SPS Growth and Bulb Choice
- Thread starter meschaefer
- Start date
Just to keep track, Sanjay tested your bulb and ballast combo twice and came up with a PAR of 65 and 78. If I remember correctly, your tank is 24" high. (?) how do you find your growth (not that you need any)?
When overdriving an SE bulb on an HQI ballast, do find that there is a significant perceptible color shift?
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
I don't think Sanjay has tested the newer Ushio Aqualight 14K DE lamps that came out a year or so ago ( OK he has tested them but hasn't published the results yet
) I don't expect them to have huge PAR values ( I think if you check the Giessman Coral lamp you'll find a very close equivalent) but growth has been good, but as you indicate that is not really one of my concerns. For me ( and lighting is in large part personal at a certain point) the Ushio 14K's ( which appear much whiter than say Phoenix or Hamilton 14k's) are the best compromise between intensity and color temperature I have found.
Yes overdriven Radiums and Phoenix lamps are noticeably whiter.. and their useful life is reduced.
) I don't expect them to have huge PAR values ( I think if you check the Giessman Coral lamp you'll find a very close equivalent) but growth has been good, but as you indicate that is not really one of my concerns. For me ( and lighting is in large part personal at a certain point) the Ushio 14K's ( which appear much whiter than say Phoenix or Hamilton 14k's) are the best compromise between intensity and color temperature I have found. Yes overdriven Radiums and Phoenix lamps are noticeably whiter.. and their useful life is reduced.
- Location
- Ossining, NY
Matt,
Gradual for sure - AND that all depends on the coral - Idaho grape cap - I move t it browns out - takes 3 weeks to color - move it again, browns out. So, gradual on the progression to good color.
RD you're right - the Iwasaki SE is a 15k, not 14.
House
Gradual for sure - AND that all depends on the coral - Idaho grape cap - I move t it browns out - takes 3 weeks to color - move it again, browns out. So, gradual on the progression to good color.
RD you're right - the Iwasaki SE is a 15k, not 14.
House
- Location
- Union Square, NY
Freudian Slip: Yes or No?
- Location
- Union Square, NY
( OK he has tested them but hasn't published the results yet
:lol:
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
lol. no just lame typing.
The only 20K lamp i would run would be the raduim on the pfo HQI, so its not so blue, the bad thing is the life of the lamp 5 months and the $90 price tag and o the heat from that monster ballast, 500 plus watts. All that said i no longer use them. I did get really fast growth from this setup.
stan
stan
on the contrary I read the SPS forum on ReefCentral alot and it seems that one of the more popular bulbs used by SPS keepers that comes up alot is the Radium w/ HQI ballast. The helios 20k bulbs are getting a pretty strong following as of late.
The bulbs i see used the most in no particular order:
Radium 20k
Helios 20k
Reeflux 10k & 12k (Not really 10k and 12k)
XM 10K
there is a color ship using the hqi, also a few se lamp failed in about 1 month. Arc tube was cooked. Coral Vue told me they dont recomend there se lamps to be run on the hqi ballast,
s
- Location
- Brooklyn, NY
Of the 4 lamps you listed, only the Helios seems to be a true 20K ( the radiums are almost always overdriven).
And just because a hobbyist frequents the RC SPS forum doesn't necessarily qualify them as Advanced in my book
But that is another discussion entirely and not one I wish to have in public.Of the 4 lamps you listed, only the Helios seems to be a true 20K ( the radiums are almost always overdriven).
And just because a hobbyist frequents the RC SPS forum doesn't necessarily qualify them as Advanced in my book
Yes that is why i noted "Radium on HQI ballast" And the Reeflux 12k is pretty darn close to 20k on icecaps
I am confused here. First of all I never called myself an advanced hobbyist. Nor do I think frequenting the SPS forum qualifies them as Advanced. i am talking about me taking note the bulbs, equipment, methods of the extraordinary SPS tanks i see in the RC SPS forum and other places.(The fact is there are FAR more "Advanced Hobbyists" on RC than any other message board). One doesn't have to be "Advanced" to take note of equipment and methods used by admired hobbyists. I am kind of offended that you think my observations are not valid because I am not "Advanced" enough for you.
If i see a picture of an incredible SPS tank, that is advanced enough for me to take notice.
