What’s In Your Metal Halide Reflector

So you got your bulb, and a matching ballast. You think you have a winning combination. And then, you miss the most important step.. selecting your reflector.

Many have gone the easy route and bought their lights with the works; IE out-of-the-box pendant or lighting system. Yes its the quickest and easiest way to light your system, but is it the best? That will be a discussion that we will leave for another post.

Retrofitting your light system will require you to purchase four separate parts; socket kit, bulb, ballast, and reflector. We would love to talk about all the main ingredients, but the focus in this post will be on your reflector. We will omit the low-end reflectors, such as the generic bat reflector as they are not worth the money invested. So the showdown will include LumenMax, LumenArc III, LumenBright and LumenMax Elite.

This post wouldn’t be possible without the amazing work done by Dr. Sanjay Joshi, a PhD. in Industrial Engineering and a lighting expert in the industry. He had numerous articles on aquarium lighting, and created a webpage which can enable you to mix-and-match your bulb and ballast to achieve your needed specs. He also wrote an article for Advanced Aquarist’s Online Magazine that pits these higher-ended reflectors against each other. Here is the summary of  the amazing findings:

(For low variability, a 400w IceCap electronic ballast and Ushio 14K mogul bulb was used.)

Dr. Sanjay Joshi separated these reflectors into two groups, group 1 – standard (LumenArc, LumenMax) and group 2 – elite (LumenBright, LumenMax Elite).

In the Standard category, under 24″ in depth, the LumenMax outperformed the LumenArc, 349 to 383 PPFD. Again, under 30″ in depth, the LumenMax was superior than the LumenArc, 270 to 222 PPFD.

In the Elite category, under 24″ in depth, the LumenMax Elite outperformed the LumenBright, 711 to 669 PPFD. As well, under 30″ in depth, the LumenMax Elite was better than the LumenBright, 519 to 444 PPFD.

The elite reflectors focused a lot of light within a given 3′x3′, while the standard reflectors gave off more of an equal light distribution. The elite series are designed for deeper aquariums, while the standards are for wider tanks.

For the rest of the article, you can follow the link here.

Also, our friend Danilo (www.danireef.com) performed a line of tests on similar reflectors. His findings are also interesting. You can read about it here.

So the series of questions for you are, what type of aquarium do you have? What type of corals are you going to nurture? And how high do you want to suspend your lights? Questions that can be now answered using Sanjays findings.

Good luck, and happy reefing!