48" lights for a grow out tank

[JWolfgang]

Does anyone have any 48" power compacts or any other lights I could use for a frag tank?

I'm eventually going to buy a work horse ballest and go from their, I'm new to this LOL

I have a 250watt metal halide i'm going to run for 4hrs on the tank, I need something else to light the rest of the time, I also need actenic lighting also.


I am new to salt water, but i'm catching on quick. The lighting is the hardest for me to catch on. I'm hoping someone has a decent lighting setup I can use on a frag tank, that won't #1 break the bank, and #2 easy to use and install.


Hopfully your close, I've met a few on here that are, I appreciate all the help thats been givin, and I'm sure I'll need it again!!

Jamie

 

[mike660r]

Jamie,

What are you going to be growing out, softies, LPS or SPS corals?

I would start your basis for lighting there. If it is going to be soft corals you can easily do that with one 250 MH. I would check the used equipment forum and find an Icecap electronic 250 ballast or two. You don't really need that actinic stuff unless you want it to be appealing to the eye when you looked at it. I run 2 - 250 watt aquamedic kits with 14K phoenix bulbs over my 40 gal grow out tank for 8 hours through the night. It has worked very well for me. In my opinion it would be a waste to add supplemental lighting for a grow out tank. You can put that money into a good ballast and be on your way.

 

[JWolfgang]

I'm going to do alittle of all of them. I'm going to eventually have a tank for each of the softies, lps, sps. I have alittle of each in a bio-cube 14 now that i'm using for a growout, and i'm running out of room!

I do have a 250W metal halide, now all i need is a light/lights to run after the halide shuts down. I appreciate you letting me know I don't need the actinic. I didn't know, and figured i'd better add it to the list in "just in case" I'm beginning to have some favorites already, and believe it or not the corals are growing pretty good in the BC14, I had a friend who doubted it, untill he saw the candy canes for himself.

I can list the corals if you think it would help determine they lighting I need to go with.

I guess my intentions are to grow "mother" colonies so I can keep the little guys coming. I eventually would like it to pay for itself alittle.


Thanks
Jamie

 

[mike660r]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9858513#post9858513 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JWolfgang
I guess my intentions are to grow "mother" colonies so I can keep the little guys coming. I eventually would like it to pay for itself alittle.

I'll let you know now that you will be lucky to break even. In order to have mother colonies you can frag from they need to be really large. The problem that you run into is if you frag to much the colony will slow its growth. I am mostly refering to SPS here so bear with me. I have seen softies do the same. The stress of the cutting does retard their growth rate. You also have to start thinking about additional equipment to support your water parameters for calcium and alkalinity.