175w 12000kmh vs my led

[dling]

Yesterday I replaced my led lighting with a 12000k 175w mh. I have a chiller so I'm not worried about the temp.Well much to my surprise the mh was not nearly as bright as the led lighting. WOW!!n a 175watt is not as bright. It is also much bluer then I had led set at. The reason for all of this is I have some sps that are not doing so well so I though that I would give them more power.Now maybe it's less power. All my water specs seem fine, PH 8.0/ KH-ALK 8.75/ CA 465/ MAG 1440/ Po4 0/ NO3 2.5-5. I will let this experiment run for a week to see if it helps the hard corals or not.

If any of you have suggestions for my sps problem please chime in. BTW ,I have plenty of flow and movement.

Thanks.

[ulver982]

I'm interested to see what happens. Please keep us posted. I did a similar experiment with my biocube 14. I put a 150w metal halide on it for a few weeks. Right away, I did notice it just doesn't look as bright. Also, it wasn't as blue as my LED fixture. I was using a Phoenix bulb as well. One of my SPS was starting to color up and get a little darker under the metal halide vs the LED. I did end up changing back to LED just because of the less heat, I liked the color and I prefer the hood on the biocube vs the open top look.

[gulfsurfer101]

Could be possible that the leds were burning your sps

[dling]

I'm interested to see what happens. Please keep us posted. I did a similar experiment with my biocube 14. I put a 150w metal halide on it for a few weeks. Right away, I did notice it just doesn't look as bright. Also, it wasn't as blue as my LED fixture. I was using a Phoenix bulb as well. One of my SPS was starting to color up and get a little darker under the metal halide vs the LED. I did end up changing back to LED just because of the less heat, I liked the color and I prefer the hood on the biocube vs the open top look.

I feel the same way about the blue. I'm sure I will go back to the led cause I can make them look like the MH just by adjusting the power up or down either color.

 

Could be possible that the leds were burning your sps

I though about that , I'm not sure if it's too much or not enough light.

[dling]

I decided to remove the MH and restore the leds. The MH just did not have the amount of power the led's have.

[blasterman]

With MH you have the issue of how old the bulb is and how efficient the reflector is. As a un-official rule I give a royal based LED fixtures about the same PAR as a metal halide at double the wattage per same coverage - and that's the Chinese ones. Optics obviously are a big variable given you can kill SPS with 30 degree LED optics and just tens of watts, but you don't get the coverage area.

 

12k and 10k halides are all over the place in terms of spectral placement and color, so visual references aren't always accurate. Hate to be buzzkill, but most of the SPS issues I see blamed on lighting are water problems. The good thing with LED's though is you can dim them.

[dling]

With MH you have the issue of how old the bulb is and how efficient the reflector is. As a un-official rule I give a royal based LED fixtures about the same PAR as a metal halide at double the wattage per same coverage - and that's the Chinese ones. Optics obviously are a big variable given you can kill SPS with 30 degree LED optics and just tens of watts, but you don't get the coverage area.

 

12k and 10k halides are all over the place in terms of spectral placement and color, so visual references aren't always accurate. Hate to be buzzkill, but most of the SPS issues I see blamed on lighting are water problems. The good thing with LED's though is you can dim them.

Look at my first post ,I have my water parameters there tell what changes I need to make .Thanks.