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

[A. grandis]

No I just don't want to rehash insanely silly arguments that twist minutia into being benefits of MH. Your rhetoric serves only to seed arguments, and I assume that is what you want. I don't. Enjoy your thread.

Are your corals healthier than back in the day though? How so? LOL!
This is going to last forever. LOL!

 

[A. grandis]

Your post reference is from 5+ years ago and shows old pictures of his setup, and I have already linked to current pictures, and am aware he has halide. And for a recent update, this January Adam said

“I myself have one tank out of six with halides over, the rest are all LED in my main system.”

And just today:

“95% of my frag inventory is under LED”

What we buy, from his site is frags grown in his tanks under LED for up to 9 months

I don’t know why you jumped on my back, I started off complimenting the growth and color under halide, and shared a few pictures of corals I grew out under led.

I never said one tech grew corals better or worse. I mentioned heat which is valid, and you decided to blame me for defective glass.

I agreed with you many people use more watts than needed with halide and that I like the ability to dim my fixture and that I reduced my wattage.

For some reason you keep needing to retort and then this into a “halide is better” campaign. Good for you. Enjoy the lights. We all know they are successful. I ran them myself also.

I am stepping out of this thread, I have no interest in bickering any further and it was not my intent when I joined.

Oh no.. my intention is to just let you know that he actually loved Iwasakis. I'm aware that he doesn't care much about discussing the subject of lighting. I don't really care much for his late preference for light because he changes his opinions all the time and that shows how inconsistent he is to each technology. But I also think he likes a bit of each! In the end he likes all 3 technologies and the best quality in a coral farmer is to offer frags under the 3 different technologies. I think he is one of the best companies in the industry just because of that. I have absolutely no reason to condemn his position about lighting. His colonies are great and he is very professioanl. I careless about what others would think he defends or not, cause what I see from him is a passionate halide user, but also a guy who loves T5s and uses LEDs without any problems. An example of a professional in this industry! Not to mention that "enable no glitz" feature! Love it!!!!

 

[djf91]

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.

I can agree with this. I think we’re on similar wavelengths.

 

[Brent Bohannon]

I just bought a MH pendant to try a tribrid method. Reefer 1000 with 250w MH in center, two 24" hybrid T5 (8 24" bulbs), and two XR 30's and two XR15's. LED's are do a lot but they are definitely missing something. I think it's IR and UV-B. Time will tell but LED's are not a silver bullet.

 

[Reefering1]

I just bought a MH pendant to try a tribrid method. Reefer 1000 with 250w MH in center, two 24" hybrid T5 (8 24" bulbs), and two XR 30's and two XR15's. LED's are do a lot but they are definitely missing something. I think it's IR and UV-B. Time will tell but LED's are not a silver bullet.

Pics please

 

[plippert21]

I just bought a MH pendant to try a tribrid method. Reefer 1000 with 250w MH in center, two 24" hybrid T5 (8 24" bulbs), and two XR 30's and two XR15's. LED's are do a lot but they are definitely missing something. I think it's IR and UV-B. Time will tell but LED's are not a silver bullet.

Agreed LEDs are not a silver bullet but to be balance I don’t think MH are either.

 

[VintageReefer]

Everyone knows metal halide can’t grow the corals. That’s why LED came out in the first place duh!

 

[Borat]

Everyone knows metal halide can’t grow the corals. That’s why LED came out in the first place duh!

Metal halide are for little girls that are scared of leds!

 

[Reefering1]

Metal halide are for little girls that are scared of leds!

Aren't the led guys the ones scared of everything? Their entire argument always revolves around fear; fear of heat, fear of using too much electricity, fear of seeing every Crack and crevice of their tanks for what it really is rather than hiding behind the shadows and blue light. None even try to argue that the light itself is better than mh, just a bunch of crying about heat and electricity. Only thing about led I'm scared of is spending 7000$ on leds every 5-7 years for inferior light quality

 

[VintageReefer]

Aren't the led guys the ones scared of everything? Their entire argument always revolves around fear; fear of heat, fear of using too much electricity, fear of seeing every Crack and crevice of their tanks for what it really is rather than hiding behind the shadows and blue light. None even try to argue that the light itself is better than mh, just a bunch of crying about heat and electricity. Only thing about led I'm scared of is spending 7000$ on leds every 5-7 years for inferior light quality

Not scared, had halide with 4 t5. led is better for me. I’d get frags and have to put a ton of layers of screen mesh over my tank to acclimate to the halides or I’d bleach new corals. Removing layers every few days. It was so dumb.

