MH or LED

I'm in the process of planning a mixed reef for a 95g 48"x24"x16". This will be my first reef tank, I had a 40g fowlr that I took down when I moved about a year ago. I would like to be able to keep all types of corals. I am going back and forth between the following:

Metal halide 2x175w coralvue lumen bright, ushio 14k bulbs with some actinic supp tbd

Or

Orphek pr156 led

 

Tons of debate about this one.

I think it would come down to a matter of your current budget. If you project your spending over a 6 year period it's likely the LED's will be cheaper in the long run due to not having to replace bulbs and the power draw being so much lower.
However, it's also likely that the MH will be cheaper up front as the initial cost of LED's is still generally higher than MH.

Also, there is currently far more research to back up MH's ability to grow coral. This, by no means indicates any qualitative assessment of LED's ability to grow corals. It's just the simple fact that LED's are so new to the industry that there is very little research about their long-term affect on coral growth. I am willing to bet that there are numerous long-term research projects into this very subject as we speak.

So it's sort of the the old cash/credit debate. You can pay a little more now and a lot less later or a lot less now and a lot more later.

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/reef-lighting/mh-v-led-103837.html

Check this out. We talked about this last week.

 

LEDs all the way! They are the wave of the future (now). That unit looks awesome!