If budget wasn't an issue, what is the best lighting for sps?

[Eric Boerner]

If money wasn't issue... and I was building a house around my reef trank, I'd go with tubular skylights with blue theater filters. 1 per 2' square. They would push par equivalent to 800-1200 watt halides depending on sun coverage and time of year. I'd enhance those with LED using a full UV/Blacklight spectrum. I'd get full natural light spectrum tinted to remove reds and oranges (which keeps the green algae at bay), with additional UV spectrum to enhance natural coloration. Very similar to setting up an outdoor grow house, but indoors. The problem with tubular skylights is that they produce a lot of heat, very similar to halides. I'm sure a decent chiller would need to be implemented as well.

[zoomonster]

Originally Posted by stancfii

My intent is not to turn this into another hate thread, but I watched all of those videos. The original experiment was never followed through. He was supposed to change his higher k bulbs for 6500k, and run them during non-viewing hours (1-3 hrs in order to get 4-5 years out of one bulb) in order to increase coloration and quality of growth, and use the radions for viewing purposes the rest of the day. Instead, he phased out his MH altogether, and nothing more was said.
I'm not disputing that LEDs work, but I too would drop MH and sing praises of radions if BRS gave me free radions to do a marketing video

I've said it before... Make your own decision based on a preponderance of evidence and live with your choice. That being others experiences, reading and most importantly get out and look at a variety of tanks in stores etc. I also have said take the experts with a large grain of salt. I really don't know of any "expert" in this hobby that can offer a true unbiased opinion. There's just no independent lab buying, testing and evaluating products for this hobby. Pretty much all the "experts" are receiving some sort of consideration whether its advertising, free products to keep and use or straight up payment. The major LED players just have too much at stake not to fight back.

[d2mini]

Originally Posted by Eric Boerner

If money wasn't issue... and I was building a house around my reef trank, I'd go with tubular skylights with blue theater filters. 1 per 2' square. They would push par equivalent to 800-1200 watt halides depending on sun coverage and time of year. I'd enhance those with LED using a full UV/Blacklight spectrum. I'd get full natural light spectrum tinted to remove reds and oranges (which keeps the green algae at bay), with additional UV spectrum to enhance natural coloration. Very similar to setting up an outdoor grow house, but indoors. The problem with tubular skylights is that they produce a lot of heat, very similar to halides. I'm sure a decent chiller would need to be implemented as well.

I like how you think.

[Wazzel]

Move to Cayman Brac, build a house on the beach that has a basement with a viewing window to the reef. No bulbs to change, no skimmer to clean, no MH vs LED argument, etc. Would just have to clean the viewing window.

If money were no object.......

[wmilas]

So, I think I may be uniquely qualified to answer this question. I mostly lurk now a days but some of you older gents might remember me. I have a 660 gal display (120x36x30) and another 800ish gallons behind it in the wet room. sump, frag tanks, ect.

I've experimented with *THE BEST* lights money can buy over my display. Since my wet room is sealed from the rest of the house, I can cycle outside air in for evaporation cooling in massive amounts (I have 2 massive duct blowers) so heat is never an issue for me. I have Very large colonies (I have monties that are over 100 lbs) so I know what shading patterns are like.

Let me explain, in practical terms, what each technology offers you at the highest end fixtures:

T5. I had 2 12 bulb sfigoli(sp?) 5 footers over the tank. If I remember right at 1500 watts of t5. Color mixed changed over time but it settled somewhere around 22k. Don't ask the individual bulbs because there were ALOT of them. Aqua blues, specials, ect.

The Pros: Best growth out of any technology. Really. Best tune-able color combination when 100% lit. Best shading and shadowing.... there were none. Pretty good heat dissipation since very little IR going into the water.

The Cons: 24 bulbs! Try changing these every 6 months. You want to shoot yourself. Not on the cost side (although its substantial) but on the actual process. Individual reflectors need to be wiped down.. all 24 of them. No shimmer like MH or led. Lack of shadows can make the tank look Windex like. When not fully lit (lighting bulbs in banks for sunup/sundown effects) color combinations can be a bit wonky. Since you have a massive slab of a fixtures (or 2 in my case) you'll have to swab the glass weekly to get the salt spray off. This is a giant PITA. Lastly, and most important, the FANS. Since the balasts are inside the fixtures, the fans, WILL fail. Then the balasts will fail. You'll have failures starting the 2nd year if in an enclosed room. Just be prepared to work on them.


