can i keep sps corals with only 4 T5 HO bulbs on 75 gallon.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

6 bulbs would be much better. Does you fixture have a parabolic reflector or ICR (individually contoured reflector)?

If a parabolic reflector, it's worthless. The key to T5HO is the individual reflectors or ICR, that wrap around each bulb, in a ' gull wing' configuration.

4 bulbs with quality reflectors, will allow you to grow some SPS, as long as they're kept high in the tank.

Depending on the fixture, but with just four lamps and from that manuf it is pretty low in PAR. Now 6 or 8 quality lamps, even in a parabolic reflector, is plenty light for non-very tall tanks to keep anything thriving, even sps.
8 Lamps in a parabolic is similar to 6 lamps in slr's.

 

[reefWW96]

i keep almost every kind of sps in my 75 gallon with 4xt5's. my fixture is the current sundial but just get a new ballast for yours and you will be fine.

 

[kawicivic]

i kept sps just fine in my 75 with a current nova 4 bulb fixture for over a year until i upgraded. Just keep them in the top half of the tank, and dont expect great growth, they will grow just not fast.

+1

 

[maddog2002]

I had TekII T5 HO 4 bulbs setup before. I only can keep some easy SPS(Like Green milipora) at top of tank and very slow growth. You need at least 6.

 

[reefsahoy]

reefww96 and kawicivic can you post some pics? thanks i'm considering doing another shallow 20 inch deep tank with just minimal t5's and LED's for shimmer. want to see if it can be done with little power usage.

 

[rino0987]

i am just going to throw this out there... I have a 4 bulb icr fixture from odyessa and it is great i have about 4 different sps corals and they are doing great and i have the stock "no name" bulbs

 

[reefsahoy]

pictures are worth 1000 words.

 

[Hayek]

I grow SPS under Current USA 4 x 39 watt t5s with stock bulbs in upper half of the tank. I recently upgraded the actinics to ATI blue plus bulbs. I think they are doing fine; a bit emaciated, but I get good growth.

Here are some pictures. Frags started at about 1 inch six months ago. For the first couple of months I didn't add calcium, strontium, iodine, molybdenum, etc, and there was very little flow.

 

[Hayek]

For some reason I could only attach one pic in the last post, here's another.

 

[corbett_n]

get higher par bulbs and put your sps really high int he tank.