rgfast]

just off hand do you know what the cost of those leds bulbs are to replace and how long they last?

[TheDogFather]

Originally Posted by rgfast

just off hand do you know what the cost of those leds bulbs are to replace and how long they last?

A 3W Rebel or Cree LED is about $5 and should run for 50,000 hours or ~11.4 years at 12 hr/day.

[rgfast]

thats quiet impressive didn't know that

[iamwrasseman]

how do you like the spectrum of the plasma light ?
we have two of them and i personally think they are to far into the yellow range . they are very bright and do work very well for sustaining corals and also growing imo .i wish i could get one more into the blueish range .

[westmoorenerd]

Plasma lighting can get very blue, but to do so you have to drastically lower the power on it. So at full blast they're a heavy PAR hitter, but to get the color we come to expect out of out tanks you have to loewr power to about 30% from what I've read.

[rgfast]

thats good info and I'm looking to get antic from three LED spot light type bulbs, the frag tank that I'm setting up is 48x24x12

[Beaun]

I dont understand the its too yellow arguments against plasma, people use actinic supplimentation all the time with MH's, what makes these any different. Also, the spectrum of plasma is much broader and is closer to natural sunlight then MH bulbs are, so it should not be as yellow as you might think. So far I'm a fan of plasma bulbs, but only time will tell if they can hang with proven technology (MH and T5) and upcomming technology (LED). They are still very new in their development and have a long way to come, but they have a lot of promise.

[iamwrasseman]

Beaun i agree with you 100% but with the current color technology on mh and t5s it would be great to have it at 80% and still have that blueish pop effect ,that's what i would like to see . yes we can dim and get somewhat a blueish hue but its just not yet up to par with the other current bulbs but they will certainly get that down pat at some point in time . they do work very well i must admit .

[rgfast]

so do you think that with the curent bulb and antic supment that they would have good color spectrum for a frag system

[Beaun]

I think for a frag system, you would be fine with just the plasma. It has a wide spectrum of color, it is just more intense around 6000k which will give it that more yellow/white light color.

[zygote2k]

Incandescent anything is the past.

[jtma508]

Look at the spectral plot for the LiFi emitter vs. a typical MH system. The plasma emitters have alot of output in the green and up range but are missing that actinic/blue peak at around 420nm. If you have to turn down the LiFi emitter to get the blues aren't you defeating the purpose of the emitter? High power LED systems can produce more than enough PAR at lower power consumption but the discussion now is around spectrum. It seems the LiFi emitters have the same issues. LED designers use cool white (~6500K) emitters combined with blue (470nm) and/or royal blue (450nm) LEDs. If you look at the spectral plot of the LiFi emmitter:

http://straylightoptical.com/res/sea...m-brochure.pdf

and the Cree XP-G:

http://www.cree.com/products/pdf/XLampXP-G.pdf

the only significant differences is the LED's dip in the cyan region and peak in the blue compared to the LiFi.

[Machupicchu]

Im getting 9 cree XP-Gs today for my 12gal.

They put out 139 lumens per watt at 350mA

If i wanted i could run them at 1500mA each, thats ~595 lumens per led, and around 5,300 for all nine. Obviously thats a little much for the whole tank but i can turn them down to about 1000mA and run them cool and efficiently with plenty of power, all for under $150.

You could prbly make an LED fixture as powerful as that with all the actinic you need for less than half of that fixture. And it would last 10 years.

[rgfast]

I was pretty gun hoe to order one but after trying to email them from addess listed here and in my new Coral mag it said unmaileble adress getting scared of the seller any one else tried to contact them?

[iamwrasseman]

yes the plasma would be fine for fragging as it does grow corals .the actinics are for viewing IMO ,not growing .

[jestersix]

I am currently running two of the Stray Light plasmas on my 150 - I actually like the color rendition on them. It is very close to natural sunlight IMHO. Of course, the blue side of things are more common and seem more "natural" to most of us in the hobby. As for Stray Light, they are a solid company - I believe they made some changes in ther website and that may be the problem you are getting...I understand they are very involved in a couple of big projects right now so communications may be a bit slow.

I'm curious how many average hobbysists have the necessary skills to swap out the LEDs in their fixtures. Not anything like swapping a MH/T5/plasma bulb...for what it is worth. Or does anyone think they will be toos and replace fixtures? I could see that being teh case, too.

[iamwrasseman]

always have wondered why leds are not built as push in type fixtures . i know it would double the bulk of the light but they are very small and it seems like it would be very advantagous to be able to move them around or swap entire masses out for different color effects .
just my 2 cents on leds ?

[blasterman789]

I would seriously doubt the plasma fixtures offer anything that using high CRI halide bulbs wouldn't in terms of color or spectrum. You just don't see high CRI halides in reefing because everybody seems to want the goofy colors of narrow band 14/20k halides.

Also, the plasma lights here are using visual lumens rather than PAR, which might be fine for commercial aquariums, but a bit of marketing in other respects. Looking at the spectral graphs tells me that the plasma fixture is likely equal to a decent 14K halide in terms of PAR per watt. Most reef halides peak at around 450nm, and their comparison graphs look like a 420 T5 and not a typical reef halide which peak around 450nm.

For the record, high CRI *anything* wastes light in terms of photosynthesis -This is a scientific and industrial fact. LEDs will beat plasmas and halides on PAR efficiency, but color rendition is another matter.

However, 95CRI is a quantum order of magniture superior to any cool-white Cree, which I insist have no practical purpose on reef tanks. I would guess without hesitation the plasma makes any white dominated LED light look totally wretched. Based on the specs I've seen, I would conclude the plasma is pricey, but is worth it if you like the broader spectrum look.

[jestersix]

My lights are 16 inches over my tank. At 4 inches under water my PAR readings under the lights are 536. AT the edges of my tank (six footer) the PAR in the corners is around 170s. I would be surprised to see any 250W MH match those numbers. PAR under the lights at 4 inches through air is 3000 FWIW.

I am using plasmas on my main display because I like them. I still use T5s, MH and LEDS in various functions - even CFLs in my macro tank. We are thinking about adding a 4 foot Reefbrite blue LEd strip to the light stand because the blues make the visitors go ooh and ahh....