How would you light up a sps dominant system?
 

Hey guys!

I keep bouncing back and forth as to how to light my next sps dominant tank.

I'd like to get some feedback, advice, opinions and experiences to help my decide.

The tank will be a focal point for sure, it will be in the front of the house, dividing the formal dining room and the family room.

1. Aesthetics is a huge factor for me. It has to look clean & modern.
2. Sps coloration is important! Originally I was thinking LED predominately simply for the low maintenance of not changing bulbs! But why keep sps if you aren't going to strive to get the best colors out of them!
3. Maintenance , changing bulbs, power consumption.
4. Heat, originally thinking LED predominately to forego any issues with heat, humidity etc, but I believe this should be a non-issue as the house will have AC & HRV (hopefully).

Any recommendation for fixtures? Hybrids?

Tank will be approx, 6' x 30"W...
For example: I was thinking 6 x kessils as an option

Thanks!

I think unless you just go led your maintenance costs will probably be about the same either way. If it was me id run halides mixed with led. Best color/growth imo.

ATI. Sleek brushed aluminum fixtures, and high output. I use all T5 on my SPS.

My 2 cents:
Metal halides with LED supplementation if you want faster growth and controllable colour. T5's if you want a little less heat and space savings. Less shadow than LED.
LED's if you want ultimate colour control and ramping, but don't mind gambling on growth rates and coral colour.

For absolute best color, I still go with 400w radium. If I had to factor in aesthetics, I'd probably go for the ATI hybrid light. Although, aesthetics was a big concern on my current build, and I think I did a reasonable job with my canopy.
Power is about the same, depending on what you spend, long term may be the same. I'm pretty sure all my old LED pendants are all dead, less than 4 years old.
All T5 is nice, but no shimmer is a deal breaker for me. You're used to MH, you'd miss it.
LED has ramping effects, that's something I miss from the LED units. The hybrid would give you all of that, maybe even color to rival MH.

While I bash LED often enough, if I had to rate color with MH being a 10, LED would still be an 8.5. T5 I give a 9.

Modern LED get points for low profile fancy looks when that has a big component to your build. While my canopy looks good, it is bigger than any LED fixture.

If I had bought the ATI hybrid as my first LED system, I may have stuck with it. Big initial price though.

I do like this option best, just not aware of any turn-key setups. If your building skills aren't high end, DIY might not meet the aesthetics factor.

Reefbrite has a metal halide/led hybrid. I just set mine up a week ago and so far love it. Got mine from a fellow hobbyist :)

Not a bad offering, but depending on what you're after for looks, still a bit industrial looking. IT does give options though, thanks for pointing it out.

I left all halide fixtures out of the equation because he said this...

Though Giesemann and Sfiligoi both put out nice DE halide fixtures that are pretty sleek. Some are even available in white. Imo you won't get a SE halide fixture that look sleek. ATI has a T5 + LED fixture that's been getting rave reviews, but I haven't seen it running over a tank in person. Radions are definitely still the "hardcore SPS fanatic" go-to. :)

Agreed. I wish I had just stuck with it when it was first ordered. Spent more than that since on different leds.

We use ReefBrite Halide hybrids on our SPS system with 6ft long XHO LED's.

It's not the best looking but the results we get from 400W Radiums is incredible.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/01...sets/shop1.jpg

my building skills are... functional only...
I will have to buy something turn key for sure!

That Reefbrite MH/LED hybrid is interesting... that's the first one I've seen.
though I would want it to have more LEDs, but that particular one is a little more industrial looking than I would want.

Yes, i'm thinking if I go MH ,it would have to be DE simply for the size of the fixture required.

but... I just realized, if I do not put a hood on the tank, would the light spill be too bothersome considering we would be sitting down at the dining table next to it???

i'd like to keep things as sleek and simple as possible, but we shall see I guess, I don't want people to be blinded while eating lol.

If you ran 6 kessils a360w you would be able to grow anything. You could also hanging them 8" off the water without any light spillage at all. My tank is in our great room and our couch in two feet away from my tank they light up your tank not the room. I think you could get away with five. I run three my tank is 56"L 24"w 26"h. Oh yeah no chiller :biggrin: just saying

400w halide radiums best option for color and growth

always tank dependent. I've needed my chiller with all three lighting systems. More likely to need a chiller with MH, but not in all setups.

Check out some of Brett's (lastlight) builds, he had a few nice sleek designs for his MH. I used his ideas and built a nice almost sleek light box suspended with a flat screen mounting arm. Overall happy with the aesthetics of the build.

If you choose to go MH I do have some used MH T5 combo fixtures as well as MH DE from Giesemann or Aqua Medic. Willing to give "Smokin" deals. Even have some new Vertex 250watt Electronic Ballasts as well as new BlueWaves.

So far , I'm really happy with my setup - 3x 360w Kessils & 2x 4' t5's . But they're in a easy home built canopy . Nice easy access to work on tank & no light spill.
So far SPS look good , really good.
Not too outrageously priced - think I'm into mine for canopy , lights & controller - $1500

I have 2 of the 4' ATI Hybrid units and I am not happy with them.
I have had 4 ballasts burn out and 5 of the LED reflectors melt.
ATI told me that part of the problem was that I hung the 2 fixtures side by side and caused the 2 units to overheat.
They still provided me with replacement components under warranty, but I didn't appreciate ATI trying to partially blame me for component failure.