MH: Radium 400's with high end Ebalasts and VHO near UV lighting. In my case 4 400's with high end reflectors, and 660 watts of VHO uv. Picking your reflectors and remote balasts in my mind is better and more flexable than buying an all in one fixture. In this case spending more $ on an all in one is not "better". $ was not a factor for me.

The Pros: as a user stated, there is something MAGICAL about the look of these bulbs. From a pure aesthetic standpoint, this is the best viewing technology. I tried to tune t5's to look like them, but its just not possible. You can get close, but its not the same. My growth is not as good as the T5's. The coral colors, as far as reflected pigments are as good as t5's, but the color shifted fluorescent pigments are NOT as good as t5. The problem is that I think the Radiums overpower the UV. Plus the UV is not hitting the entire excitation ranges you need. t5's can be tuned to hit them ALL. Reds look better under t5. I tried moving 660 watts of uv to just one side of the tank to see if I doubled it if it would mater. It did not.

MH's are MUCH easier to maintain. 4 Bulb changes every 9 months and the bulbs change like magic compared to t5. Balasts are remote and require no fan. Bingo! Wiping down the reflectors every bulb change is pretty easy compared to t5. I don't run glass in my fixtures, just wide open. They are mounted much higher than the t5's for the same spread so not as much splash. Bulbs are cheaper as a whole lot if that matters. changing the vho's is much easier also.

The Cons: Heat into your tank. IR will penetrate. You WILL raise your water temp. In my case 2250 watts compared to 1500ish watts of T5 for the sameish light output. Dimming sucks.. there is no dimming. UV runs as sunrise/sunset which is NOT a good viewing experience. I don't like it and neither do the fish. corals don't care.

You can burn yourself reaching into your tank. It hurts. Alot. Trust me.

LED. Ive tried nearly all the high end fixtures. AI, ect.

Pros: Way less heat. You are going to need nearly (75% to 80%) the same wattage as your t5 setup. I'll get into that in a second. good general shimmer. No bulb changes (Not taking into account upgrading). Good reflective color rendition but poor fluorescent color rendition on all mainstream commercial units. (there are wavelength gaps). Wonderful ,and I mean WONDERFUL software to tweak color and sunrise/sunset. This is most often completely overlooked especially if your display is a main part of your house.

Cons: Terrible Growth. I'm sorry, its true. Yes you CAN grow SPS. Just don't expect the same kind of growth as a t5 setup. my previous generation sol fixtures grew coral at, I estimate, 25% of the rate of my t5 setup. In my t5 setup I was dosing 5 GALLONS of saturated Alk and 5 GALLONS of calcium a week.

Way, and I mean WAY too much white in the commercial fixtures. White is useless besides for viewing. Growth comes from the blue spectrum. Which also leads to that the blue spectrum is not WIDE enough in LED fixtures. All really high end T5 fixtures that grow and fluoresce are blue. They just are. Radium is Blue. It just is. If you want sps growth you want BLUE spectrum. So to get that amount of blue you need to OVER BUY on the fixtures. Turn white down to 20-30% at most and have blue jacked all the way up. So you are buying about 80% of the wattage but only using 55ish% of it.

Shadowing. Its there and noticeable. You can NOT mount a single fixture over a wide tank and expect spread. On my 36" width I have to mount 2 fixtures front to back to avoid shadowing. Even so its still there. The light source is much more "point like" than a MH because of the way the MH reflector bounces light. The shadows can be annoying.

Longevity scares me. I've not run any of the fixtures long enough to know what will break. Knowing how simple t5's are and how much they fail in a wet room with them I'm afraid the failures could be even more dramatic after 2 years with LED. I just don't know. I DO know that if it has a fan, the fan WILL fail.


Do it yourself LED: Aka Evil Cluster, ect.

I'm playing with building fixtures now. I'm trying to get the light spectrum and dim-ability of a t5 setup (better dim-ability) with the look and pop and feel of a Radium. With no more shadows than that of a Radium.

So far no go, but I've just started. Could this be the "Best". Maybe. I'll see.

