Ushio vs. Coralvue M/H bulbs.

[Ralphyhp]

Hi friends, its time to change bulbs and i am a Ushios lover. I use at my SPS tank 3 250w Ushios and two 140w URI actinics. Now im doing a upgrade for two Reef optics lll reflectors with two IceCap electronics M/H ballasts and my dual magnetic PFO Ballast on PFO mogul based reflectors. The question is: I would like to use the Coralvue brand but i dont know if im doing the correct change. What about this: two 10000k 250w DE HQI Coralvue bulbs on the Reef Optics with IceCap ballast and two 10000k 250w mogul based Coralvue bulbs on the PFO reflector and ballast or what about two 10000k 250w D/E HQi Ushios and two 250w 10000k Ushios. Coralvue user please any comments on the quality of this brand, Colors and growth rates on your SPS corals, ect. These Coralvue bulbs are very cheap also and i read on a thread on R/C that this bulbs has more Par than the Ushio bulbs, any comments on this Par comparison. Thanks in advance, Ralphyhp :wink:

 

[Aquarist20]

If you are a Ushio lover why change brands. I personally have never used the Coralvue bulbs so I can not comment on them, but I do use Ushio and they are awesome. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Ralphyhp]

I just want to try other brands. Aquarist20 take a look to this Par comparison and let me know if they look cool. On this life we had to prove anything my friend. http://www.coralvue.com/parvalues.htm. or take a look to this thread: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=254667. http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant ... ode=Hbulbs http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant ... ode=Hbulbs. If the Coralvue works like an Ushio bulb or so, why dont gave it a try for that price :wink: . Its just my opinion. Ralphyhp. Any Coralvue users opinions please.

 

[Ralphyhp]

Hope this work: http://www.coralvue.com/parvalues.htm

 

[ChrisRD]

Hey Ralphy,

FWIW, as I understand it, the numbers on the Coralvue site aren't accurate. They are numbers from an earlier test that Joe Burger conducted and he has since retested and ammended those numbers. IIRC, Coralvue posted those pics/numbers on their website without consulting Joe.

The link to the thread in the RC lighting forum should lead you to the updated numbers.

Hopefully Joe will notice this thread and give us the whole story.

HTH

 

[delbeek]

The problem is he is using the Apogee sensor. It under represents the PAR values for high Kelvin lamps compared to the LiCor cosine corrected sensor by up to 18% for 20 K lamps. Richard Harker is working on this and we hope to publish something soon.

Aloha!
Charles

 

[-JB]

I did discuss with Apogee, on the phone, their sensor and how accurate it would be when testing Metal Halide lamps. We specifically discussed how the lamps used in our hobby are not uniformed in their wavelength distribution. Most lamps see a large spike in the 450nm wavelength. And most are weighted heavily in the blue spectrum and very deficient in the reds and yellows. Apogee said they would get back to me on the accuracy of their sensor when measuring PAR values on metal halides used in our tanks.

Later that day I received an email from them...

I’ve talked with the president...he made mention of the fact that with a sunlight calibration the metal halide lamp is listed as 12% low – the largest error on our graph. This error is for comparing the spectral curve of a standard metal halide lamp to a sensor calibrated to sunlight. The overall error among other metal halide bulbs between 400-700 nm may be rather small even with a large spike in a specific location.

My meter is calibrated to electric lamps not sunlight, so I did ask if I could get an idea of what percentage error could be expected from the lamps, but have yet to receive a reply.

And the values CoralVue are using on their website are from an earlier thread, of which I felt there were too many problems to feel comfortable with the results. CoralVue never contacted me for permission to use anything on their website. I just haven't gotten around to discussing it with them.

I would be thrilled if someone could duplicate the lamps, ballast and wattage information I was able to provide. But with high end equipment. Us 250 watt MH users always get the short stick in the studies, so I wanted to get some data I could use the next time I swap my lights.

Any questions you have on the tests I did, feel free to fire away!

 

[delbeek]

JB: Richard was to receive two resistors from Apogee, one is used between the sensor and meter for sun and another for electric light sources. It is not clear what their reference is for "electric". Richard thought the sun might be best for low Kelvin lamps and the electric for high Kelvin lamps, but was to test this idea. I am not sure what he had "sun" or "electric" but he found the higher the Kelvin (5300 K, German 10K and Blueline 10K) the greater the % difference between to the two sensors was. The higher the Kelvin the greater the Apogee underrepresented the PAR values.

Then of course there is the difference between spherical and flat sensors and cosine correction to take into consideration. Keep an eye on Aquarium Frontiers Online for the results.