Replacing 2 bulbs at 70$ a piece every year gets old. 140 a year on bulbs x 7 years is 980$. My led fixture was around 700 new.

For me, and everyone is different, but for me
7 year cost of LED = 700

7 year cost of Halide = cost of fixture itself + 980 bulbs + cost of 500watt additional power every moment the light is on, over the course of 7 years

Plus I had a ballast blow so add on another 100 figuring sometime in 7 years you might have a ballast die

And in 7 years, my led will still work I just will need to up the channels a bit. I only need to run at 35-40% now, so I have plenty of room to go. That 35-40% gets me 100-125 par on my sandbed. 300-350 at the top of my rock. Perfect for most corals. And if I ventured into high par acros I have plenty of room to bump up.

Oh and no random burns when my arm bumps the fixture as I work in the tank. And the spectrum is completely adjustable as is the brightness.

I did enjoy my halides. They did the job. On larger tanks I think it’s a good option when supplemented with t5 or led bars

Scared to go back? Nah. I’ve been extremely happy with LED only reefs for a decade.

 

[Brent Bohannon]

Still in boxes but I’ll post once I install.

 

[Reefering1]

Not scared, had halide with 4 t5. led is better for me. I’d get frags and have to put a ton of layers of screen mesh over my tank to acclimate to the halides or I’d bleach new corals. Removing layers every few days. It was so dumb.

Replacing 2 bulbs at 70$ a piece every year gets old. 140 a year on bulbs x 7 years is 980$. My led fixture was around 700 new.

For me, and everyone is different, but for me
7 year cost of LED = 700

7 year cost of Halide = cost of fixture itself + 980 bulbs + cost of 500watt additional power every moment the light is on, over the course of 7 years

Plus I had a ballast blow so add on another 100 figuring sometime in 7 years you might have a ballast die

And in 7 years, my led will still work I just will need to up the channels a bit. I only need to run at 35-40% now, so I have plenty of room to go. That 35-40% gets me 100-125 par on my sandbed. 300-350 at the top of my rock. Perfect for most corals. And if I ventured into high par acros I have plenty of room to bump up.

Oh and no random burns when my arm bumps the fixture as I work in the tank. And the spectrum is completely adjustable as is the brightness.

I did enjoy my halides. They did the job. On larger tanks I think it’s a good option when supplemented with t5 or led bars

Scared to go back? Nah. I’ve been extremely happy with LED only reefs for a decade.

Well let's start with that I agree that the bigger the tank, the more halides makes sense. If You have a little 20g/80g softy/lps tank, fine. Led would be more applicable. We've had this discussion before and I find it ridiculous for you to say 1 light(kessil, iirc) at 40% is even comparable to 3 250w halides. Sure for what you're doing, it fine- nothing wrong with that. But those high par acros, sure you can bump up the par and grow them directly below the light, but the coverage will be insufficient once they start growing. Adding a fixture will help, 2 more may be necessary if you want to grow them anywhere in tank. So all I heard is waaa, power consumption- sniffle sniffle, heat.. boo hoo- I can't change the color of the lights. (Wipes tear from cheek;-)

Sorry if I missed it, but you're not arguing that the led is actually better light, just that it's better for you based on other things that aren't related to the actual light coming out of the fixtures..