WTF am I supposed to do for an 8' tank 30" deep lighting?

MH, LED and T5 are great options, but educate yourself about the limitations of whatever drawbacks the fixtures may have.

Don't mean to hijack this tread but I might be interested in some of your fixtures if you could PM me the prices for each units you have for sale.
Thanks

Well the way ATI fixtures are designed to cool ,is the air is pushed down from the fans on the top of the light and the air is forced out one end of the fixture. Blocking the end of the fixture is like covering the top of your toaster and being mad your toast got burnt.

6 inches of space between the fixtures and no canopy should provide sufficient air space for cooling. There is very little hot air coming out of the end of the fixture.
I think that the plastic reflectors were a design error and the ballasts are not heavy duty enough.
The overheating issue does not explain failures in both fixtures.

I've got a 8 bulb ati led hybrid and love it. Super sleek looking fixture and for your size tank 2 3' fixtures or 1 5' fixture be good.

Yeah I agree that 6" should be enough space , were both fixtures pointing the same direction, or were they blowing into each other? I guess with 6" space in between you must have had a little overhang on both ends of the tank ?

The fixtures themselves are 46" and with a bit of an overhang the space was about 5 1/2".
Both fixtures were pointing the same direction, the exhaust outlet of one was blowing into the side of the other, but with the intake fans on the top and sagging acrylic lens they come with, there was lots of room for fresh air to enter and hot air to excape.
Since I've replaced the initial ballasts, I haven't had any problems which makes me think that the original ballasts were the problem. (in addition to the plastic LED reflectors)

Glad to hear they are working well now , I have the 36" 8 bulb hybrid and love it.

hey,

a lot of great input so far!

I was thinking if I go with kessils i'd take advantage of their form factor and run them as pendants. 2 rows of 3 on a 6'ish long tank. to get better coverage than running a single row of 3 down the center. I think it would look fairly sharp over a rimless display. just wondering about shadows and sps coloration.

of course i'm considering the ATI hybrid. there seems to be a large following on that fixture. reviews seem to be good for the most part.

I am also considering the PACSUN hybrid, it looks just as nice as the ATI.
http://www.pacific-sun.eu/new/cache/...5b3b843aff.jpg

As you're well aware, there are so many other factors affecting SPS. "IF" you got all that dialed in perfectly, running LED will showcase your work well. While I still give 400w radiums the win on color, I only say that from hundreds of hours of staring in my tank under both systems. Nobody ever looked at my tank under LED and thought color sucked. Just me :) And that was from maybe a 5% difference in color. I did have a couple pieces completely change color, but the other 100 pieces did well with only a slight drop in that pop we strive for with SPS.
I think a hybrid system will give you enough of all the desired features that you'll be happy with the purchase.

I hear ya on the MH.

I still remember rocking the single ended 400s with huge reflectors. only took 2 to light my 180 and you could put sps everywhere! add 2 VHOs and Boom youre done!

if it weren't for the size of fixture/canopy/hood needed for it, i'd consider them for sure. if only I was doing an in-wall with a fishroom.

having said that, the DE MH fixtures I've used just didn't cut it on spread. i'm sure if you raise lights high enough the spread would be better, but I don't think I've ever had a fixture more than 8" above the tank.

You'd need more than 2 DE for sure. Jamie ran 2 x DE on his 120 with pretty good results!

I would be wary of the pac sun light unless you can get local warranty. I had the metis line of led's. It was an awesome light but, when I had a strip of leds burn out I had to ship the thing to the states for warranty. They were good about it, even tried to send replacement parts. but still a hassle and got burned shipping and duty due to a paper work error.

Dang. Good to know about the warranty. Thanks for the info.

So after some discussion, it looks like I'll be restricted to a light fixture that has mounting legs to sit on the rimless tank.

Second less desirable option is to build a low profile canopy to house the lighting. In which I can ditch the rimless, and will have a way to hide plumbing and get my returns on the opposite end of tank. But won't be as visually pleasing to me.

I am in the process of setting up a 180g SPS dominant system and I went with the Hamilton Cebu Sun fixture. The one I picked up is 3x400w Radium MH + 4x80w T5's and it included all the bulbs plus the proper M135 magnetic ballasts. It comes in a 250w radium version with M80 ballasts as well. My system isn't up and running yet but there are a lot of good reviews about it out there.

I have to say that the customer service when dealing directly with Hamilton was amazing as well.

Bet you're gonna be happy with that one! :)

Ya so far, it's a pretty impressive light and I like the colour... though I have nothing in my tank yet.

I forgot to add that it came with tank mounts.

I had a bad experience with that line of products.

Awesome set up but if it's inside a closed quarter living space I would highly recommend a portable ac-unit and a chiller for the summer...

All T5, that's what the real pros use.

Orphek has the Atlantik v3 out now. I run the v1 and v2 units over my 180. It was a bit of a learning curve for me( I learned you can't pound corals with that intense light right out of the box). A nice light and can be custom ordered with fanless meanwell power supplies.