Energy Efficient Equipment

[Joel A]

If you factor in the t-5's fans running 365 days a year as opposed to the few weeks fans are needed with a mh setup things get much closer. Then when you factor in the heater not coming on when the mh's are on 365 days a year, as opposed to the constant need for a heater about 8 months a year with t-5's, game over, mh wins. Also, certain mh bulbs hold their intensity much longer than t-5's, so the need to replace t-5's more often would negate any electricity savings. I say get what you like, the savings are negligible...

... i'm going to look up how much wattage the fans in my fixture use... probably not much.. and you should always have fans running in your Metal Halide fixtures as well, if they aren't it will decrease life span.

t5 bulbs are replaced 10-12 months, just like metal halides... sure you have people who are more worried about that and replace the t5 bulbs every 4 months, or 6 months, but it's not necessary.. so that point becomes moot IMO.

You do have a point with the heater not coming on during days with the metal halide, but IME it's more or less the same... if your house is heated, and your not running a basement sump... heaters don't really come on all that often.. mostly at night, and the metal halides aren't on at night...

In my experience, t5's will heat up a tank during the day similar to metal halides, just not quite as much... i'll come home during the winter to find my tank at 79-80 degrees (when the t5's are on) and the heater is set to 78, so it's obviously not working during that point..

AND, for every day that a metal halide set up might run you less electricity because it adds more heat, those days are more or less canceled out by the hot days in the summer in which you don't have to run your air condition/chiller/fans as long, or as low....

but i agree with the general theme, when it comes to energy efficiency lights are not what kill you, because they're going to be expensive energy wise no matter what... what kills you is high wattage pumps running 24/7... at the same time though, i do still believe t5's are more energy efficient... just not a HUGE difference.

 

[Joel A]

KSC- I just want to clarify this...

you say "as opposed to the constant need for a heater about 8 months a year with t-5's" .. are you saying your heater will turn on during the day with t5's 8 months out of the year? Because if you are... that's not right... 8 months out of the year is high period if you ask me... more like 6. Also, for most of those months, the heaters come on at night, because the lights are off and it's even colder outside... so how does running metal halides help this?

It could be 20 degrees out side, and if i had all of my t5's on, there would be no need for a heater, just the same as Metal Halides...

In fact, my tank is in a small room, and many times over cool winter/early spring days i've found i actually need to crack the window a bit so when i get home the room isn't hot as hell from all the lights being on..

 

[Joel A]

so i looked it up.. just in the FWIW category, the 2 fans that run in my ATI fixture, run at a MAX of 15 watts total... i run them at about half of that... so probably about 7.5 watts are added on because of the two cooling fans... and they aren't run 24/7, they turn on and off with the lights.

So that makes my 324 watt fixture 331.5 watts

and like i said earlier, you should be running fans in your metal halide fixture for the bulbs and ballasts sake... not for cooling of your tank... you're supposed to use separate fans for that

 

[JayM]

so i looked it up.. just in the FWIW category, the 2 fans that run in my ATI fixture, run at a MAX of 15 watts total... i run them at about half of that... so probably about 7.5 watts are added on because of the two cooling fans... and they aren't run 24/7, they turn on and off with the lights.

So that makes my 324 watt fixture 331.5 watts

and like i said earlier, you should be running fans in your metal halide fixture for the bulbs and ballasts sake... not for cooling of your tank... you're supposed to use separate fans for that

unless you put a kill-a-watt meter on your fixture, you won't know what it draws in actual watts. Ballast efficiency varies a lot, but it certainly is not 100%. I discovered when I was provisioning my generator that it was going to be necessary to stagger device restarts, because my 70amp maximum would be exceeded if everything ran/started at once, but once everything did run, it was fine for as long as I needed it.

 

[Joel A]

while i understand that i don't know exactly what it draws... it is fair to assume it's rather close to the manufactures listed specifications, no? The same can be said about metal halide ballasts, you don't know exactly what they are drawing without a meter, but if we compare manufacturers listed wattage of Metal Halides ballasts to manufacturers listed wattage of t5 ballasts, we can get some sort of idea of how they compare to each other...

again, i'm not trying to say that lights are the biggest part of the game in energy efficient equipment, because they aren't... it's the pumps that you run 24/7 like the return, skimmer, powerheads, etc. that kill you if you use big wattage pumps... however you can still save money by using more energy efficient lighting as well...

 

[snowmaker]

That looks to be an incredible fixture Joel.
No one has yet mentioned the IceCap prewired retro kit 4 X 54w t5, w/ the overdriven IC ballasts. I believe these would light a 120g sufficiently.
I currently have a clubs Apogee PAR meter and will post results, in an 18" deep tank, hopefully before the weekend is out.
Conducting a Google search for "par readings for icecap t5" lists many results.
That said, my soon to be 120 DT will start out with 2x250w MH + 4x54w overdriven t5 @ 420 and 470 or 454 nm.
Personally, I don't like to use the "rule of thumb" of WPG (watts per gallon) and would rely more on actual PAR readings.
There is a ton of information here and "out there" to help you make the best informed decision based on your own wants, needs, and personal tastes.

 

[reefsmurf]

Seaflo mods on MJets to save alot a good deal of electriicty.
From my experience the electric ballasts almost always draw less current than similar magnetic ones (although the magnetic ones also probably give more light as well while wasting more electricity in heat output) HOB instead of sumps (ugly) or sumps that are on the same level (behind the wall if possible for example) so that yo udon't need as powerful as a return pump.. definitely not in the basement. Pull the heaters during summer, lower daylight times (5-6 hours are fine for corals). Put the powerheads on a charvet/disco wavemaker.