LED and MH

L

lotan

Copepod
#1
#1
Hey, I have metal halides on my tank, but I really like the colors that LED's bring out in corals. I can't afford completely switching to LED's, but I was thinking of maybe supplementing my lighting with a LED strip or spotlight along with the MH. Would this do anything or would i just be throwing away money?
 
freedominco

freedominco

Angel Fish
#2
#2
Save up for the LED's IMO. What size tank? I have a 180 and am running 2 120 watt LED's and it looks pretty bright, I would like to add a 3rd in the future but things are fine with just the 2. The savings on bulbs and electricity make the LED's pay for them selves pretty quickly.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
 
KhensuRa

KhensuRa

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#7
#7
His news ones are a lot nicer then the old versions. He is going to have them all at reef stock so you will be able to see them. I kinda like the new 150w dimmable he is selling. If I had the cash I might consider getting one.
 
kmcmurtry

kmcmurtry

Turbo Snail
#12
#12
It's super hard to compete with halides to get the nice blue/glow. With mine, I had to run everything on timers, so the halides ran a good part of the day, then the actinic and then an LED tube/strip pair I got from a guy that does DIY led supplemental lighting ran last for the times when I was actually home to enjoy. The led tubes I use are not anything that can grow stuff, so I couldn't just run those all day. If you decide to stay with the halide, maybe you could DIY in some supplementals and do the timer thing to get the effect you want during the morning and evening.
 
C

Crit21

Butterfly Fish
#13
#13
Using the right mix of blue/white LEDs can give you any effect you want if each color is independently dimmable. That's something you definitely can't do with MH.
 
kmcmurtry

kmcmurtry

Turbo Snail
#14
#14
Very true - I oftentimes have cursed the MH bulbs as no matter what I tried, their stark white would win out. I could only effect them by adding a big blue VHO bulb, but hated to add more watts as I didn't necessarily need them for anything but color. Meh. The corals were super happy. I like my new T5's better because I have just one fixture to plug in. No big ballasts. Wish I just had one unit with ten timers on it and one cord, lol.

LED's rock too as they can be configured like Crit says.
 
L

lotan

Copepod
#15
#15
Good_GReef;149075 said:
It's super hard to compete with halides to get the nice blue/glow. With mine, I had to run everything on timers, so the halides ran a good part of the day, then the actinic and then an LED tube/strip pair I got from a guy that does DIY led supplemental lighting ran last for the times when I was actually home to enjoy. The led tubes I use are not anything that can grow stuff, so I couldn't just run those all day. If you decide to stay with the halide, maybe you could DIY in some supplementals and do the timer thing to get the effect you want during the morning and evening.
Click to expand...
This is kind of like what I had originally thought of doing, but the more I think about, I'm kind o leaning towards just completely changing over.
 
C

Crit21

Butterfly Fish
#16
#16
Good_GReef;149092 said:
Very true - I oftentimes have cursed the MH bulbs as no matter what I tried, their stark white would win out. I could only effect them by adding a big blue VHO bulb, but hated to add more watts as I didn't necessarily need them for anything but color. Meh. The corals were super happy. I like my new T5's better because I have just one fixture to plug in. No big ballasts. Wish I just had one unit with ten timers on it and one cord, lol.

LED's rock too as they can be configured like Crit says.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I cut over 1200 watts of MH and VHOs down to 250 watts, and the corals went bonkers.
 
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