Energy consumption?

[RJKain-777]

Looking at lighting for my big tank build, I’m a planner and plan everything g out before it happens.

Would 6 radion xr30 pros be less power then 4 250 watt halides? Tanks 96x36x30 if that matters. Looking for the best coverage and coral health/growth.

 

[C. Eymann]

Looking at lighting for my big tank build, I’m a planner and plan everything g out before it happens.

Would 6 radion xr30 pros be less power then 4 250 watt halides? Tanks 96x36x30 if that matters. Looking for the best coverage and coral health/growth.

Dont the xr30s pull 170watts ea? 6x 170=1020w

With halides it depends on the ballasts used most electronic ballasts are pulling pretty close to 250wea, magnetic and m80 HQI ballasts can pull 300+ each.

So ~1000w not much difference.


What kind of coral are you looking to keep? mixed? sps ?

 

[RJKain-777]

That’s where I was confused. Think I’d get better coverage with halides over the radions? Probably better growth as well...

 

[Brian_68]

You won't be running the Radions at 100% so that depends and you can't just use the rated for LEDs. About 10kw per day for the MH that puts it around $45 per month for the lights assuming 0.15 /KWH not counting the A/C running more, an expensive hobby no doubt.....

 

[RJKain-777]

You won't be running the Radions at 100% so that depends and you can't just use the rated for LEDs. About 10kw per day for the MH that puts it around $45 per month for the lights assuming 0.15 /KWH not counting the A/C running more, an expensive hobby no doubt.....

Money’s not really the issue , Aslong as my bill won’t go up $300 a month.

Our electricity is 0.17 /kWh.

Luckily I live in Canada where it’s cold and snows 8 months of the year, so AC isn’t a problem

 

[C. Eymann]

That’s where I was confused. Think I’d get better coverage with halides over the radions? Probably better growth as well...

For that deep of tank if you are going to lean more towards mostly SPS, I'd consider 400w halides over 250ws. That is just my .02

You will easily find success with both though.


I don't want to turn this into a Halide vs LED thread but yes, it will grow coral upto 25% faster than Radions as reported by Sanjay .

 

[oreo54]

I don't want to turn this into a Halide vs LED thread but yes, it will grow coral upto 25% faster than Radions as reported by Sanjay .

OH..SOOOO close..........

 

[jda]

There are a lot of variables, but you won't likely save any daily money with either. MH can help your heaters run a bit less - in colder climates, you can work to keep the heat near the tank instead of moving it away.

I would concentrate your research on initial vs replacement cost (units, bulbs and everything), performance, coverage and coloration since you are more likely to find something that you like better in these categories that is more divergent between the two.

Either way, 1000 watts at 8 hours a day at 17 cents means that your electric bill will be up about $40 a month, which is not much and will probably not be anywhere near your heating bill for the tank.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

With that wide of a tank i think you would be much happoer with halides. If you want the tank to look bluer, you can also run some t5ho bulbs.

In case you didnt know, you can find digital ballasts on CL super cheap. An adjustable wattage 400watt ballast can be turned down to like 280 watts which is purrrfect for 20k radium bulbs.

In cold climates the electrical savings is a complete wash. Less light heat just means more heat cost. I have run both radions and halides over my 6x3 tank.

FWIW.. I have always enjoyed my time in canada. Beautiful country and down to earth people..

 

[Tampaman]

MH are worth every penny! Everything else tires to compare. Put a halide on a refugium and start selling macros to recoup the energy bill, lol.

 

[dadnjesse]

I don't believe the heating being a wash. my tank has Led's and T'5s and my tank is in my basement in New Hampshire where we have very cold winters, my heaters never come on during the day when my lights are on. On the flip side when I ran Halides in the summer I had to run an Air Condition across the tank to keep it cool.

 

[Bpb]

That’s just odd. Fans alone are enough to keep my tank cool with mh use. Our ac runs constantly anyway even when the lights aren’t on because I like a cool house and it gets hot here most the year anyway

 

[dadnjesse]

Well My room was getting hot also from the Halides and I don't have central air so the AC in the window doubled to cool the tank and the room

 

[oreo54]

95 x 6 = 570 W
Assuming you run all channels at full

4 X 250 = 1000W

People tell me watts are watts so you already decrease your heat load by almost 50%

Due to the physics of light delivery (LED's being more directional and focused) you can approach a photon equivalency in the tank using less watts vs MH's.
Using quality diodes and their higher effeciency to begin w/ helps.
Something you would lose w/ cheaper less efficient diodes.
Balancing that a bit is the more diffuse nature of 4 mh's so in some areas, and until they catch up i.e deeper the distribution w/ LED's is less..

As to the arguement of using the sensible heat from the MH's (lot of emissions in the IR area) to compensate for resistive heaters in the tank.. well depends on room temperature differential vs tank temp for a big part of it.

Complicated ..

