IMO, it is not that simple, it's all in the ventilation and the design of the hood. I am sure that for those that have hanging pendants, and no hood at all, there is much less concern about the heat. My wife has a 12 gallon nano with a 70 watt MH light on it, she has to use a heater to keep the tank warm enough. this is a pendant type fixture.
No one way is the best
, (for anything) personally I believe that the corals are expecting a pinpoint source of light, the sun.
I think that MH gets us as close to that as possible. for the least amount of $ spent. not to say that the other methods won't work.
I am not really trying to say that you are wrong
, per se, I just don't think that you are comparing apples and apples
, a 250 watt MH bulb on average is putting out 21,000 lumen, If you were to get any other combination of lighting up to the 21,000 lumen output you would see how hot things get.
Larger surface area or not, the heat output is going to be similar for the similar lumen output.
There is no free lunch, be it with a electronic ballast, or a magnetic ballast.
Now for the electronic ballast, it is more energy efficient, true, I personally believe the savings are from heat output at the ballast, not at the bulb, this heat difference does not affect the water temp. at least on my tank.
My electronic ballast's bulb is the same temp as the Magnetic ballast bulb. ( I can prove it, I have a infrared temp probe
)
With MH you can get that high of output in a small package. With a per bulb price that costs $70-$90. this leaves me more room for atintic lighting and to get my arm in the tank.
that is why I went with MH, to get my tank into the 40,000 lumen range with two bulbs. Two bulbs plus one year life=less money spent per year.
Beyond MH the current lighting that looks promising is the T5HO lights, they put out a better quality light in a smaller package than the VHO bulbs, the only trouble that I have with them is in trying to get to 40,000 lumen, a t5ho has roughly 5000 lumen per bulb. so I would need 8 bulbs. as soon as the cost gets down there, It would then compare with MH on a cost basis.
I have high hopes for the LED technology, it is unfortunately not cost effective at this time.
Do what works best for you, I am simply expressing the reasoning that I used to go with MH, people have this opinion that MH costs more and is hotter for the tank, I just don't share that opinion.
It may cost more initially, if you are not talking a DIY fixture and purchase a new fixture. The real question is how much light do you want to give your corals, and what type of coral do you want to keep.
Edited by bbeck4x4 - March 17 2008 at 6:49pm
Topic Options
Post Options
Thanks(0)
firefighter6681 wrote:
that was aimed at me, no ruffled feathers here ) I just disagree that mh makes a tank hotter than any other bulb at the same wattage and lumen.
, YOU are correct , in that when a light source, or if looked at a different way, a heat source, is put into a closed hood with little ventilation over water, it will heat up the water, of course it will, for that, I did misunderstand you. and you are correct.