For *ME* right now the Radium setup is the one I use. The look coupled with maintenance makes it the best that money can buy. I supplemented it with stringing a strip of LED's over the tank for sunrise and sunset effects. They are just 1 watters. No growth from them, just for me and the fish

Hope this helps.

[wmilas]

Originally Posted by zoomonster

I've said it before... Make your own decision based on a preponderance of evidence and live with your choice. That being others experiences, reading and most importantly get out and look at a variety of tanks in stores etc. I also have said take the experts with a large grain of salt. I really don't know of any "expert" in this hobby that can offer a true unbiased opinion. There's just no independent lab buying, testing and evaluating products for this hobby. Pretty much all the "experts" are receiving some sort of consideration whether its advertising, free products to keep and use or straight up payment. The major LED players just have too much at stake not to fight back.

Read my post. About as unbiased as it gets

[moondoggy4]

I think the OP needs to go a on road trip and check out a bunch of tanks.

[Allmost]

uv/ blacklight spectrum would kill all beings .. really not sure why we use that term ...

[Fredfish]

Originally Posted by stancfii

My intent is not to turn this into another hate thread, but I watched all of those videos. The original experiment was never followed through. He was supposed to change his higher k bulbs for 6500k, and run them during non-viewing hours (1-3 hrs in order to get 4-5 years out of one bulb) in order to increase coloration and quality of growth, and use the radions for viewing purposes the rest of the day. Instead, he phased out his MH altogether, and nothing more was said.
I'm not disputing that LEDs work, but I too would drop MH and sing praises of radions if BRS gave me free radions to do a marketing video

I was not suggesting that LEDs or Radions are 'the best ever', merely pointing out that Mr. Paletta's setup had changed.

So far, I like Wazzel's post best, but I'm pretty sure that is not the direction the OP was looking to go.

Personally, I think wmilas has the most appropriate answer. The best is in the eye of the beholder.

[stancfii]

Agreed. I decided to scrap the LEDs and go back to MH after checking out LFSs and members' tanks while traveling for work. I'm now running one 250 Radium on my 40, and couldn't be happier.

[Eric Boerner]

Originally Posted by Allmost

uv/ blacklight spectrum would kill all beings .. really not sure why we use that term ...

Apart from that awesome little algae called zooxanthella that we all love and desire.

[sunilp]

Thank you all for the posts. I am debating between a ati hybrid fixture and a giessmann moonlight mh t5 fixture. I have a 175 bow front tank. Would a giessmann fixture with two 150 watt mh supplemented with t5 be enough?

[Bpb]

That will not be enough light for sps. Not by a long shot. And I change my answer. Sola tubes

[Drae]

Originally Posted by sunilp

Thank you all for the posts. I am debating between a ati hybrid fixture and a giessmann moonlight mh t5 fixture. I have a 175 bow front tank. Would a giessmann fixture with two 150 watt mh supplemented with t5 be enough?

Nope... You'd need 250 watt mh imo. Ati hybrid would be tops IMHO. T5 pound for pound is one of the best options for SPS. Color and growth. Try to find someone with the hybrid and check it out.

[Voodoo Corals]

Originally Posted by sunilp

Thank you all for the posts. I am debating between a ati hybrid fixture and a giessmann moonlight mh t5 fixture. I have a 175 bow front tank. Would a giessmann fixture with two 150 watt mh supplemented with t5 be enough?

at least a 250W/T5 combo depending on coral placement

Originally Posted by Bpb

That will not be enough light for sps. Not by a long shot. And I change my answer. Sola tubes

+1

[ZON]

Originally Posted by wmilas

So, I think I may be uniquely qualified to answer this question. I mostly lurk now a days but some of you older gents might remember me. I have a 660 gal display (120x36x30) and another 800ish gallons behind it in the wet room. sump, frag tanks, ect.

I've experimented with *THE BEST* lights money can buy over my display. Since my wet room is sealed from the rest of the house, I can cycle outside air in for evaporation cooling in massive amounts (I have 2 massive duct blowers) so heat is never an issue for me. I have Very large colonies (I have monties that are over 100 lbs) so I know what shading patterns are like.

Let me explain, in practical terms, what each technology offers you at the highest end fixtures:

T5. I had 2 12 bulb sfigoli(sp?) 5 footers over the tank. If I remember right at 1500 watts of t5. Color mixed changed over time but it settled somewhere around 22k. Don't ask the individual bulbs because there were ALOT of them. Aqua blues, specials, ect.