Would 6 radion xr30 pros be less power then 4 250 watt halides?

Power yes, effective photons, not so less,
If you dim a bunch of channels yes again

Looking for the best coverage

Think that's pretty much a wash..
Each radion will be responseable for roughly a 16x18 area and each mh a 24x36 area.
May slightly favor the LED

and coral health/growth.

Depends on the corals and a whole bunch of other parameters.
If you as mentioned above, dimmed the LEd's likelihood of slower growth increases.

PURE OPINION based on physics of the lights not any definitive statement of success.

Don't expect 6 radions dimmed by 25% to push the same photon count as 4 full blast 250W MH's..regardless of diode efficiency and "normal" lensing. See even a single 3W led can push a ton of "par" if lensed to 1 degree-ish but in a spot the size of a nickle..
just physics..
Heat balance is really a case by case thing but one thing not arguable (in my mind) is most LED heat is up and away while a good chunk of the MH is down..

Also don't forget that to a certain degree on can make up for lack of instantaneous quantity by increasing the photoperiod..

I probably made more questions than answers here though..

 

[JoshH]

95 x 6 = 570 W
Assuming you run all channels at full

4 X 250 = 1000W

People tell me watts are watts so you already decrease your heat load by almost 50%

Due to the physics of light delivery (LED's being more directional and focused) you can approach a photon equivalency in the tank using less watts vs MH's.
Using quality diodes and their higher effeciency to begin w/ helps.
Something you would lose w/ cheaper less efficient diodes.
Balancing that a bit is the more diffuse nature of 4 mh's so in some areas, and until they catch up i.e deeper the distribution w/ LED's is less..

As to the arguement of using the sensible heat from the MH's (lot of emissions in the IR area) to compensate for resistive heaters in the tank.. well depends on room temperature differential vs tank temp for a big part of it.

Complicated ..


Power yes, effective photons, not so less,
If you dim a bunch of channels yes again


Think that's pretty much a wash..
Each radion will be responseable for roughly a 16x18 area and each mh a 24x36 area.
May slightly favor the LED


Depends on the corals and a whole bunch of other parameters.
If you as mentioned above, dimmed the LEd's likelihood of slower growth increases.

PURE OPINION based on physics of the lights not any definitive statement of success.

Don't expect 6 radions dimmed by 25% to push the same photon count as 4 full blast 250W MH's..regardless of diode efficiency and "normal" lensing. See even a single 3W led can push a ton of "par" if lensed to 1 degree-ish but in a spot the size of a nickle..
just physics..
Heat balance is really a case by case thing but one thing not arguable (in my mind) is most LED heat is up and away while a good chunk of the MH is down..

Also don't forget that to a certain degree on can make up for lack of instantaneous quantity by increasing the photoperiod..

I probably made more questions than answers here though..

I think your numbers might be slightly off wattage wise, the XR30 G4 PROs run at 190 Watts assuming all channels are 100%...

That puts wattage at 1140 Watts for 6 of them (Again, assuming 100% on all channels)

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

And if you can plan , having a dedicated 240v outlet, you just slashed your electric bill for lighting in half, if going MH. Everyone has an electrician in the family, cousin, uncle or friend of a friend.

 

[oreo54]

I think your numbers might be slightly off wattage wise, the XR30 G4 PROs run at 190 Watts assuming all channels are 100%...

That puts wattage at 1140 Watts for 6 of them (Again, assuming 100% on all channels)

Oops did a quick search on it and used the found #. Should have known better xr15 is 95 ish Watts and one "puck" . I'll blame it on holiday cheer.,
No good excuse..

 

[JoshH]

Oops did a quick search on it and used the found #. Should have known better xr15 is 95 ish Watts and one "puck" . I'll blame it on holiday cheer.,
No good excuse..

Lol no worries! Would be interesting to figure out what the wattage is for them running on there AB+ spectrum at 100%

 

[Bpb]

Lol no worries! Would be interesting to figure out what the wattage is for them running on there AB+ spectrum at 100%

The challenge in calculating cumulative wattage in an led fixture is people have gradually increasing and decreasing programs on every channel (typically anyway, right?) I’ve been out of school too long to be able to calculate the sum of all points on a bell curve graph. Any college students or high school math teachers able to chime in?

 

[madweazl]

I don't believe the heating being a wash. my tank has Led's and T'5s and my tank is in my basement in New Hampshire where we have very cold winters, my heaters never come on during the day when my lights are on. On the flip side when I ran Halides in the summer I had to run an Air Condition across the tank to keep it cool.

I'm not in a particularly cold area (about an hour south of DC) and my heaters cycle all day long (150g with 6 T5s and 4 Kessil A360s). Ambient daytime temps in house are 71° to 74° depending on the time of year.

The lights are in a canopy with two fans that pull hot air out of the canopy.

To address the original post, halides are likely a more economical medium to light a tank of those dimensions.