hey everyone, ive got an old 29 laying around and have always wanted to do a sh tank but never had room. I will have a 10 gallon sump and plan on having a pair of erectus.
For this tank I want to do it as natural as a tank can be. I really want to do seagrass mainly shoal grass, but I am stuck on what type of lighting I will need.
I am somewhat tempted to use my coralife powerquad 96 watts of compact fluorescent but at the same time I really would be interested in metal halide. For the halides I would probably go with a 175 watt system. I am just wondering if anyone knows what influence the 175 mh would do to the heat; I want to keep the tank at the reccomended 72*F which will be impossible in the summer months. Usually in the summer room temp is around 76-78. I figure that I can get that down a few degrees with fans blowing on the surface but I dont know if the mh would add a tremendous amount of heat. and also, would how high the bulb was off the surface make a difference in heat?
So my question boils down to: is switching to mh overkill, for the shoal grass, and a waste of my money, and possibly the beginning of horrible heat problems?
For this tank I want to do it as natural as a tank can be. I really want to do seagrass mainly shoal grass, but I am stuck on what type of lighting I will need.
I am somewhat tempted to use my coralife powerquad 96 watts of compact fluorescent but at the same time I really would be interested in metal halide. For the halides I would probably go with a 175 watt system. I am just wondering if anyone knows what influence the 175 mh would do to the heat; I want to keep the tank at the reccomended 72*F which will be impossible in the summer months. Usually in the summer room temp is around 76-78. I figure that I can get that down a few degrees with fans blowing on the surface but I dont know if the mh would add a tremendous amount of heat. and also, would how high the bulb was off the surface make a difference in heat?
So my question boils down to: is switching to mh overkill, for the shoal grass, and a waste of my money, and possibly the beginning of horrible heat problems?