 

[VintageReefer]

Well let's start with that I agree that the bigger the tank, the more halides makes sense. If You have a little 20g/80g softy/lps tank, fine. Led would be more applicable. We've had this discussion before and I find it ridiculous for you to say 1 light(kessil, iirc) at 40% is even comparable to 3 250w halides. Sure for what you're doing, it fine- nothing wrong with that. But those high par acros, sure you can bump up the par and grow them directly below the light, but the coverage will be insufficient once they start growing. Adding a fixture will help, 2 more may be necessary if you want to grow them anywhere in tank. So all I heard is waaa, power consumption- sniffle sniffle, heat.. boo hoo- I can't change the color of the lights. (Wipes tear from cheek;-)

Sorry if I missed it, but you're not arguing that the led is actually better light, just that it's better for you based on other things that aren't related to the actual light coming out of the fixtures..

I find your response ridiculous also and am not getting into another of the hundreds of threads of halide vs leds

I never mentioned or owned kessil. And I am not a fan of them. You do not recall correctly

Just because I have my valid complaints about halides doesn’t mean I’m boo hoo’ing. Sorry, I don’t like those drawbacks? I didn’t need 716w over my mixed reef. It worked yea, but switching to led gave me what I felt was better color and growth especially in my millepora

Halide did great growing this from a 2” frag into a nice colony

LED grew from a colony into a monster

Both work

Why are my complaints crying and your complaints valid and not treated the same? All I hear from you is mud slinging.

I respect that you are a fan of halide but there’s no need for your opinion to be expressed the way you express it.

Look at tank of the month threads. Plenty are using led only, or combos of led + others. These people run tanks much better than either of ours. Think they are doing something wrong ?

I will end my involvement in this by respectfully stating everyone is entitled to their opinion and there are multiple ways one can grow coral, and nothing is perfect. It’s up to the tank owner to make a choice and stick with it and use it correctly

 

[X-37B]

LOL, these threads always turn into mines better than yours.
You can find any number of systems running either type of light with success.
Halide lover from way back now running full leds.
This guy should switch to halides for better, growth, health, and color, lol.
Thread '170 Gallon sea tank from China' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/170-gallon-sea-tank-from-china.1054935/

 

[VintageReefer]

LOL, these threads always turn into mines better than yours.
You can find any number of systems running either type of light with success.
Halide lover from way back now running full leds.
This guy should switch to halides for better, growth, health, and color, lol.
Thread '170 Gallon sea tank from China' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/170-gallon-sea-tank-from-china.1054935/

I bet we should let this guy know his tank would be better with halides also

REEF OF THE MONTH - May 2024: A MIXED REEF SMACKDOWN!!!

R2R Username: @thekoralito My Tank Thread: The Koralito's Custom Penisula Mixed Reef Tank Hello fellow reefers! My name is Rocky Eliseo or you may know me as The Koralito @thekoralito on Instagram. I have been keeping freshwater fish since I...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Troylee]

I bet we should let this guy know his tank would be better with halides also

REEF OF THE MONTH - May 2024: A MIXED REEF SMACKDOWN!!!

R2R Username: @thekoralito My Tank Thread: The Koralito's Custom Penisula Mixed Reef Tank Hello fellow reefers! My name is Rocky Eliseo or you may know me as The Koralito @thekoralito on Instagram. I have been keeping freshwater fish since I...

www.reef2reef.com

Maybe you should tell him to come here in the halide thread and argue it! Haha!

 

[X-37B]

I bet we should let this guy know his tank would be better with halides also

REEF OF THE MONTH - May 2024: A MIXED REEF SMACKDOWN!!!

R2R Username: @thekoralito My Tank Thread: The Koralito's Custom Penisula Mixed Reef Tank Hello fellow reefers! My name is Rocky Eliseo or you may know me as The Koralito @thekoralito on Instagram. I have been keeping freshwater fish since I...

www.reef2reef.com

Yea they all work well if you know what your doing.
I miss my halides but will never go back to a light that will eventually be phased out over time.
Leds will continue to advance and get better.
Keep running the halides if you have them they are great lights but eventually you will not have bulbs to use so stock up now.

 

[Reefering1]

Turns out I kinda like having something to argue about...

 

[X-37B]

Turns out I kinda like having something to argue about...

I get it but it does not help the hobby, imo. Im to old to argue anymore, lol.

 

[Reefering1]

I get it but it does not help the hobby, imo. Im to old to argue anymore, lol.

I agree. it's all in good spirits and self entertainment.