For example you use the Ushio 14k DE on your tank. I consider your tank extraordinary and "advanced". However your tank is one of the only extroardinary SPS tanks that I know of using these bulbs so they didn't make my list as the "most commonly used among advanced reefers"
You implied that the 20k bulbs may just be "marketing" because "Many Advanced Hobbyists do not use them" and I was just pointing out that there are also many advanced hobbyists who DO use 20k bulbs.
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We will find out, I am running the coralvue reeflux 250w 10K on a sunlight supply HQI. I just fired the bulbs up last week. It seems to have a little more yellow in it than I expected. Not sure how long they will last, but at $55 a pop what could I expect.
The only other bulb I used on that ballast was a pair of four month old XM10k, that had been run on a standard PFO ballast before I got a hold of them. I ran them on the HQI for about seven months, and they were completely shot afterwards. Extremely yellow when I was done with them.
yup thats why i got rid of the hqi, seems to cook lamps and only a few lamp really work well with them. The aqua connect 400 watt lamps look really good with the coral vue ballast slight blue and very bright, and the corals responded really well. Think i will go back to them, had 3 new reeflux to use up.
s
s
yeah i am using hte aquaconnect 250w on icecaps and it's my favorite bulb I have tried so far. It's a shame they are so expensive.
- Location
- State College. PA
Sorry guys, I have been gone for a while when this discussion started up, and have been playing catch up at work and home since coming back. Only have a week at home before I take off again.
I'll take a stab at answering the questions that Matt emailed me, since I do not have time to sift to through the complete thread. Threads just get too long and too quickly on MR
1. If you new the bulb and ballast combo used in the testing?
No, I do not know the bulb and combo used in the testing in the paper that you refer to. Other than the fact that they used 150W lamps.
2. If you had any explanation, or theory, as to why 20K bulbs would have seen faster growth in comparison to a presumably higher PAR 10K bulb.... is all PAR not equal... i.e. is PAR in the 400-450 nanometer spectrum more useful to the coral?
This paper seems to be quite the outlier in terms of recommending that this coral would grow best in 20000K lighting. There are several things here that are unexplained.
a) What was the actual PPFD (PAR) readings at the corals ?
b) growth was represented as gain in weight, but we all know that different size coral will grow at different rates. There should have been some normalization of the data
c) Not clear if all the fragments had axial growth tips
What they report is in my view very different from what we see in the hobby. Generally higher PAR and broad spectrum leads to higher growth. While coral zoox do have chlorophyll-a, which has absorption peaks in the blue and red, it also has a lot of accessory pigments that increase the photon absorption range. So to just say that corals only absorb photons in the blue and red range and hence those are more effective photons is not valid. In that case we would be all growing corals with the blue and red plant grow lights. All the absorption curves I have seen for corals are farily broad over the 400-700nm range and do have higher peaks at blue and red.
3. On your website, some of the bulb and ballast combos due not have a color temp associated with them. One member thought this had to do with your testing, and no color temp was given when the temp was off the charts.
There is a camp that claims that not all photons are equal, and have coined the term PUR (photosynthetically useful radiation). So if you were to take the coral absorption curve (normalized) and multiply it by the spectral distribution it would give you a value for PUR. Since the coral absorption curve is not just 2 peaks and nothing in between I found that using some of the general absorption curves for corals, every lamp that had higher PAR also had higher PUR.
We have enough anecdotal information to show that corals will grow fairly well in 20000K lights, but slower than what they grow in 10000K light assuming equal levels of PAR.
We as hobbiest want to find the balance between what we think looks good to our eyes (very subjective) and decent growth, and operational costs.
3. On your website, some of the bulb and ballast combos due not have a color temp associated with them. One member thought this had to do with your testing, and no color temp was given when the temp was off the charts.
Yes, a value of 0 was my way of using infinity or not available. When the closest point to the black body curve is infinity.. the color temperature cannot be calculated. This is often the case with most of the blue lamps in the hobby which are labelled as 20000K. A true 20000K would appear bluish white.
For more on color temperature see
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/sj/index.php
sanjay.
I'll take a stab at answering the questions that Matt emailed me, since I do not have time to sift to through the complete thread. Threads just get too long and too quickly on MR
1. If you new the bulb and ballast combo used in the testing?
No, I do not know the bulb and combo used in the testing in the paper that you refer to. Other than the fact that they used 150W lamps.
2. If you had any explanation, or theory, as to why 20K bulbs would have seen faster growth in comparison to a presumably higher PAR 10K bulb.... is all PAR not equal... i.e. is PAR in the 400-450 nanometer spectrum more useful to the coral?
