VHO HEAT

[sweetpea355]

Can some tell me about the heating issue with vho, I have 2-400w halides and I know they get hot but would vho be cooler compared to halides?
Thanks
Joe

 

[WRASSER]

you loose the heat but also the light, the mh are much much more brighter than vho.

 

[cindre2000]

It depend on the air flow over your tank. The VHO would need to be fairly close to the water, and all their heat is spread out over that space; making them difficult to cool. Halides on the other hand are point source so they are far easier to cool down (since the heat comes from one little source rather than a bank of lights).

 

[WRASSER]

WHAT? are you saying to the question :?

 

[frisbee]

The lights will always generate heat. Just depends on what you want to keep. I have VHO's but halide's and sps are the next step. No heater maybe...

 

[mr_X]

i would stick with the halides. the vho's are pretty hot also.
do you have single ended or double ended? you might try a different type of hood, or reflector with a glass cover and some sort of fan with air exhaust to move the heat away from the tank. what does the setup look like?

 

[sweetpea355]

The tank is a 100g with hood the halides are retro 2-400w 14k se bulbs,2-40w supp, the back of the hood is open with a fan blowing across the bulbs.

 

[mr_X]

do you have glass lids as well?

 

[sweetpea355]

no I don't have glass lids.

 

[blackcloudmedia]

I dont have any heating problems with my duel 96 watt vho's. I did however have a huge problem with my SUNPOD 150 watt MH. It raised the temp to 85. Thats bathwater to me. My 75 gall with the 96's is at 79 degrees. I run the fan in my room all day.

 

[SnowManSnow]

i have vho AND halides on my tank..
i run 150w VHO and 400w Halide

comparitively speaking the VHO's produce VERY little heat as compared to the 400w DE halide.. BUT in comparision the VHOs produce MUCH less light

That being said.. if i had 400w of halide besied 400w of vho.. i still tend to think that the vho's would run cooler...keep in mind just because the wattage would be the same the intensity would be no where close.. halides win that one.

IMO go with halides and figure out a way to deal with the heat. Maybe use the heat to run some sort of generator to power a chiller haha.

b

 

[ChrisRD]

Can some tell me about the heating issue with vho, I have 2-400w halides and I know they get hot but would vho be cooler compared to halides?
Thanks
Joe

Halides are more efficient - ie. more light for the power consumed. If you compare systems of equal wattage, the halides will produce more light and actually generate less heat. Localized temps around the lamps will be higher because the light/heat is originating from a smaller area with halides but overall heat generated will be less.

In other words, in your case, if you switched to 800 watts of VHO (if you could even fit that over your tank) you'd end-up with more heat and less light.