How high to hang lighting?

[fishboyy]

Im setting up my new tank the dimentions are 8ftX3ftX only10inches tall, i have a hqi 250 watt halide fixture, How high should i hang it so i can get a good spread of light?? i was thi8nking maybe a little over 1ft high, Any suggestions? Thanks

 

[Capt_Cully]

classically I think most people hang an MH system 8-10 inches above the water, but that's assuming around a 22-24 inch tank depth so that puts the height at say 30-34 inches above the bottom. Your tank is only 10 inches deep?? Frag system?

So I guess to get good light spread out of your reflectors you might wanna go a little higher than a foot, especially if its 3 feet wide.

How many halides are you using? what formation will they be? all in line? staggered? side by side?

 

[fishboyy]

its goin to be like a lagoon top down view kinda tank, right now i have one halide fixture and a few pc fixtures. Im kinda trying something new for me im going to hang the lights just over the rock formations The large one i will hang the halides over and the smaller ones i will hang the pc's over, if that doesnt work i will just order more halides

 

[Capt_Cully]

How high is the tank off the ground. If it's a look down, will you be looking down onto the top of a light fixture?

If it's not a frag system you can just experiment then. If light isn't spreading the way you like. Raise em up.

 

[Capt_Cully]

Oh, and BTW, sound's really funky lookin. You got any pics of that? Still can't get over 8ft x3ft x10 inches!

 

[fishboyy]

I dont have any pics now but i will work on that this weekend! The tank is 36 inches off the ground

 

[basssnake]

How many bulbs are you going to have? If only one, it would have to be pretty high in the middle to spread across the tank.