Alright Newbie; Let's shed some light on this subject.

[thrlride]

Very good information!

Are you going to cover why 500 watts of NO light is different than 500 watts of metal halides? Or did I miss it?

[JustOneMoreTank]

Very, very helpful... keep the info coming. I'm trying to decide on what light setup for a 48" long 120g

[WaterKeeper]

Hi thrill ride,

I think I did mention that the main difference is in that the MH is a point source when compared to the N.O. The MH does put out somewhat more illumination but not as much as many people believe.

Justone,

I think Thrill Ride has a bunch of N.O. fluorescents, 500 watts or so, that you could try fitting over your tank.

I'll get to the next installment Monday I hope.

[thrlride]

You should see the canopy to hold the 12 NO lights! It's crazy!

[WaterKeeper]

Are you blinded by the Light?

You can be if you stare into an unshielded double ended metal halide for some time. What you can’t see can hurt you so make sure you have a UV shield to block those invisible, harmful rays.

Take a MH lamp and place it next to any type of fluorescent and you’re going to see a big difference. Usually a PC is the brightest fluorescent but it is not even close to an MH. With all that light beaming from a small bulb it is no wonder that reefers have become entranced with MH lighting. Is it the perfect light? According to many reefers it is. If you look at the light pattern graphs I posted above it is 3 or 4 times brighter than fluorescent and that was with a 50K lamp. A 6K lamp could easily be 6 times as bright. The often overlooked fact is that is true only at a limited distance from the center of the bulb. The graph shows the brightest area is only about 3� out from the center line. After that it is not much brighter than a fluorescent and after around 7� from the bulb is doesn’t have as much light as a full moon.

The solution is of course good reflector design. You need reflectors that will take light from that very bright center area and spread it as evenly as possible a foot or more from the center line of the bulb. Only in this manner can you expect to properly light a 4' long aquarium using only two MH bulbs.

One of the things about MH is you need to mount them fairly high off the water surface. Usually a minimum of 8� is needed. I’ve heard all sorts of reasons for this but the main reason is to provide air circulation for cooling. In many cases normal circulation around fluorescents will keep the tank cool enough. With MH mechanical ventilation is pretty much a must. As I stated earlier in this thread, radiant heat is a major concern with MH. You really can’t do too much about that but eliminating as much heated air as possible from the hood area surely helps. Therefore we use fans of some sort to help remove that heat. Mounting the tubes away from the tank surface allows for better air flow around the tubes increasing cooling. Evaporation is also a useful cooling method. A tank with good air flow across the water surface has increased evaporation and therefore remains cooler. When using MH lighting on a nano this evaporative loss may be an issue. Small tanks may lose ½ gallon per day or more.

Large and tall tanks can also present a challenge. Their water surface area to volume ratio is small when compared to small shallow tanks. A chiller is almost a requirement in tanks over 150 gallons or tanks over 2 feet tall.

MH’s ability to pump out the photons makes them about the only lighting solution for tall tanks. The major problem there is getting enough MH under the tank’s canopy. One needs to space them close in this case and use a reflector that does not spread the light a lot. One thing when having a tall tank is to think width not length when lighting it. Since most tall tanks are custom you want to have it wide enough so you can mount MH oriented front to back. This way you can mount double ended tubes closer together and channel a brighter light to the floor of the tank.

From what I’ve observed DE bulbs provide more bang for the buck than any mogul based type. True they need a shield installed but that is a small price to pay for the extra kick you get from DE and the smaller space they take up.

Nowadays, MH bulbs cover K levels that fluorescents cannot reach. Generally, people will tell you that you don’t need actinic supplementation for MH bulbs above 15 K. This is both good and bad. Yes you don’t need 03 actinic, but if all you use is high K MH you may not be supplying your tank with a balanced light source. Having enough yellow and green light can be as important as having plenty of blue to photosynthetic organisms.

That’s all I have time for today. We’ll explore lighting combinations next.

[WaterKeeper]

Oh my goodness, are some of you Newbies having glimmer spells?

Man, I can’t believe I forgot to mention glimmer/shimmer lines when I posted on MH lights. As anyone will tell you they are the main reason for having MH lights in the first place. Believe that and I’ll tell you another.

Glimmer lines are the alternating light and dark lines that flow across the rocks and sand when MH lights are used. They probably should be called ripple lines as that is what creates them. The small waves on the surface of your tank act like lenses, that is, they either focus or spread the light from a point source when it hits the peaks and valleys of the ripples. The result is glimmer lines. Scuba divers are familiar with them as the sun shining into the ocean produces distinct glimmer lines when it strikes the ocean waves. Only with a point source, like MH, are they reproduced in one’s tank. They are absent with fluorescents.

