HQI lighting upgrade

I have the 48" sunpod over my 55, I like it a lot, its a really nice setup. My only complaint is the noise the fans make on the ends of the hood. I want to replace them with some SilenX CPU fans, just haven't gotten around to it yet.
 
I run a 70w clip-on Viper over a 10gal frag tank. I've heard some complaints about them but I've been very happy with mine. Mine is just a straight MH bulb and reflector, no LEDs or fan or anything, but I would recommend it based on my own experience.
 
DoctaQ said:
leds!

then you wont have to worry about a chiller or constantly fighting the temp
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Really? You stick 200-300 LEDs that it would take to match a MH even on a Nano tank and tell me how the heat compares.. Sure, moonlights don't put out much heat.. but they also don't last that long (blue LEDs have the shortest lifespan, around 1 year from my experience), but when your talking enough LEDs to light up a tank and support corals, that is actually quite a bit of heat, work, heatsinks, etc. to build it yourself. Takes 1 minute to clip on a MH light, it will take you about 1 week, 8 hours a day to build a comparable LED light from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I really like LEDs, but there are MAJOR drawbacks with using them, biggest one being their mostly monochromatic output of light spectrum. Completely opposite type of light that corals are used to from the sun. You want the whole spectrum with the majority being in the 440nm area for most growth, but you still want as much as the entire spectrum as possible. LEDs don't give you that option. Second biggest drawback is intensity. With LEDs you get Angle OR intensity (spotlight effect). You don't get both like you do with a MH bulb. I do think MH bulbs will be going the way of the Dodo in this hobby at some point in the future.. but not for quite a few more years and even then I don't think LEDs will replace them. More along the lines of OLED/LCD type panels you can put over your tank so you can adjust the light/spectrum/intensity/and effects like rain, cloud cover, stars, moon phases, etc.
 
Ace25 said:
Really? You stick 200-300 LEDs that it would take to match a MH even on a Nano tank and tell me how the heat compares.. Sure, moonlights don't put out much heat.. but they also don't last that long (blue LEDs have the shortest lifespan, around 1 year from my experience), but when your talking enough LEDs to light up a tank and support corals, that is actually quite a bit of heat, work, heatsinks, etc. to build it yourself. Takes 1 minute to clip on a MH light, it will take you about 1 week, 8 hours a day to build a comparable LED light from scratch. Don't get me wrong, I really like LEDs, but there are MAJOR drawbacks with using them, biggest one being their mostly monochromatic output of light spectrum. Completely opposite type of light that corals are used to from the sun. You want the whole spectrum with the majority being in the 440nm area for most growth, but you still want as much as the entire spectrum as possible. LEDs don't give you that option. Second biggest drawback is intensity. With LEDs you get Angle OR intensity (spotlight effect). You don't get both like you do with a MH bulb. I do think MH bulbs will be going the way of the Dodo in this hobby at some point in the future.. but not for quite a few more years and even then I don't think LEDs will replace them. More along the lines of OLED/LCD type panels you can put over your tank so you can adjust the light/spectrum/intensity/and effects like rain, cloud cover, stars, moon phases, etc.
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I think you would get some HIGH HIGH powered LEDS like this...http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-rebel-star-c-29.php
and make DIY board of them, which i do not want to experiment with...
Any more input on the k2 viper deluxe?

-Jake
 
They are one of the best out right now for intensity.. but still severely lacking in spectrum (very low 440nm numbers under a spectrometer). LEDs will be a great way to add "accent" lighting to the tank/specific corals to make them stand out, but from the health aspect of it, LEDs are worse than PC lighting IMO. Every single person I know personally that bought a Solaris LED fixture replaced it within 12 months because of lack of growth/death of corals. Right now, LEDs only really have 1 place in a Reef tank and that is simply for "accent" type lighting, moonlights, etc. If you can't get growth from a $4500 LED fixture made by PFO (which is no longer in business because they made that light and got sued out of existense because of it) then why would anyone think they can build a DIY light that is going to be any better? Sure, you can probably make one "Marginally" better than a Solaris now, but not enough to warrant the time and cost to do so, especially when just a couple T5HOs will blow the LEDs away in all aspects. Every type of light has its possitives and negatives, but I think LEDs are one that has more negatives than normal and because of that they are only good for certain applications like I mentioned above.

Sorry, no experience with the K2 myself so I can't comment on it. Personally I would stick with a 20k type bulb to balance out the extra wattage. (Did you know Bulb MFG do NOT really test bulbs above 10k for spectrum, so a 14k/20k bulb is just someone looking at it and saying "That looks like a xx bulb". It is far to expensive for bulb Mfg to test kelvin ratings above 10k from what I have heard. A 70w 10k bulb = 150w 14k Phoenix or 20k Radium bulb because it takes more energy to excite the photons at the lower wavelengths. (I know, photons is not the right word, best I could think of right now)
 
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