I have to disagree with a lot of the posts, there is a tremendous savings potential we'll use brads tank as a example.
3x 400 watt MH set up comparing apples to apples your looking at 300-400 each for the first set up with bulbs so 900-1200 bucks.
initial set up for LED 4000 for a store bought, say 1200 for a DIY (which Brad could do if I still lived close
)
cost of a chiller for brads tank is say 400. (most likely more) and power for MH is going to be about 550 watts each for a total of 1675 watts.
power for LEDs is going to be about 300 watts for that tank.
so power cost wise using brads example of 25 bucks a month to run the MH, 5 bucks a month to run the LEDs but we'll say 8 bucks.
now at 50,000 hours the LEDs will have to be changed after 11 years running 12 hours a day
so thats 10 bulb changes for the MH at 300 bucks a change for diecent bulbs.
Oh we forgot the T5's/VHO, ect for suplemental lighting with the MH so another 70 bucks a year.
so lets add it all up over an 11 year period.
MH
3300 in electricity. (not including the suplamantal lighting)
3700 in bulb changes
900 for initial setup very cheep side or 1200 normal
400 for the chiller (cheep side) and say 2000.00 in power to run it for 11 years. most likely it will not last that long but we'll assume you don't need to buy another one.
this comes to a total of 10300 over 11 years.. kinda depressing when you think about it now
LED
bought option
4000 for fixture
1056 to run it
0 for bulb changes
0 for chiller as I know the only reason I needed one was because of my MH light in victoria
so 5056 bucks for 11 years.
if he did a DIY set up and even spent 2000 on it then he would be just over 3K for 11 years.
now both of these are assuming there are no premature bulb failures which I had in about 1/5th of the MH I bought and I would suspect that there would be a smaller number of failures with LEDs.
lets talk about the pros and cons of each asside from setup and operating costs.
Color.
MH you are stuck with 1 color untill you change out bulbs. the LED set up you have an infinate range of color blending between royal blue and cool white (6500K to about 30K) with the LED if you don't like the color one day you can switch it at whim by changing the dimming levels of one color or the other.
New corals
MH you have to place New frags low in the tank and or come up with a screening method to reduce the amount of light till they are used to it.
LED you can placve your corals in there spot and drop your intensity and slowly bring it back up over any time period you want with out screening or moving the light
Heat. MH are a radiant heat source, LEDs are not. need I say more on this.. could mean the difference of using a chiller or not.
controlability.
MH do not dim.
Leds can be turned on at 1% of there power and raised in 1% incraments over any time perior you select. you can also do this with the blue then with the white and reverse at the end.
If you want you can also rig your white LEDs to simulate lightning and other visual effects like clouds and such depending how there set up.
finaly light spillage. MH ratiate 360 degrees so you need good reflectors to gain the advantage of all the light and even then your not getting it all.
Leds are also a point source light but they are directional and with optice you can direct your light only where needed not using reflectors with no light spillage which requires larger canopys and housings.
Steve