People at first thought they gave the tank a natural look but soon the rumor mill gave them more meaning. There were some rather unsubstantiated reports that they were essential to corals. Supposedly this pattern of light and dark lines enhanced coral growth. As with so many rumors about lighting, a single report ballooned into a craze and one could not be a good reefer unless their tank had glimmer lines. Folks, these “theories� crop up from time to time and get blown way out of proportion. When you see something like that ask where the data supporting the conclusion comes from and is there more than one scientific paper backing up the theory.

Right now there is much ado about “photo inhibition�. The link I made to Dana Riddle’s lighting patterns mentions them and indeed Dana has a paper Too Much Light-Warning lots of technical stuff out about the possibility of photo inhibition effecting the ability of corals to photosynthesize. There is a possibility that too high a light level interferes with the process of photosynthesis and causes it to shut down. Dana did a limited study and it indicated this might occur. The thing here was the corals were collected from a portion of the reef which had higher lighting levels than the tank used in the study. Using chlorophyll fluorescence as a guideline (don’t forget to run out and buy a PAM fluorometer for your new tank ) it indicated that photosynthesis could be shutting down under high intensity tank lights. As the article points out, things like trace element differences between natural seawater and synthetic salt mixes could also be a cause. Some people have taken this as gospel and are saying T-5 and MH will create havoc in one’s tank. MH has been around for awhile and we do know that acclimation of corals is important when adding them to your tank or changing lights. T-5 is newer and seems to be drawing the bulk of the feedback that it will be inhibitory. Except for spectrum differences there is not a lot of difference between light sources. If T-12 didn’t create problems there is no real reason to suppose that T-5 would if the care is taken to acclimate corals placed under these lamps. The new kid on the block always seem to draw a few cheap shots until people understand him better.

Avoid the temptation to think that anything written in the On-line aquarium magazines is proven fact. Much of it is theory and gets blow way out of proportion.

Sure, go ahead and ask the “Myth Busters� to do a segment on glimmer lines. It should be interesting although those two like myths where they get to blow something up..

[The Grim Reefer]

Good stuff Tom.

My LPS corals and finger Leather seem much happier under the halides than the T5's. The halides put out about a third less PAR than the T5's.

I noticed in a post you have seen T5 actinics. How do you think they stack up against the NO or VHO? My halide hood has actinic 03 PC's that I think look better than T5 actinics I had when I first started out.

[bigfrank]

waterkeeper,being i'm only slightly confused could you fush me over the edge.do i dare say it BALLASTS any help(or confusion) would be appr. good job. thanks a bunch frank

[bigfrank]

^^^ thats push not fush.

[JustOneMoreTank]

Thanks WaterKeeper for the continued lesson in lighting ... I think that I may have a glimmer/shimmer of hope yet.
Question: I am correct in assuming that 4 54watt T5 bulbs would be sufficient lighting for a beginner reefer in a 120 gal tank? I was hoping to keep some corals that are low to moderate in their light demands. No clams at least for a year or two then maybe with a MH upgrade to the T5s.
The Kelvin or bulb types I'm looking at are 2 Sun 6000K, 1 AquaBlue 11000K, and 1 BluePlus/ActinicPlus. I wanted an Actinic 03 bulb but they have been on backorder for a long time (Dec)
Thank you very much for the help

[JustOneMoreTank]

I second the requests for ballasts !
I was wondering about the famous IceCap 660 to overdrive the bulbs? Just didnt want the extra expense of the IC ballast, shortened bulb life, and extra heat. The IC 660 will cause the bulbs to burn hotter right I am guessing? A noticable amount into a 120 gal tank?

[The Grim Reefer]

If you are only going to run 4 lamps on a 120 at some point overdriving the lamps would be a good thing if you want higher light corals. Ice cap claims their ballasts wont decrease the life of the lamp based on their testing. I personally got over a year on mine and the only lamps that crapped out were in the hotest part of the canopy. That was probably my fault for not running fors for a time. I think Ice Caps estimate of 18 months forthe blue lamps are doable.

[Owen22]

This should definately be a thread of the month!!!!
This is the best source of Lighting information I have ever read.

The most well organized and concisly formed threat about lighting, and the different types of lighting. Thank you Waterman.
even if you are imperial commie puko military hating scum.....

[WaterKeeper]

You Navy guys have to keep bugging me don’t you? This thread is about lighting and has nothing to do with keeping a submarine on an even keel. Go to the Electric Boat web page if you need to know about ballast.

I will be talking about ballasts as soon as I get done discussing the lights themselves. I did find another plus for electronic ballasts after Sanjay posted-

Some of them, (electronic), have ballast losses in the form of radio waves instead of heat like the conventional ballasts and hence may feel cooler to touch... but watch out for interference with your TV or X-10 controls.

