high pressure sodium
- Thread starter d-man
- Start date
jackri
Active Member
If it washed out (not sure what) then it didn't work just fine and could be the beginning of the dying process for corals. If you're talking corals -- the object (I hope) of the hobby is to grow them, propagate them, and bring out the beauty of their colors. Washing them out (which isn't a good sign) is not what the hobby is about.
I do wish there were cheaper lighting alternatives in the hobby that are effective but if there were.... it would spread like wildfire and people would give up the high price of halides or other fixtures.
I do wish there were cheaper lighting alternatives in the hobby that are effective but if there were.... it would spread like wildfire and people would give up the high price of halides or other fixtures.
d-man
Member
it's just a opinion about how the tank looked. I've been working with saltwater for a while and would know if things where doing bad (I like buying dyeing coral's and saving them when I can) and one tank of mine looks "washed out" compared to the one with "better lights" but some things do better in the tank with the "cheep" lights.
I have T5s right now and thats a florescent too
As far as I know it's all about how deep the coral would be and how much water the light would go through to determine what type if light the coral would use.
What I want to know is if anyone has done it or knows some one that has
come on norcal I know some one has done it
I have T5s right now and thats a florescent too
As far as I know it's all about how deep the coral would be and how much water the light would go through to determine what type if light the coral would use.
What I want to know is if anyone has done it or knows some one that has
come on norcal I know some one has done it
tank a holic
Active Member
I dont think the HPS bulbs carry the right spectrum of light corals require to thrive
It would be like getting the cheaper 6400 MH bulbs instead of 10, 14 and 20k
I also dont believe HPS bulbs will run in MH ballasts and vise versa
so if you get a HSP fixture and it doesn't work you cant just pop good MH bulbs in and fix it
It would be like getting the cheaper 6400 MH bulbs instead of 10, 14 and 20k
I also dont believe HPS bulbs will run in MH ballasts and vise versa
so if you get a HSP fixture and it doesn't work you cant just pop good MH bulbs in and fix it
scsinet
Active Member
I think the OP is saying that he has an extra fixture lying around or has access to one cheap.
You're right though, the ballasts and lamps are not interchangeable between halide and hps.
I've not seen it done before. I know HPS can be used to grow plants so theoretically corals will grow (read: survive) under it. The problem is that HPS produces a very narrow spectrum of light in the orange range. This means that under the light your corals won't have much color and you'll probably grow more nuisance algae than anything else.
You're right though, the ballasts and lamps are not interchangeable between halide and hps.
I've not seen it done before. I know HPS can be used to grow plants so theoretically corals will grow (read: survive) under it. The problem is that HPS produces a very narrow spectrum of light in the orange range. This means that under the light your corals won't have much color and you'll probably grow more nuisance algae than anything else.
king_neptune
Active Member
HPS are for flowering fat juicy buds^_^
not corals.
not corals.
d-man
Member
+1 on the having extra stuff and on what there really for to tell you the truth being in norcal I'm wondering if with some of these rooms that are full with light if you can't do a "natural" tank with the extra light
if you want to can rewire a ballast from hps to mh and most of them just have a switch inside if you pull them apart.
So the real question is how and who determines what coral likes what light, I'm not a fan of doing things because people say it right and I have run a tank with a "grow" light and things did better than just survive and I know things can bud just fine under mh so I'm thinking that if you wanted to make a "specialty tank" for example I have a lot more red (for viewing) in one of my tanks and (it probably has nothing to do with the lights) for some reason my candy canes do way better in that tank and I like different lighting color because you can change your light just a little bit and it's like you have a hole new tank
if you want to can rewire a ballast from hps to mh and most of them just have a switch inside if you pull them apart.
So the real question is how and who determines what coral likes what light, I'm not a fan of doing things because people say it right and I have run a tank with a "grow" light and things did better than just survive and I know things can bud just fine under mh so I'm thinking that if you wanted to make a "specialty tank" for example I have a lot more red (for viewing) in one of my tanks and (it probably has nothing to do with the lights) for some reason my candy canes do way better in that tank and I like different lighting color because you can change your light just a little bit and it's like you have a hole new tank
scsinet
Active Member
It's not a matter of "who says what corals like." It's a matter of replicating natural conditions as closely as possible. Your corals will probably be okay under the light from a survival perspective, it's just that for most of us, the core principle of the hobby is to re-create nature our our private biotopes.
There currently is no artificial lighting that comes close to what the sun provides, but halides are much closer than HPS.
The potential pitfall based on the other objective, to exclude as much of the light as possible that the corals don't thrive best under, to cut down algae growth.
My issue in your proposal is not survivability, it's color rendition. There is a reason why HPS is not usually used for anything but industrial lighting applications, it's because the orange spectrum they produce is so poor for color rendition that everything looks the same. IMO with the varied colors of natural reefs and the iridescence that corals produce when hit with the right wavelength (that HPS doesn't produce) would be lost under HPS.
That's not to say that you can't or even shouldn't... to each his own I guess.
There currently is no artificial lighting that comes close to what the sun provides, but halides are much closer than HPS.
The potential pitfall based on the other objective, to exclude as much of the light as possible that the corals don't thrive best under, to cut down algae growth.
My issue in your proposal is not survivability, it's color rendition. There is a reason why HPS is not usually used for anything but industrial lighting applications, it's because the orange spectrum they produce is so poor for color rendition that everything looks the same. IMO with the varied colors of natural reefs and the iridescence that corals produce when hit with the right wavelength (that HPS doesn't produce) would be lost under HPS.
That's not to say that you can't or even shouldn't... to each his own I guess.
d-man
Member
well light is different in different places and times of the year, how most people around here look at it is mh is a "spring-summer" light and hps is a "summer-fall" light.
I myself am a t5 fan partly because you can mix more bulbs with different spectrums to get what you want, but I have not gone to the sps yet
I myself am a t5 fan partly because you can mix more bulbs with different spectrums to get what you want, but I have not gone to the sps yet