Aloha!
Charles

 

[-JB]

I believe the electric is calibrated to a florescent lamp.

I would be interesting to see what the article shows. The error between the two sensors would make sense as they are for two different light sources.

 

[Len]

I have the Apogee meter that can switch from electric to sunlight via dial. Note sure if this is useful, but the sunlight measurement always measures 10% higher then the electric measurements under all the halides I've tried.

 

[jbash]

Sanjay Joshi also uses the Apogee meter for his tests. He has a chart showing the measurement error across the normal spectrum for each meter. I don't recall if this was based on his measurements or info from the two manufacturers. The difference was quite notable, especially at the low end (around 400, 450) IIRC.

jim b

 

[Adrian]

I wanted to run 10Ks about a year ago, up till then it was sakis, I tried the ushios, ran them for about 4 months, eneded up putting the sakis back on, the ushios were only a tad whiter as far as I could tell, and much dimmer, not too mention much more expensive. Recently I gave the coralvue bulbs a chance, so far Im very please, nice white blue color, and pretty bright as far as I can tell. They are very new so who knows, but for the time being Im a happy reefer

 

[Len]

FWIW, Ushios take a few weeks to "break in". They start out with a yellow/green cast and get bluer over time.

 

[Ninong]

Sanjay Joshi also uses the Apogee meter for his tests. He has a chart showing the measurement error across the normal spectrum for each meter. I don't recall if this was based on his measurements or info from the two manufacturers. The difference was quite notable, especially at the low end (around 400, 450) IIRC.

jim b

Jim,

I thought Sanjay used LiCor for all of his tests?

"The instrument used for measurement of spectral distribution is called a spectroradiometer. The spectroradiometer we used is the LiCOR LI-1800/12 portable spectroradiometer (Licor) with a standard cosine receptor. It is capable of measurement from 300 nm to 850 nm at 2 nm intervals. The specific instrument we used was calibrated for use from 310 nm to 850 nm." -- Sanjay Joshi

 

[jbash]

Ninong-
Sanjay does more than one kind of test. IIRC, for bulbs he uses the spectroradiometer. When he tests reflectors (pattern and intensity at different heights, with different bulbs) I think he uses the Apogee and is just testing for total PAR. But now that I think about this thread it is about bulbs, not reflectors. Sorry. (and this is from memory, he spoke at CMAS last month and I've heard him a few times before).

jim b

 

[-JB]

I should have all worries about possible errors when taking measurements with the apogee quantum meter solved in a week or so. Stay tuned.

 

[sanjay]

Sanjay Joshi also uses the Apogee meter for his tests. He has a chart showing the measurement error across the normal spectrum for each meter. I don't recall if this was based on his measurements or info from the two manufacturers. The difference was quite notable, especially at the low end (around 400, 450) IIRC.

jim b

No I do not use the Apogee meter for any of my tests. I have the Licor Spectroradiameter for Spectral Tests, and have been using the LiCor PAR sensor for the reflectors.

sanjay.

 

[sanjay]

I would be thrilled if someone could duplicate the lamps, ballast and wattage information I was able to provide. But with high end equipment. Us 250 watt MH users always get the short stick in the studies, so I wanted to get some data I could use the next time I swap my lights.

Any questions you have on the tests I did, feel free to fire away!

JB:

I will be happy to duplicate the tests using the spectroradiometer. I have just finished testing a bunch of double ended lamps, and the XMs.

sanjay.

 

[saltshop]

I will be happy to duplicate the tests using the spectroradiometer. I have just finished testing a bunch of double ended lamps, and the XMs.

Hey Sanjay,

You might want to look at how extensive this little project of Joe's has become before you volunteer. http://www.cnidarianreef.com/lamps.cfm I can't even imagine how much time he has sunk into this already. 13+ bulbs on 6 different ballasts...yikes!

 

[sanjay]

Yeah, my little project to test a few lamps for myself, has turned into a 5 year long project.

13 lamps X 6 ballasts = 78 data points, at about 3 lamps that is a good 25-30 hrs of work. Plus if you count the burn in time for the 13 lamps of a minimum of 100hrs each, that is about 60 days of burn in time, and at approx 275W per lamp that is 360kW of electricty just for lamp burn in.

Now you know why I am happy to see others do it .

Unfortunately, JB cannot do a spectral test and one of my goals is to have a complete catalog of all the spectral analysis of the lamps we use, and make it availabe on the web so everyone can use it.

But I wish, others would test in a manner that the results can be compared apples to apples, so that tests do not have to be redone. It takes a lot of time and effort, and I am very happy to see more independent data on the lamps.

Keep up the good work JB.

sanjay.