Sure enough, I took some Jolly Time microwave popcorn and placed it under the electronic ballast for the MH lights. With all that RF energy it popped in under 3 minutes without burning.

I did wish to get a little clarification from Grim Reefer on what he meant that the T-5’s had higher PAR than his MH set-up. Was that two 250 watt MH and what was the K value on the MH and T-5?

Folks no fluorescent can hold a match to MH directly under the bulbs. Think about it; an MH has all its light concentrated in about a 3-4� area between the filaments. That means a 250-watt MH is expending all its light wattage in a very small area. Five 54 watt T-5HO’s would be spreading 270 watts of lighting over 20 feet of illuminated tubes. Overall they may give out more light than the MH but, to an observer looking up at the tubes, the MH is going to seem like looking directly at the sun when compared to the early morning sky.

Right now, if you cruise around the lighting forum, you see much debate over the advantages and disadvantages of T-5 over MH. If you have followed this thread you should know by now that it is how that light is distributed more than what the source of the light is that is important in lighting one’s tank.

JustOne asks if 216 watts will be sufficient for his 120 and in the same post answers his own question. It depends on what you wish to keep. For an FO it is more than enough, for leathers and corallimorphs it should be enough and for SPS it is probably not enough. Placement means so much in a tank that has lighting on the low end. A high light coral may do fine in that tank if placed only a few inches below the water surface and lights.

Since fluorescents and MH have different patterns of light distribution many reefers for years have been combining the two. The early MH lights were not available in much higher than 4-7 K. Almost all MH set-ups included some T-12 actinic. Soon the MH lamps were available in higher K values than the T-12, well the high K T-12 were available but light output was meager to say the least. Does that mean one should use the high K MH and forget the supplemental fluorescent? To me that would be a mistake. If you use 20 K MH then using some 5-6 K supplemental fluorescent provides spectral output in areas the high K MH is lacking.

The other value of combining different lighting types is that the coverage is far more even in the tank. If you can afford it, then using both MH and fluorescent will provide the most versatile light set-up. Grim asked about the T-5 actinic. The ones I saw appeared pretty good. Not that far off from T-12. I like to use the heavy-duty output of the MH to provide light in the sunlight to white range, say 6-8 K. Their punch helps drive the upper portion of their spectral output deeper into the tank. I like to then use T-12 03 actinic to provide the low band spectrum. I do really like what I’ve seen from the T-5’s but I also remember they are the newest thing out and therefore the costliest. Given a little time the prices will drop so I won’t run out and replace my current T-12 at this time. If you are starting a new tank things may be different. You may wish to use a T-5/MH set-up from day one. You can probably add 4 T-5 bulbs to an MH hood where one can sometimes only squeeze in two T-12. Since you could choose different K values for the larger number of T-5 you could have greater balance in the spectrum supplied to your tank. That is always a welcome benefit to any tank.

I promise to get to ballasts next time; until then just pump the bilge to keep her afloat.

[The Grim Reefer]

Originally posted by WaterKeeper
[B][size=3][color=red]

I did wish to get a little clarification from Grim Reefer on what he meant that the T-5’s had higher PAR than his MH set-up. Was that two 250 watt MH and what was the K value on the MH and T-5?

.

3 150 watt (BIT 10K lamps) halides with 168 watts of PC actinics. The T5 were 6 80 watt lamps, 1 GE 6500K 2 Aquablue 2 old style blues and 1 blueplus. Running on IC ballasts so overdriven to about 100 watts a piece according to Ice Cap.

Readings were taken at the sand 18.5" below the surface of the water. The reading for the halides were taken at the same depth directly beneath the lamp.

T5's 145 UMOL's

10K halides 92 UMOL's
20K halides were around 60 UMOL's

[thrlride]

I would like to see those numbers with 250's in use.

[The Grim Reefer]

Slip me some 250's and I'll take a reading Of course I would hope 750 watts (actually 918 with actinics) would beat the 600 watts (theoretically) of T5's.

[thrlride]

I sure would hope so! No spares though, sorry.

[WaterKeeper]

Well my young Padawan, Great fear in you I feel. Use a GFCI whenever you use your light saber near a SW tank and that fear shall vanish, it will.

