HQI vs. Mogul

[Snappy]

HQI double ended all the way!

[Myka]

Originally Posted by Snappy

HQI double ended all the way!

I'll take DE over SE any day too!

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by Myka

I'll take DE or SE any day too!

If I am right in assuming you mean "DE over SE any day", then my question is why?

[Myka]

Grrr...I just replied, and managed to lose it.

Basically, I prefer the look of DE over SE. When I comment on someone's tank "Nice lighting", 9 times out of 10 it's DE powered by electronic ballasts. I also like the spotlight effect of DE which makes coral placement easier.

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

this is kind of a grey area, MH is not to much light for LPS, but if you were using T5's for a long time they will take a while to adjust. look at the reef around austrailia and haiwii, there are LPS in 5 feet of water which are reciving more PAR than we could ever dream of putting in our tanks. the problem is most people don't have enough flow in there tanks to prevent/minimize bleaching. I have done exparaments after reading a few articles on bleaching and water flow and which a low flow rate of 20X turnover I could bleach the heck out of frags, but when I increased the flowrate to 120X I couldn't get them to bleach at all with all other conditions being the same.

now just increading pumps isn't enough, the trick is to spread the flow out all over so it ends up being a gentle current not a jet wash, I had a 94 gal tank with almost 12000 gph flowing in the display, but you could put your hand anywhere and all you felt was a gentle flow.. it took me about a week of screwing around with placment and such and I don't think you would ever acheive this with a sand bed (as the flow on the bottom of my tank was the same as the middle and the top) and you may have to be willing to rearange your rock to give you the best flow not the best look, but you could probable achieve both with a little more paitents than I have

Steve

This is interesting. I have always struggled to get high flow without blasting spots, but I don't have the patience to mess around with it for very long, and I never seem to get anywhere anyway. I know my LPS are PO'd about my Wavebox, and it's been at least 4 weeks since I installed it, so you would think they would be used to it by now...??

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by Myka

Grrr...I just replied, and managed to lose it.

Basically, I prefer the look of DE over SE. When I comment on someone's tank "Nice lighting", 9 times out of 10 it's DE powered by electronic ballasts. I also like the spotlight effect of DE which makes coral placement easier.



This is interesting. I have always struggled to get high flow without blasting spots, but I don't have the patience to mess around with it for very long, and I never seem to get anywhere anyway. I know my LPS are PO'd about my Wavebox, and it's been at least 4 weeks since I installed it, so you would think they would be used to it by now...??

hehe, and I will take a SE bulb over a DE anyday unless there is a space issue, the increased PAR and distrubution from a SE is to nice when it is run off the same ballast as the DE.

What I found is that I had to create natural low flow areas for the LPS, the hard part was making these areas as small as possible so I didn`t end up with an area 5 times the size of the coral with a lower flow. some times all it would take was a stratigicly placed rock to disrupt the flow enough for the LPS. then the trick was to make that rock look good while it is doing its job

Steve

[fkshiu]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

hehe, and I will take a SE bulb over a DE anyday unless there is a space issue, the increased PAR and distrubution from a SE is to nice when it is run off the same ballast as the DE.

What I found is that I had to create natural low flow areas for the LPS, the hard part was making these areas as small as possible so I didn`t end up with an area 5 times the size of the coral with a lower flow. some times all it would take was a stratigicly placed rock to disrupt the flow enough for the LPS. then the trick was to make that rock look good while it is doing its job

Steve

+1 and the fact that it is sometimes darn near impossible to mount a DE bulb in its holder without Herculean strength. With SE you simply twist your wrist.

But really, I don't see how there should much difference at all in the light produced by DE and SE bulbs notwithstanding the extra UV shield required for DEs. If you look at an SE bulb, it's pretty much just a jacketed DE bulb.

[Myka]

I have been leaning away from PAR lately...you can get great results without lighting the crap out of the tank. My LPS are all on the sand or the outskirts of the lights (my fixture is designed for a 36" tank and mine is 48" so the halides don't reach the ends very well...perfect for the LPS). They are all well colored. I changed the bulbs to cheap 20K to lower the Kelvin too.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by fkshiu

But really, I don't see how there should much difference at all in the light produced by DE and SE bulbs notwithstanding the extra UV shield required for DEs. If you look at an SE bulb, it's pretty much just a jacketed DE bulb.

it is and it isn't, the bulb is actualy a different design for the lighting element, not sure the exact differances, but I know operating temp is one as the outer glass and the gass inside it on a SE act as an insulater so the SE actualy burns a bit hotter, so maybe it creates a bit more efficiency?

the increase in PAR from a DE to a SE is small, and isn't realy the important part, rather the way a SE desperses that PAR over a larger area with out losing as much intensity is what I like. for example, you can light a 2X2 area with a 250 DE. with a 250 SE you could light a 3X2 area with pretty much the same effect on the bottom. Now having said that I ran two 250 watt SE's on a 3X2 area driven by M80 ballasts because I like light and lots of it

so there are aplications for both, if I am making somthing with out a hood and I wanted a nice compact fixture I would probably use DE's but if I had to room for a hood I would go SE's. Presently I am concidering putting two 250watt SE fixtures on a 30 gal tank. but I am hesitating in setting it up as I realy want to go bigger, but not sure if I have the space for bigger.

Steve