The Pros: Best growth out of any technology. Really. Best tune-able color combination when 100% lit. Best shading and shadowing.... there were none. Pretty good heat dissipation since very little IR going into the water.

The Cons: 24 bulbs! Try changing these every 6 months. You want to shoot yourself. Not on the cost side (although its substantial) but on the actual process. Individual reflectors need to be wiped down.. all 24 of them. No shimmer like MH or led. Lack of shadows can make the tank look Windex like. When not fully lit (lighting bulbs in banks for sunup/sundown effects) color combinations can be a bit wonky. Since you have a massive slab of a fixtures (or 2 in my case) you'll have to swab the glass weekly to get the salt spray off. This is a giant PITA. Lastly, and most important, the FANS. Since the balasts are inside the fixtures, the fans, WILL fail. Then the balasts will fail. You'll have failures starting the 2nd year if in an enclosed room. Just be prepared to work on them.


MH: Radium 400's with high end Ebalasts and VHO near UV lighting. In my case 4 400's with high end reflectors, and 660 watts of VHO uv. Picking your reflectors and remote balasts in my mind is better and more flexable than buying an all in one fixture. In this case spending more $ on an all in one is not "better". $ was not a factor for me.

The Pros: as a user stated, there is something MAGICAL about the look of these bulbs. From a pure aesthetic standpoint, this is the best viewing technology. I tried to tune t5's to look like them, but its just not possible. You can get close, but its not the same. My growth is not as good as the T5's. The coral colors, as far as reflected pigments are as good as t5's, but the color shifted fluorescent pigments are NOT as good as t5. The problem is that I think the Radiums overpower the UV. Plus the UV is not hitting the entire excitation ranges you need. t5's can be tuned to hit them ALL. Reds look better under t5. I tried moving 660 watts of uv to just one side of the tank to see if I doubled it if it would mater. It did not.

MH's are MUCH easier to maintain. 4 Bulb changes every 9 months and the bulbs change like magic compared to t5. Balasts are remote and require no fan. Bingo! Wiping down the reflectors every bulb change is pretty easy compared to t5. I don't run glass in my fixtures, just wide open. They are mounted much higher than the t5's for the same spread so not as much splash. Bulbs are cheaper as a whole lot if that matters. changing the vho's is much easier also.

The Cons: Heat into your tank. IR will penetrate. You WILL raise your water temp. In my case 2250 watts compared to 1500ish watts of T5 for the sameish light output. Dimming sucks.. there is no dimming. UV runs as sunrise/sunset which is NOT a good viewing experience. I don't like it and neither do the fish. corals don't care.

You can burn yourself reaching into your tank. It hurts. Alot. Trust me.

LED. Ive tried nearly all the high end fixtures. AI, ect.

Pros: Way less heat. You are going to need nearly (75% to 80%) the same wattage as your t5 setup. I'll get into that in a second. good general shimmer. No bulb changes (Not taking into account upgrading). Good reflective color rendition but poor fluorescent color rendition on all mainstream commercial units. (there are wavelength gaps). Wonderful ,and I mean WONDERFUL software to tweak color and sunrise/sunset. This is most often completely overlooked especially if your display is a main part of your house.

Cons: Terrible Growth. I'm sorry, its true. Yes you CAN grow SPS. Just don't expect the same kind of growth as a t5 setup. my previous generation sol fixtures grew coral at, I estimate, 25% of the rate of my t5 setup. In my t5 setup I was dosing 5 GALLONS of saturated Alk and 5 GALLONS of calcium a week.

Way, and I mean WAY too much white in the commercial fixtures. White is useless besides for viewing. Growth comes from the blue spectrum. Which also leads to that the blue spectrum is not WIDE enough in LED fixtures. All really high end T5 fixtures that grow and fluoresce are blue. They just are. Radium is Blue. It just is. If you want sps growth you want BLUE spectrum. So to get that amount of blue you need to OVER BUY on the fixtures. Turn white down to 20-30% at most and have blue jacked all the way up. So you are buying about 80% of the wattage but only using 55ish% of it.

Shadowing. Its there and noticeable. You can NOT mount a single fixture over a wide tank and expect spread. On my 36" width I have to mount 2 fixtures front to back to avoid shadowing. Even so its still there. The light source is much more "point like" than a MH because of the way the MH reflector bounces light. The shadows can be annoying.

