ADA lights have low PAR - reason?

[leonroy]

I was all set to pickup some lights from the ADA Grand Solar range but after reading Tom Barr's assessment of them I'm loath to spend a lot of cash on what amounts to a very inefficient light.

I read all 10 pages of that thread, but didn't see what the cause for the ADA's inefficiency was - was it the ballast or the reflector?

Otherwise is there anything out there which is as good looking as the ADA range and also doesn't look like a spaceship has landed? (Arcadia I'm looking at you!).

[Wwh2694]

That bulb was old when it was tested. I contacted ADG in houston about this and they measured their lights and its within par. I have 2 solar 1 lights and plants are growing crazy with lots of red plants too.

[anov50]

That bulb was old when it was tested. I contacted ADG in houston about this and they measured their lights and its within par. I have 2 solar 1 lights and plants are growing crazy with lots of red plants too.

Within what par?

[Tom Barr]

That bulb was old when it was tested. I contacted ADG in houston about this and they measured their lights and its within par. I have 2 solar 1 lights and plants are growing crazy with lots of red plants too.

Without data, it's a lie as far as I am concerned.
You need a few things: data, distances involved, height above the water, tank size, dimensions etc.

I measured the lights at Aqua Forest Aquarium, and not on a single old bulb, I measured 6 display tanks, these lights all had the same PAR valves on the bottom of the tanks and ran at higher wattages vs my T5's at home by about a factor 1.66. Every tank had about 40-50 micromol along the bottom of the sediment. One bulb is not statistically significant......but 6 tanks and a dozen are, there where no outliers as well, all fell into that range. So not much error range there. This is an authorized ADA shop like ADG.
So 1.5 W of T5 = 2.5 W of ADA HQI.

Heck, I have a light meter and have access to ADA also, I have no reason to lie or fluff up any data here.........
Here's my 1.8 W/gal tanks:



Plenty red for most anyone.........and the surface area coverage actually is almost the same as a 180 cm tank (1440 in^2 vs 1640 in^2), so the watt gal ratio is less.........maybe 1.6w/gal on my tanks.......my 180 has the lights pretty high, it's at 2.1 W/gal but the bulbs are PC and the reflectors could be better etc.
ADA's technology was cutting edge back 10 years ago etc when they came out with them......but they have not kept pace with the newer technologies and lighting changes in the market place. T5's and LED's are a long way ahead. They need to switch to these newer methods and rework the engineering aspects of their HQI's reflectors and ballast.
The outward style is fine.......that need not change..............but spending this much $ on the light and that much on a stainless steel canister filter, then going old tech on the light seems strange to me.

I suppose by having higher Watt/gallon, many folks are that are high light junkies are fooled, which is NOT a bad thing in my view, ADA perhaps used reverse psychology on the hobbyists there. Or, maybe they have just stuck with old tech in the fixtures and not updated. Either way, it's understandable. Still nice lights. But I can get customized LED's made any color, with dimmers, all sorts of color mixing for abut 2/3's less cost and uses 1/3 the energy. On a 20 Gal tank, this would save me about 35-40$ a year. No bulb replacements: about 20-40$ per year added in savings.

On 460 Gal worth of tank like I have at home, this added up........300$ in electric savings(hey, paid for 1.5 fixtures) at a minimum, no bulb replacements(I run them till they die, so it's maybe 3-5 years or so) so I'll say there's no cost added there. Still, in 5 years, I've saved 1500$ in energy. If you have a 20 gallon, not as big as a deal.
The $ likely would not matter. Just the initial cost. I'd need to spend 5000$ for the ADA for home tanks there and spend 1500$ for electric over 5 years.
LED's I spend about 1500$ total and the energy cost is 1500$ less.

Then I can buy another ADA tank

That's one way to look at it.

LED lights look cool too.

[feh]

Those pics are awesome... I'd have liked to have seen FTS of that.

[leonroy]

Thanks for all replies everyone, so for a 72"x30"x30" tank what sort of fitting would do?

I'm looking at a Giesemann Infiniti, Vertex Illumina or Ecotech Radion...preferably one of the LED units. Are the LED units as good as the T5/MH combos?

[shoggoth43]

LEDs are generally as good as or better than T5 or MH for most planted tank purposes. Where they are likely to fall down is in the color spectrum. Many are just cool white/blue combos. You will generally lose all/most of your deeper reds. Some designs add back a red LED or two for this reason or use the warm white LEDs instead. Others will add in a myriad of "extra" colors to get back those missing holes in the spectrum such as cyan or other colors. It really will depend on the LEDs used so you may be lucky enough to find one in a store and can drop a sample plant under it and see if you like the look of it. Some like cool white, others hate it. YMMV.

-
S

[Tom Barr]

Leoroy, you might consider the customized LED fixture pre made...........this will cost less than those fixtures and provide more lighting adjustments and choices.

Matt will build one specific to your tank, likely will cost about the same as a single ADa fixture that would cover only 1/3 of the tank.

My 180 Gal is a little smaller than your tank, but the total might be 600$ for a nice LED fixture. If you want a controller and all that, add maybe another 200$ etc.

[leonroy]

Thanks for the recommendation Tom, Matt's stuff on ebay looks great. I've emailed him.

Has anyone on the forum any experience with his products or have any comments or pictures of the light fittings he makes?