This paper seems to be quite the outlier in terms of recommending that this coral would grow best in 20000K lighting. There are several things here that are unexplained.
a) What was the actual PPFD (PAR) readings at the corals ?
b) growth was represented as gain in weight, but we all know that different size coral will grow at different rates. There should have been some normalization of the data
c) Not clear if all the fragments had axial growth tips
What they report is in my view very different from what we see in the hobby. Generally higher PAR and broad spectrum leads to higher growth. While coral zoox do have chlorophyll-a, which has absorption peaks in the blue and red, it also has a lot of accessory pigments that increase the photon absorption range. So to just say that corals only absorb photons in the blue and red range and hence those are more effective photons is not valid. In that case we would be all growing corals with the blue and red plant grow lights. All the absorption curves I have seen for corals are farily broad over the 400-700nm range and do have higher peaks at blue and red.
3. On your website, some of the bulb and ballast combos due not have a color temp associated with them. One member thought this had to do with your testing, and no color temp was given when the temp was off the charts.
There is a camp that claims that not all photons are equal, and have coined the term PUR (photosynthetically useful radiation). So if you were to take the coral absorption curve (normalized) and multiply it by the spectral distribution it would give you a value for PUR. Since the coral absorption curve is not just 2 peaks and nothing in between I found that using some of the general absorption curves for corals, every lamp that had higher PAR also had higher PUR.
We have enough anecdotal information to show that corals will grow fairly well in 20000K lights, but slower than what they grow in 10000K light assuming equal levels of PAR.
We as hobbiest want to find the balance between what we think looks good to our eyes (very subjective) and decent growth, and operational costs.
3. On your website, some of the bulb and ballast combos due not have a color temp associated with them. One member thought this had to do with your testing, and no color temp was given when the temp was off the charts.
Yes, a value of 0 was my way of using infinity or not available. When the closest point to the black body curve is infinity.. the color temperature cannot be calculated. This is often the case with most of the blue lamps in the hobby which are labelled as 20000K. A true 20000K would appear bluish white.
For more on color temperature see
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-05/sj/index.php
sanjay.
Thanks Sanjay,
I agree that the findings (and dicta) in the study, that they achieved greater growth under the 20K bulbs is contradictory to the overall experience of the hobby generally. This was what I found to be interesting and thus the genesis of this thread.
It is a shame that they did not provide all of the data on their tests. Being able to determine the relative PAR value between the various bulbs would have been great information to have in order to fully evaluate the study. While unlikely, it is conceivable that they used the best 20K bulb and ballast combo, with the worst 10K bulb and ballast combo, at least in terms of PAR.
I agree that the findings (and dicta) in the study, that they achieved greater growth under the 20K bulbs is contradictory to the overall experience of the hobby generally. This was what I found to be interesting and thus the genesis of this thread.
It is a shame that they did not provide all of the data on their tests. Being able to determine the relative PAR value between the various bulbs would have been great information to have in order to fully evaluate the study. While unlikely, it is conceivable that they used the best 20K bulb and ballast combo, with the worst 10K bulb and ballast combo, at least in terms of PAR.
- Location
- Forest Hills
any1 have any opinions on 20,000K Radium - 400W and Ushio 400 watt Aqualite 20,000K? i'm thinking of switchin from hamilton 14k. which 1 of the 2 above is brighter n less bluer?
WARNING GROSS OPINIONS ARE ABOUT TO BE PRESENTED:
I have seen tanks around the world including Steven Weast's unbelievable tank, and Jason's tank at the Greenwich Aquaria and I am convinced that the combination of a UVL Super Actinic VHO bulb plus a Radium 400 watt bulb provides the best coloration, but other bulbs such as the 6.5K Iwasaki can provide better growth. There is something about these particular bulbs that seems to me to be unique. I, myself, find a combination of 10K plus these two bulbs to be ideal as the bulbs in question seem unable to maintain pinks and reds without the help of 10K lighting.
Having said that I will add that this is a HEAVILY and FREQUENTLY discussed topic, and the end result is always the same: if you like the way your tank looks then be happy.
And as a final note I must add that the work done by Sanjay is invaluable. All members of this hobby owe him a monumental amount of gratitude for the effort he has put forth. So let me be the first to say . . .
Hip Hip Hooray for Sanjay!!!!!! :tongueani
Joe
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Ever try a 10k reeflux? I have a 5 month old 400w reeflux bulb. You're welcome to take it. I won't be using 400's anytime soon.
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