How high off my tank can I put my MHs and still be able to put my SPS's on the bottom

[pennyguy23]

I have the sfiligoi lighting with the ACLS units. They are the infinity 400wMHs fixtures. How high can I put my light above my tank and still be about to put any SPS on the bottom of tank if I want. Please help me out. Thanks everyone.

 

[RichConley]

Its only a 65? You could put a 250 on there and keep SPS pretty much anywhere.

I run a 250DE on my 58, and have some acros sitting on fragplugs on the sand, and they have good color.

 

[pennyguy23]

No its for a 360gl

 

[gobygoby]

what are the dims of the tank?

PS. why did you go with those lights....?? did you have to take a 2nd mortgage to pay for them?

 

[pennyguy23]

The tank is 96x36x24. I know they are expensive but worth it. I want the sun rise sun set affect.

 

[gobygoby]

for a 24" tall tank with 400 watters....20" off the tank???

on my 180(24" tall) I have 250 DE pendants that hang about 14" off the water.

how high where you thinking of hanging them?

 

[pennyguy23]

I was hoping to get 18in

This is what the hood is going to look like so the risers I was looking at aren't going to work.

It will go all the way acrosss but this was just a templet to see if I liked it.

 

[JB NY]

I have 10K 250 watt MH. I have the reflectors mounted 32" from the bottom of my tank and I can easily keep corals that have crazy coloration on the bottom of my tank.

 

[gobygoby]

oh ok...I have been watching that thread in the Large aquariums section...

Ya 18" should be fine.

 

[Wiskey]

This like almost everything else depends. The lower your fixture is to your water surface the more of your light you will use. Weither or not you NEED that light for SPS to survive depends on a lot of factors like your reflector quality, how much par your bulbs have if the inside of the canopy is painted white or not ect,...

The only thing you can do is mount the lights so they are adjustable and try it.

Whiskey

 

[Fatboy]

pennyguy23,

Good to hear that you have received your lights........ I just received my lamp this morning and hopefully it will be installed before the end of the week.

According to the Sfiligoi instructions, the lights must be at 12" from the tank water level.

Did you received the ACLS instructions in English ? I received mine in Italian but I was able to get an English copy. If you need them, please let me know.

I must say that I'm very impressed with the quality of the lamp and the packing. The box were the lamp came can stand almost anything because of the amount of styrofoam they use to protect the lamp.

 

[Fatboy]

pennyguy23,

Some information that could help you set up yours when you receive it...........

The lamp cables are coming directly from the top of the lamp and depending on how you install it, the cables can go to the right or left side of your tank.



The connectors at the end of the cables are the ones that connect directy to the ACLS's.

I chosed my lamp with mogul bulbs instead of double ended bulbs because of the selection that you can find with mogul lamps. In 400 watts double ended ones, you can only find a couple of brands.

This is how it looks the lamps from the bottom.



Take a look at the space between the T5 lights and you will see the moonlight leds...... there are a total of four moonlight leds in the lamp that are controlled by the ACLS's.



This is the size of the ACLS



There are two ACLS's and one is the master one and the other one the slave.

The lamp comes with a hanging kit.....



How much do the fixtures weigh? I'll get that info for you tomorrow.

How much cord is there between the ACLS unit and the Fixture it self? I'll try to measure tomorrow....... but as you can see in the picture, the cable is not short.

How much cord to I have from the fixture to an outlet? The cables from the fixture are connected first to the ACLS's and they don't go directly to the outlet.

Send me a PM with your mail address and I'll send you a PDF copy of the ACLS instructions.

 

[gobygoby]

Fatboy,
you just wanted to show off your fancy new toy!

ooooh shiny! cool!

 

[Chaotic Reefer4u]

very nice indeed...

 

[Fatboy]

gobygoby,

show off ? Just wait that I receive my new Deltec tank and then you'll see what showing off really means........

 

[cwegescheide]

Nice looking fixture. I like it that it has double T5's on each side and the moon lights in between is pretty nifty. The reflectors look nicer than my Giesemann fixture I have. let me see if I can post some pics for compairison..

Bottom:

Top:

Profile:

Chris

 

[Fatboy]

cwegescheide,

That's a cool looking lamp..........

I must be honest that I like the Giesemann lamp better in terms of size (the sfiligoi is big......), but I decided against it, because of the extra T5's, the moonlights and the fact that I can control "everything" with the ACLS's.

The sfiligoi lamp is much wider and esthetically that could be a problem. The only good point about it excess width, is that you can mount a better reflector.

 

[cwegescheide]

Yeah I don't really care for the Giesemann reflector. I'm thinking yours probably puts out a lot more light.. I hear that you can have a custom made Gieseman but holy toledo that would be expensive..

FWIW I know the top shelf Giesemann has the control for moonlights/dawn dusk etc but if I remember right its about 2K for the 250W HQI 48" model. Yikes!!

 

[pennyguy23]

That would be cheapier then these lights. But Giesemann can't go from 0%- 100%. The sfiligoi lighting does.

 

[Fatboy]

OK guys........ here we go.



Don't worry if the lamp is not centered, because I'm waiting for a new Deltec tank that is a little bit shorter, so placement of the lamp was done thinking of the new tank.

The Sfiligoi Infinity lamp is equipped with 2 x 400 watts BLV 14K single ended bulbs and 4 x 54 watts T5's.

Right now the lamp is operating at 68% of its peak power in order to give time to my corals to acclimate to the stronger lights. Slowly and in a period of two weeks, the ACLS controllers are going to be increasing the light until it reaches 400 watts (they say that starting with less watts, it also helps to get a longer life of the bulb....).

On the left side of the picture you can see my AP702 skimmer which is going to be installed inside of the cabinet when I receive my new tank.

Four (4) months ago I got rid of my softies and started with SPS, so this lamp should be of great help.