about the lighting
- Thread starter kiznile
- Start date
bigfoot610
New member
1000 watts are WAY!!!! too much you could get by with 250 watt hqi's
burkleman
New member
From what I have heard and read, it is not so much a matter of watts per gallon anymore when you start to talk about metal halides. from what i have heard with hqi they effectivily penitrate to about 24 odd inches and cover an area of about 2 feet squared at about 10 to 16 inches above the waters surface. if they are closer to the water they may penitrate deeper but you will have less coverage and vise versa with the lamps higher off the water. On the new tank that I am setting up, it is 96"x18" by 30" tall, I am going to have about a 6 inch sand bed and I plan on having 5-6 250watt hqi bulbs on it, and I plan on keeping softies through sps corals. Hope this helps a little bit.
Brandon
Brandon
gsxrguru2
New member
Are you going to DIY your canopy, or do you already have one? My suggestion is to go with pendants using 250w HQIs. Its what I did and I absolutely love it. You can supplement with PC to get the actinics too. I went with one bluewave 7 and a bluewave 3 ballast (check ebay, there is a seller there who sells these things at the same price as everyone else but ships them for free, same with the pendants.) As for the pendants, the reefoptix 3 are good for the price. I am using Ushio 10k's and love how white the lights are. The only other bulb I've tried were the Phoenix 14k's and thought those were way too blue- they seemed to wash the color out of everything, although there are many people who love them. If you go this route you should be able to get everything you need for around a grand. For a few hundred more you can get the Aqualight Pro 250w HQI setup which looks like a pretty nice piece of equipment to me. Its an all in one setup.
There are really a lot of ways to go with lights, my suggestion is to take your time here and research, research, research!!!! I know I am not the only one who has made the mistake of buying lighting components only to realize in a short time that they aren't going to provide what I want and doing so generally results in wasted money. I'd suggest looking at as many tanks as you can to get a feel for what you like.
By the way, I live in Aurora myself so if you'd like to come by sometime and check out my lights to get a feel for what my particular setup looks like, you are more than welcome too. Good luck with the new tank!
There are really a lot of ways to go with lights, my suggestion is to take your time here and research, research, research!!!! I know I am not the only one who has made the mistake of buying lighting components only to realize in a short time that they aren't going to provide what I want and doing so generally results in wasted money. I'd suggest looking at as many tanks as you can to get a feel for what you like.
By the way, I live in Aurora myself so if you'd like to come by sometime and check out my lights to get a feel for what my particular setup looks like, you are more than welcome too. Good luck with the new tank!
ktani
Premium Member
Some very good suggestions here.
Light is not as cut and dry as that. Much of it depends on the life you wish to keep. Even acroporids require different amounts of light and so much of it is what species you wish to keep. If your plan was some sps or some softies, PC, VHO and T5 are fine. However, if your thinking of some other light loving species you may wish to reconsider that and increase the lighting.
As far as bulbs go, much of that is really a factor of preference. I personally prefer the crisp blue/white light of a 20k while others prefer the whiter look of 10k and still others like the yellower look of 6500. I have a hard time with red and yellow corals due to the 20k but do great with the blues, purples, greens and such.
Check out some tanks, see what they are running and that will help you. Also, check out work and articles by Sanjay Joshi as he has some excellent material. As a matter of fact he has confirmed for next years mini-conference. Woo hoo our first confirmed speaker.
Kip
Light is not as cut and dry as that. Much of it depends on the life you wish to keep. Even acroporids require different amounts of light and so much of it is what species you wish to keep. If your plan was some sps or some softies, PC, VHO and T5 are fine. However, if your thinking of some other light loving species you may wish to reconsider that and increase the lighting.
As far as bulbs go, much of that is really a factor of preference. I personally prefer the crisp blue/white light of a 20k while others prefer the whiter look of 10k and still others like the yellower look of 6500. I have a hard time with red and yellow corals due to the 20k but do great with the blues, purples, greens and such.
Check out some tanks, see what they are running and that will help you. Also, check out work and articles by Sanjay Joshi as he has some excellent material. As a matter of fact he has confirmed for next years mini-conference. Woo hoo our first confirmed speaker.
Kip
castorpollux
New member
i agree with ktani, i have a 400 watt metal halide on a 23 gallon tank with 2 32 watt actinics. so that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 watts per gallon, a bit overkill but everything is extremely colored and bright and i get nice growth so... i win. i dont think a 1000 watt is necessary though, i prefer the 400 watt mogul metal halides an if its a 160 i would get a couple 400's with actinic supplements of some kind for the best color
Haddonisreef
New member
I like the look of the coral view blubs, that is what i have on my 3 tanks 46 bow-2x250 29 1x250 and 130 wt pc actnic 16 bow-1x175 and i ga et great color, growth and no problem with heat. But i think that i f you ran 4x250 with addition of some type of actnic or t-5 you r set up will look great. Good luck and keep everyone posted on what you decide.
quaterback-killer
New member
good points by everyone. i realy do not answner to many post, cant spell to well anymore( to many hits on the helment ). but you should check out the zeovit sight. if the water is good and skimming is also. they are finding out that you dont need as much light per watts as we once had thought. now im not endorsing this but do the reserch befor buying. but if up to me aqua medic 6 foot sexy light with 3x250watt de 14k;s and 2x150watt 10ks nices unit i hook up and used...... ps im still balling
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