Cheapest lighting cost for SPS coral
 

What is the cheapest lighting cost for a sps coral tank? Example: LED cheap to run. Metal Halide costly to run.

LED is the cheapest to run and the intitial start up cost is about the same as a High end T5HO or MH fixture.

T5's will give you more play with the exact colour you want. For example if you like a bluer looks but want alot fo growth you could run 2 10K bulbs then the rest actinic or a mixture of 20K and Fiji Purples.

The sun ;)

lol Good answer. Heres a thread from RC on a solar lighting system. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...7#post13212347

Nice lighting. But at $400 per tube your not really ahead of LED.

you are going to get alot of opinions in this thread.

IMO if you can DIY your own LED lighting that would be the most cost effective in the long run if none of your LEDs burn out before there lifespan is up that is.

if thats not the case and your not very handy with electronics then look into MH as you only have 1 bulb to change every year or so compared to T5s which need to be changed out at 9month mark usually for the best PAR values.

Depending on the size of the T5 fixture and the amount of bulbs this is true. But what about running costs? Its going to cost alot less running say 6 T5's than it would 1 250W Metal Halide.

t5HO 6 x 54 = 324 watts is not > 250 watt MH in power consumption. Your choice of lights also depend on

1. how deep your tank is
2. how much your willing to spend
3. Cost of bulbe replacement...say every year
4. DIY you might save some money
5. Don't go cheap on SPS ....lighting is critical

i agree, we need to know a little bit more information about this tank, how long? how deep?

your #5 is a little misleading and is also what alot of people believe about SPS, its only a part of the contribution to great color/great growth in SPS. having a $1500+ lighting system and an unstable tank with swinging parameters your SPS will never do good.

also i think its wrong to compare 4ft T5HO bulbs to 250W, MH are supposed to only give a cast of roughly 2ft x 2ft and if you lift it a little bit it can light up a 3ft tank without issue. so the better comparison would be towards the 3ft T5 which is 39W

6x 39W = 234W which is still some saving the power when you put into consideration of your chiller kicking on less and etc the savings is quite a bit per year.

T5HO does save more money than compared to MH, if i was to use 250W it would be on something roughly 3ft per 250W well lets see:

250W bulb replacement lets go with phoenix (ive only ever run these) : $77 at OA before tax
6x T5HO 39W (3ft bulb): 6x $25-30 (using Gmans) = $125-180 before tax

You also have to factor in that the ballast also draws watts on both MH and flourescent adding to your total wattage. So trying to compare the two stright across cant be done.

Also you would have to factor in that ballasts are not 100% efficiant.