How would you light this tank?

[builderguy]

I am thinking about buying a 330g tank from an old business colleague. It's 60"l x 36"w x 36" deep. I will put in a DSB on a plenum, so it will be effectively 29" deep (36" less 1" plenum less 6" bed = 29").

I have a mixture of SPS and LPS for the most-part. I like the idea of the large 60" x 36" footprint that will give me a good amount of exposed sandbed for Brain Corals, Clams, etc...

On my existing tank (150g 48x24x30h) I use (2)250w SE 12k Reeflux bulbs with VHO Actinic supplementation.

Anyway...I'm sure some of you will have some great recommendations.

 

[semigodd154]

400 watt MH and luminarc reflectors x2 and maybe vho or t5 actinic supplementation dont think 250's will light the bottom very well others who know better will chime in im sure

 

[nikon187]

How is your growth now with the 30" depth of your 150? If everything is growing fine then i don't see why 250's wouldn't work on the new tank with a 29" depth. I would use lumanbrites though to spread the light out. If you wanted SPS and clams everywhere i would probably lean more to the 400w but it would depend alot on aquascape and placement.

 

[jjk_reef00]

I would go 2x lumenbright large pendents. You can hang them high and they should give you plenty of spread. 1 of them easily covered my cube that was 30x30x36 (lwh). I used 400w but wanted to keep sps. I now have an 8' tank and I use 3 to cover it, and it works very well.

 

[builderguy]

I have crazy growth with the SPS in my tank. They are all placed midway or higher in the display with LPS from the sandbed to midway.

So maybe I just need new reflectors....I've got the Lumenarc Mini's, so maybe the LIII large or Lumenbrite?

 

[s.reef]

i would do 3 400 watts and a few t5s for supplemental lighting

 

[FishTruck]

cant go wrong with MH and T5s. Tried and true, flexible, many many choices for bulbs, reflectors, ballasts, etc!

 

[semigodd154]

agreed ^^^^

 

[YTBJ]

Canopy or open top with pendants?

 

[builderguy]

It's an open top...actually a light rack. The tank is an inwall.

 

[wildman6809]

i would go with 400w MH with Lumenarc large and t5 with it also

 

[matt_a]

i would do 3 400 watts and a few t5s for supplemental lighting

 

[skanderson]

i thought that the advantage of lumenbrights over lumenarcs and others that are similar was that they were more focused putting more light deeper over a smaller area. if that is correct, and im pretty sure it is, then i think you should go with a lumenarc type of light that has more light spread and probably move up to 400 watt bulbs. you might be able to get away with 2 bulbs if you watched your aquascaping and placement of really high light corals. also i think that vho or t5 may help you to fill in a bit to keep the light from looking uneven. it would also give you options for staggering the lights on and off. the other option would be to go with 3 250 watt lumenbright fixtures and have something else t5 or vho to fill in the front or back lighting, and again you could possibly work around this with your scaping. i run 250 lb fixtures over my 300 cube that is 30 deep and have nice colors on my stuff and it all grows anywhere, although i do tend to bleach new add ins if i dont acclimate carefully. if you havent read his build thread i would recomment sanjay thread as he is the actinic lighting expert around here and has a tank of somewhat similar dimensions.

 

[nikon187]

The lumanbrites are meant to be hung at 14-18" to spread out the light and because the reflector is so good at directing the light. It is capable of covering a 3' X 3' area at 18" off the water. They are 19 3/4" X 19 3/4" after all.