Lighting for 30" - 40" wide tank...

[nightOwl]

For those with wide tanks what light fixtures or combination of lights are you using to light your wide tanks? I am in the process of upgrading and my tank dimensions are 82" x 40" x 26". I am looking for suggestions and an idea of what people are currently using. If responding please include the following:

• Width
• Light fixture or combination
• Height from the water

Thanks in advance

 

[Darthv247]

u could use kessil ap700's if u want led. they can spread up to 48 inches with a good par spread. could supplement with t5 if u like too or reef brites.

 

[Nanook]

What kind of corals are you going to grow?

 

[nightOwl]

u could use kessil ap700's if u want led. they can spread up to 48 inches with a good par spread. could supplement with t5 if u like too or reef brites.

Darthv247 - Thanks I will start some research on these.

What kind of corals are you going to grow?

Nanook - I will have a mixed reef but mainly SPS with sticks and caps...lol

 

[sfsuphysics]

Are you going to have plenty of swimming room against the glass/acrylic? if so you can worry a bit less about your spread and worry about the light being bright where the corals are.

 

[nightOwl]

Are you going to have plenty of swimming room against the glass/acrylic? if so you can worry a bit less about your spread and worry about the light being bright where the corals are.

sfsuphysics - Mike are you asking if the tank is just going to be packed to brim with rock and make a rock wall? If so the answer is no. I will have some rock but not packed like back in the day when we pilled all the rock on the back wall. My tank is going to be viewable from three sides...one on the outside of the fish room and the other two from within the fish room.

 

[savvybuckeye7]

Lighting for 30" - 40" wide tank...

Lighting for 30" - 40" wide tank...

I think that a 30" wide tank is less of a worry since most lighting systems will cover a 24" space and the 3" on each side of that spread I think is negligible. The chances that you are trying to grow coral on the front and back are unlikely. However I am setting up a 36" wide tank now and I'm going to use ai Vegas run parallel in the middle and 2 t5 on the front and 2 t5 in the back.


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[sfsuphysics]

sfsuphysics - Mike are you asking if the tank is just going to be packed to brim with rock and make a rock wall? If so the answer is no. I will have some rock but not packed like back in the day when we pilled all the rock on the back wall. My tank is going to be viewable from three sides...one on the outside of the fish room and the other two from within the fish room.

Not necessarily rockwall, but whether or not you'll have coral growing near the walls. Are you going to have open areas of the tank that are sand, and nothing but sand (or barebottom if you go that route) without thinking of growing corals on the ground?

My view of a tank is that it does not need one roughly constant amount of light on all spots in it. As an example, if I had a bommie at one point in the tank, then 2 feet of empty sand between the next rock structure I'd put lighting over the bommie, and then the next rock structure, as the overlap from the two would more than like make the sand look plenty bright without having to waste needless electricity (and cost of equipment) to put a light over that one particular 2 foot section. Not quite spotlight effects like a lot of beautiful Japanese tanks, but only one notch down from that.

My advice is don't get hung up on the way your lights need to look forever, be dynamic with your lighting not static, so that if you find yourself needing more light you can put it in.

 

[skanderson]

I guess I'm going to be the only one to say 400 watt radiums in a lumenarc reflector. I have 5 over my 36 inch wide and tall reef and the lighting I nice. if you want to not put as much light and heat and your tank is shallower you could go with 250 watters. get ballasts that are wattage adjustable and you can see what you want to do.