MH v LED

Remember GCARROLL "Its a special price" as I am the 1st customer of Orphek in INDIA

 

LED will be nominal in 2 - 4 years watch for plasma lighting, it's already in your TV sets, and has way more ability to rendition colors correctly then LED ever could. The key is power consumption. Plasma might as well be MH at the moment.

see here- http://plasma-i.com/

Luxim also agrees- they are a huge LED manufacture - http://www.luxim.com/

BTW, I posted this for GCARROLL, here it is buddy.

 

Thanks Alpha_03. But this is an LED vs MH thread!

I am a huge fan of plasma as it is the closest replication to the sun. We already have 2 players offering Plasma fixtures: An Italian company Sfiligoi and An American company Stray lighting Optical. Others may follow suit as soon as the price comes down. I have been talking to several lighting companies pushing for a low cost plasma light fixture for our hobby. If it happens, it could take a big bite out of the LED market for those of us with larger tanks. I'm sure that will happen once the plasma light makers start getting more municiple lighting contracts. The Luxim is 250 watts but i'd be curious to play with the 700+ watt LG (possibly the same source as the Plasma International) over a big cube tank. Maybe 5' x 5' x 30". Gotta talk the wife into that one though. Depends on if the move happens soon. The housing market sucks!

Here is a look at the current Plasma fixtures on the market:

Sfiligoi Infinity Vision

SFILIGOI srl

Stray Light Optical Technologies

Stray Light Optical Technologies

 

Plasma is definitely interesting, but a lot of people criticism leds for not being tried and true enough. Leds have been in reefs for over 6 years now though, plasma, has sort of been out for a few years, but has really only gained attention in the last year. I think AI has also working on one for a few years now. Right now they are too yellow though. They replicate the spectrum of the sun, but the sun is 5500K-6500K on a clear day. We want the color of the sun after the red has been filtered out. Definitely looks very promising though.

 

It's not like LED users are showing off a bunch of awesome tanks after 6 years of use. It replicates the sun, what do you mean tried and true. It will work just as well as an Iwasaki 6500K bulb if not better since it's brighter. Remember we used to run these back in the day with tons of actinic to compensate. You may want to add more blue to it but that is easy to achieve with LED or T5. The Sfiligoi adds 4 rows of T5. Let's also remember that Plasma runs at a higher CCT if they are underdriven. That is why the 700 watt+ LG plasma peaks my interest!

 

huh? Obviously there are less people leds, so there are less great SPS tanks with them than MHs or T-5s. Many people with great SPS tanks, have great SPS tanks because they have spent years growing them out. They therefore have lots of time and money invested and it's reasonable that they are hesitant to change from something that has worked well for them.

I have seen lots of very incredible SPS LED tanks and SPS growth though. Here are a few threads I found with a quick search.

Tanks and Corals under LED Lighting - Reef Central Online Community

Lets See SPS LED Tanks! - Page 2 - Reef Central Online Community


LED SPS Growth Pics


Also on a side note: Here is a fairly recent test of led test:
Feature Article: LED Lighting Tests: Aquaillumination, Blue Moon, Eco-Lamp KR-91, Ecoxotic Panorama — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine
From it, a conclusion, that has already been discussed in our thread
" High power LEDs such as the Aquaillumination, and KR-92 (tested earlier) have the capability of providing high PPFD values with more than sufficient light to grow high light SPS corals, albeit at smaller distribution spreads than typical MH systems."

You said you have not seen enough "awesome" led tanks. How many "awesome" plasma tanks have you seen? They are less tried and true than leds. They are therefore certainly less tried and true than MHs or T-5s. I'm not sure how you can argue with this?

Also, you seem to be accepting the spectrum at face value. I've seen you ask for independent testing of leds, but seem to be taking the manufactures word for the spectrum of plasma. It's probably true, but why are you willing to take one manufactures word and not an others?

Now, lets go back to an Iwasaki 6500K. This bulb certainly does not have the "spectrum of the sun". They claim the plasma does. The Iwasaki however, has a color spectrum that the manufacture has decided to label 6500K. This is not the same 6500K spectrum of the sun. This particular bulb has proved to work well. It is "tried and tested" and many people have reported good growth with it, although it has fallen out of favor some I think, now that there are many more pleasing high par bulbs available.

So why should we test the new technology, other than because it hasn't been tested much? Well, if I think about this briefly, one possible reason it could require testing is red light. If the plasma is the same as the sun, we know the sub puts out a lot of red light, but the water filters it quickly. Therefore corals are not adapted to this spectrum. There is evidence to suggest that some red light may actually be detrimental to corals.
Feature Article: The Best Lamp Is... — Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine

The Iwasaki is labeled 6500K, but does not actually have much red (620-750nm for ref). From Sanjay's data:



It appears from Seashines published spectral plots that the Seashine puts out a heck of a lot more red than a 10000K MH and the Iwasaki plot I just presented.

However, your saying this doesn't need to be tested because in theory it is the output of the Sun and matches the color temperature the manufactures of the Iwasaki 6500K decided to label their bulb?

The fact is it may not necessarily just about supplementation. There may be spectrums, which are detrimental, and spectrums that are beneficial. ALL new technologies need to be tested in real systems before any definitive conclusions can be drawn. However, going back to supplemental lighting, I've seen a few threads where people complained that even with lots of supplemental actinic lighting, the plasmas still looked too yellow BTW.

 

I'm very familiar with Sanjay's work as he is a friend of mine. I also have a few friends in local SoCal who have maintained tanks using filtered and non filtered sunlight. I will say that the one using unfiltered sunlight had by far the most insane growth and coloration I have ever seen in a tank. The downside was that frags from that tank could never maintain those colors in artificial lighting. We shall see as more of these hit the market. The price really needs to come down to make them viable.

 

Well, I'm glad your friends with Sanjay and know of a booming tank using unfiltered sunlight. What does that have to do with plasma though? It's not like plasma users are users are showing off a bunch of awesome tanks

j/k

 

Until plasma is at a reasonable pricepoint, we won't see it either. But considering that LED has been on the market for 5-6 years the positive results are at are both extremely low on the totem pole. We all know that price is a factor at this point but if it was priced similar to LED? I think the cheapest one on the market is $2000 for a 400 watt MH replacement. That seems to be an obvious obsticle at this point!

 

^ for sure- but then I could use my microwave and just keep adding fuel to fire the plasma-

BTW, what is really cool about plasma- what you use as a "fuel" source, and the energy you give it determines color/kelvin- so ANY color can be achived- once they figure out how to price it with-in reach of the consumer.

Speaking of LED, you show me ANY LED lighting system that will run a full blown SPS tank of 100 gallons or greater, at more then 30 inches water depth, that costs less then an equivalant MH system and I will buy it right now.

I don't see many large tanks with LED for this very reason- price vrs. perfomance- it's what is really the keeper, it has to be affordable and perform as well or better then it's predessor- in all ranges, not just power factor and efficiency. Dollar for dollar- LED will not, and presently cannot beat MH in this area.

Nothing beats true sun/moon light- nothing, the only thing that comes close is a MH - T5 combo, IMHO.