MH vs. VHO????

[mnguyen878]

I was reading on GARF.org and they stated the VHO lighting provided the best results for their reefs. And by looking at some of their pictures, they're beautiful. Even their SPS are looking stunning. I've also been told that VHO's do not produce as much heat as MH.
I am currently running 400w mh on my tank, but am really questioning if I should convert to VHO. I am keeping SPS in my tank right now and they seem to do fine, but would it worth switching to VHO?

Any and all help is greatly appreciated.

Mike

[bill624]

mh

[garod82]

Why MH?

[gcarroll]

why not try a combination of both for the best of both worlds. I have frequently considered adding vho and/or T5 supplements to my tank.

[Entropy]

VHO is nice, but metal halide has better penetration and gives you glitter lines. I think one thing you will notice about the Garf tanks is that they all tend to be shallow (55g 18 inch high for instance). I run halides and VHO actinic so I agree with Greg. :)

[qchau]

hello perris,

stop being such a little girl and use metal halide already.....

[golfish]

Has anybody seen these garf tanks in person? You hear a lot of stuff about em (some good, most bad) but you never hear from people who have actully seen their tanks.

Mike, over time, watt vs watt, MH will be cheaper to run. I've ran VHO's and PC's along with MH's, IME its a waste of money.

[Konadog]

My personal experience with PC's and MH's was that the MH ran cooler, yes cooler than PC's. I had four 96 watt PC's and replaced with two 175w MH on my old 100 gallon tank. Now I know you will say that I went down in wattage, but not that much. The temp drop was 3° !

[bergzy]

i just started a fw planted tank and am using mh over that as well.

i cant even comprehend using anything but halide unless push comes to shove...i may use t5's if someone put a gun to my head. other than that...unless they can improve flourescents...it's mh for me!