Halides on just one side of a tank

[rememberme]

I am hoping to get a large tank, probably about 7' x 2' x 2'

I do not want to buy any more halide units or pay for the extra electricity for that matter, so I was planning on sticking the halides over one end and not the other. My question is whether any of you have a tank with one side lit with halides, the other with flourescents or something (to balance it out a bit).

I am using two 250w halides. How would you place them?

 

[alten78]

what kinda coral you keeping?

 

[balberth]

I have a 180 where I'm doing this. The tank dimensions are a little weird though ( it's a custom originally done for a chinese restaurant or something... ). Basically, it's only 4 feet long, but deeper and wider than normal.

I have a 400W SE MH fixture on one end, and 150W of VHO on the other end. It works pretty well in that I can grow high light stuff under the MH and lower light stuff like mushrooms under the other end.

Aesthetically, I'm not entirely sure that this was a good choice. With the bright lighting from the MH on one end, the other end always looks too dim and shadowy, even though in reality there is plenty of light to support the mushroom/zooanthid forest.

I would recommend trying to balance things out with the MH in the middle and other lesser lighting towards the ends.

--Albert

 

[Tammy3770]

I have a 100g, 5' long at one end I have a 250w 20k MH and a 400w ???k HQI, now at the other end I have 4x96w PC's 2 daylight and 2 actenic they are 36" long.
you cannot see a line down the middle or any difference between the 2 sides, there than the way the water "sparkles" under the MH . when my bulbs start getting old I can tell that one side looks beter than the other so I change my bulbs

 

[rememberme]

Well I guess if it does look bad I can add another 250w. I certainly do not want more that 3 halides! London electricirty is astronomical in price.

I would be having a variety of stonies, softs etc. I guess it is a matter of positioning the stonies directly under the halides, and the rest can go around it.

Thanks for the responces so far... Any pics?

 

[Alaskan Reefer]

I have 432W of T5 on 2/3 of the tank and a 150W HQI bulb on the other. Took a little time to match the light colors, but now the only difference is the sparkle one one end and no sparkle on the other. Aquascaping also geared toward that as well and I love the overall effect...