400w MH combo Question

Gillundr

New member
Alright. I "inherited" some stuff yesterday one of which is a MH pendant and ballast setup. In the pendant there is a 400w bulb and two 32w actinic pc. lights. The light is mogul style (I think) they bulb screws in. I thought it was a 250 when my friend gave it to me and he wasn't sure because I guess it was sitting in his closet for a long time. I unscrewed the light last night at turns out its a 400w. That's a ton of juice. I was wanting to use a MH in a smaller tank someplace to help grow out little coral frags. Like in one of my QT tanks when they are just sitting there running empty anyways because I haven't made any decision as to any other fish to put in my dt. The clowns have the run of the place haha. I figured I would hold off putting more fish in until I solved the YWG & tiger pistol situation anyways. Well I have two QT tanks. One is a standard 20g the other is a 20 long. I thought heck they sit there empty all the time I could throw some small frags in there on some egg crate or something and let them grow out a bit while they are empty running. I thought it would be ok with a 250w but with a 400w will that just burn things up? Or should I just try to put the light up like 12 or 18 inches and still be ok? Also I guess these bulbs are old and was wondering if anyone had any laying around. The main bulb is a 400w screw in type and the others are 32w pc actinic I guess they are square pin, it's two little lights run next to each other then connect in at a square base. I'm unfamiliar with using anything other than T5. I know I don't want to fry stuff and this is a LOT of light for a 20g QT tank or two. I imagine I could raise it up enough to hit both tanks if they are close or just have it concentrate on one. Let me know if anyone has any ideas or extra bulbs of either type.
 
well o lmpw puppy center runs i think two 400 watt pendats over two of ther frag tanks side to side to you could put the tanks back to back faceing you so you could see both or side to side. but puppy center has the lights very high up. i want to say as high as so like feet 2 1/2 from the tank.
 
it is a 20L, I would imagine? I would worry more about temp issues than light. I've had a 400 over a 40 breeder and things do fine as long as you acclimate it to your light. Once they are acclimated, they will do amazing and you will be very surprised.
The ones we have at work are so high up mainly so that people can look down on them. A long time ago, we kept most of our clams in there, so it was meant for people to look topdown. It also does help with the heat a LOT. Just have a fan blown across the lights or between them and the water and you should be okay if they are high up enough.
I agree that 400s are NEEDED, but they arent useless either.
 
Well it just happens that where my QT tank is just above and to the right of it is an AC window unit so I would think that would help solve any cooling issues. I have a regular 20 and a 20L for QT. If I could somehow figure out how to make it work for both it would be nice but maybe it not as effective as using it for just one. I wish I had a 40 breeder or something similar. That would be perfect! I have enough LR to fill 2 more tanks too. It's really nice stuff. I got a bunch and it didn't look like so much when I got it and now haha. Just don't really have the funds to buy a new tank right now. Maybe I'll check around on craigs list or something unless somebody has something laying around. I could trade for some nice LR or something maybe. I'm sure the bulbs are shot on the thing so I'm gonna need to find some of those too. Hopefully some cheap ones. Maybe it will work with the small tanks. It's worth a shot.
 
How deep is the 40 breeder you have and how high up are your lights? Just trying to get an idea how high up I should put the light. I think I will put it over the 20L for now until I can get a little bigger tank. The 20L has more surface area to grow stuff in so that would be better than the 20 tall I would think. The only thing is it's pretty shallow so I'll for sure need to keep the stuff in the bottom and maybe just keep the main lights on like 4 hrs at a time and go from there to see how long I can keep them on, Maybe work up to 6 or 8 hrs for the main lights and run the actinics on a 12h cycle or something.
 
Anyways while on the subject can anyone recommend a good 400w light? It looks like I'm going to have to buy one so would like to get one that's gonna be good. Probably a 10k or 14k I would think maybe the 20k would be too blue but maybe I'm wrong. I know on the two 32w pc lights I'll put on actinics probably the coral life ones with the mixed actinic range 420/460 I would think would be best on those. Any ideas?
 
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