halides and TBS

[lousybreed]

I have heard that their cultured rock is collected in 20ft of water. would halides kill the sponges and other low light animals? does the coraline algae die off? I am probably going with vho but i am wondering?

 

[snooter1]

I have 260W of PC and the tank is doing great. Getting good purple coraline growth on all rocks.

 

[jeffbrig]

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Some sponges are low light and won't make it in the aquarium period. Doesn't matter if it's TBS or other rock. I plan on having MH lights when I put together a tank with TBS rock.

Search for wooglin's thread on his TBS tank, about halfway through the thread, he switched to a 75 or 90 gal with 2 175W MH's, and his tank looks awesome.

 

[tonyh67]

I have a combination of VHO and metal halide. Being very new I am not up on all the technical lighting data. But, I can tell you one thing. When that halide kicks on...holy cow, visually it is stunning.

 

[delta]

I run 3 400w MH 20k XMs with 2 165w actinic VHOs not die off of sponges or coraline, but 20k is a deep water color

just my experience
hope this helps

 

[Bax]

I started with 55w PC and 15w actinic while building my canopy frame (a bit low at only 2 watts/gal). About three weeks ago I started breaking in the tank to the 175w 10K MH, starting with 4 hours a day. I am now up to 6 hours/day. The responce from my corals is amazing.

My frog spawn is budding, my candy cane has several heads that are splitting. And I've added a RBTA that has found a spot directly beneath the MH and seems content to stay there. I have some sponges that are still doing well, a chicken liver and a tiny orange ball. Other sponges, tunicates and bryozoans are under the rock work where I can only get a glimps of them.

It took a lot of effort to shoe horn the PC, actinic, LED moon light & MH into this small canopy over a 26 bow, but IMO, it's worth it.