Longevity scares me. I've not run any of the fixtures long enough to know what will break. Knowing how simple t5's are and how much they fail in a wet room with them I'm afraid the failures could be even more dramatic after 2 years with LED. I just don't know. I DO know that if it has a fan, the fan WILL fail.


Do it yourself LED: Aka Evil Cluster, ect.

I'm playing with building fixtures now. I'm trying to get the light spectrum and dim-ability of a t5 setup (better dim-ability) with the look and pop and feel of a Radium. With no more shadows than that of a Radium.

So far no go, but I've just started. Could this be the "Best". Maybe. I'll see.

For *ME* right now the Radium setup is the one I use. The look coupled with maintenance makes it the best that money can buy. I supplemented it with stringing a strip of LED's over the tank for sunrise and sunset effects. They are just 1 watters. No growth from them, just for me and the fish

Hope this helps.

i think some IDENTICAL considerations..you are great.

[ZON]

i use ATI hybrid ..and once you understand this kind of light, they works so well.

[Wazzel]

Originally Posted by sunilp

Thank you all for the posts. I am debating between a ati hybrid fixture and a giessmann moonlight mh t5 fixture. I have a 175 bow front tank. Would a giessmann fixture with two 150 watt mh supplemented with t5 be enough?

Yes it is, but.......... You will be limited to how deep in your tank you can place the corals and the higher light demanding ones should not be put in your tank. If you are thinking a mixed reef with a few SPS in the top 12+/- inches of your tank you would be fine. A full blown full depth SPS tank you should consider a stronger light. If you want to go MH a 250 watt system should work fine.

[zoomonster]

Originally Posted by sunilp

Thank you all for the posts. I am debating between a ati hybrid fixture and a giessmann moonlight mh t5 fixture. I have a 175 bow front tank. Would a giessmann fixture with two 150 watt mh supplemented with t5 be enough?

Think 5+ watts per gallon. For a 72" tank typical would be three 250w bulbs plus 2-4 T5 bulbs at 80w each (or maybe multiple smaller bulbs). You could also take it to the next level with 400w bulbs. With electronic dimmable ballasts you could also run 250 at 175 or 400 at 250 etc. when you wanted to tone it down. Depending on the reflector a 250w will cover about 2ft of tank length.

As far as the ATI powermodule hybrid they say the 60" is good for up to a 72" tank but not so sure about that as far as end coverage. Plus at that smaller size it relegates it to hanging or mounted inside a hood and not on tank. I'm not sure I would want something where I had to replace 8 T5's every 6-12 months (better than bulbs and T5's I guess). At the very least it should run cooler but at full power it still pulls 940w not far behind MH/T5.

[Lavoisier]

Originally Posted by wmilas

So, I think I may be uniquely qualified to answer this question...Hope this helps.

Yes, it helps! Great write up. Thank you for sharing.

[imkelz]

If money was no issue then I would move to Fiji and have one of those tanks you can roll outside on tracks lol.
with some LEDs for night viewing.

I seen a tank like this somewhere and it amazed me, i believe it had an aiptasia filter lol

[Allmost]

Originally Posted by Eric Boerner

Apart from that awesome little algae called zooxanthella that we all love and desire.

sorry ?

we use the incorrect term here, it is NOT UV.

technically, it is Violet light. 400-450 nm Wavelength.

Below it, is UV. Ultra Violet. which will kill given enough exposure. will also make us blind !

[solitude127]

Originally Posted by wmilas

So, I think I may be uniquely qualified to answer this question. I mostly lurk now a days but some of you older gents might remember me. I have a 660 gal display (120x36x30) and another 800ish gallons behind it in the wet room. sump, frag tanks, ect.

Great write up. It's nice to read about a reefer with experience with different types of lighting

[sunilp]

Ok, after reading this thread a few times, consensus is the t5 is the way to go. I have narrowed it down to the ATI2613 60" 4x75W LED & 4x80W T5 LED-Powermodule** 160-250. Will this be sufficient for my 175 bow tank? Too bad my GHL Profilux can't control it.

[grigsy]

Metal Halide +T5 is great for SPS.

I think that is the best you can do, especially if you are talking SPS.

My Hamilton Cebu Sun blew my Radions out of the water.