Thanks Steve for the details on your tank lighting. As you can see from Steve’s post the Overdriven output of 6 T-5’s did in fact have higher PAR values than a set-up using 450 watts of MH and 168 watts of PC actinic. There is great disruption in The Force over overdriving lamps. Ballasts can be obtained with various “Ballast Factors�. The ballast factor is a term that tells how close to the actual “manufactures suggested retail wattage� a ballast will operate that lamp. If it is 1 then the an 80 watt lamp runs at 80 watts or very close to it. On the other hand a ballast factor of 1.25 will run that same lamp at 100 watts. This is what Steve was doing with his T-5 lamps. Overdriving them to produce more light. Some feel that overdriving shortens the life of the tubes while others say if it does it is only minimal. I more or less feel in aquarium lighting it probably is not a real factor, at least with fluorescents. Over the years the phosphor blends in fluorescents have greatly improved. The original tri-phosphor tubes had a bad tendency for the blue phosphor to age with use. This caused a shift in the spectrum over time and the lamp ran toward the yellow-orange side with use. These days that doesn’t happen to any great extent so phosphor shift is not a major problem. The other factor in fluorescent longevity is the filament. Over time it corrodes and light output drops. Finally it fails completely and the lamp no longer runs. Once again the drop in output has declined with time and most lamps will only drop to 85% of their original output before total failure occurs. Since you will change the lamps on your tank well before failure it is probably not an issue about a small drop in brightness.

Oh, by the way, Steve, Grim Reefer, is one of those nerds that actually has a Quantum meter and routinely posts data on his tank and those of others. I think of his 3100 plus posts 3099 are about lights. He is sadly one of those lighting junkies that even LA, lighting anonymous, have failed to help.

Anyhow, as I said about 30 pages ago, there are two types of mainstream ballasts used for fluorescent lighting; magnetic and electronic. Magnetic or Tar ballasts, you’ll know why they get the nickname of Tar ballasts if one ever melts down on you, are pretty much the ones used in fixtures in the home. They are cheap, usually under $15, and available at any Home Depot. One of their drawbacks is they must be designed for the fluorescent they are to operate. In other words a F40T12 needs a ballast that runs a 40 watt normal output T-12 tube. These ballasts differ in the number of tubes they run. To drive 4 T-12, 40 watt tubes you need a ballast that is a 4X 40 watt. That same ballast will not drive T-12 VHO. The N.O. tube only uses about a ½ amp of current to run where a VHO uses 1½ amps. With a magnetic ballast you need to match the amps to the type of tube in use. There are also a few different starting systems. We have instant on, rapid start and pre-heat. The only type tubes that run pre-heat, that I know of, are PC. Instant on and rapid start are much more common. For aquarium lighting the rapid start is probably best. It has a little less wear and tear on the tubes filaments than the instant on and you usually only start your lamps once a day anyway so a second or two wait is rather unimportant. On a budget then magnetic ballasts are a good choice. If you take the information on your bulbs to any lighting store they will tell you what ballast runs them and save you the work. N.O. and VHO magnetic ballasts can be found at the discount stores. You may need to go to a specialty lighting supply store for ballasts if you run something unusual.

As price drops electronics are being seen in more and more applications. Steve is an Icecap fan as are many other reefers. Note-- WaterKeeper usually doesn’t promote brand names in his threads. The people at IceCap, an RC sponsor, did get me to break that rule. They said they would send me a free CD that would give me 1000 free minutes on AOL if I plugged their product. Well, I’m only human and for 1000 free minutes on AOL I just couldn’t resist. Besides, when the minutes are used up the used CD makes a good lighting reflector for my tank.

I’ll talk about the electronic ballasts and fluorescents in my next post.

[WaterKeeper]

I forgot to add this really good link on ballasts in the last post. It is the Summit Electric site and has really good, not to hard to understand stuff on Ballasts.

[The Grim Reefer]

I am a stronger power than that of my lights, I am a stronger power than that of my lights, I am a stronger power than that of my lights.....

I think I did a post on an HOB overflow once. Uh oh, I am in denial. I am a stronger power...

[WaterKeeper]

Twelve Steppin Huh?

Joshi can be your big brother.

[The Grim Reefer]

I keep wondering if what I am "stepping" away from is as bad as what I keep stepping in

[WaterKeeper]

Wow, now that people have found I give endorsements they are really pouring in. Here is the latest-

Fake Cleaner Wrasses!!!!

The Under the Counter Counterfeit Commission, UCCC, says "Don't be Fooled!

This Blenny Aspidontus taeniatus

has been shamelessly masquerading as this wrasse Labroides dimidiatus

Don't you be fooled by counterfeit knockoffs. Just a cheap paint job can make a blenny look like a wrasse. Just send $19⁹⁵ for a copy on our video--Fake Cleaners today!. You'll be glad you did.

[Silver_Stang]

waterkeeper -

I have a current pc fixture. Do I have to change the bulbs before they go out, or is this just a LFS scam to get more $ out of us? I have had them for about a year and they still seem nice and bright. What do you think?