lighting for a shallow nano

[matiLanza]

I built myself a glass nano tank which is in my stand and part of my main system. The tank is 19"x9.5"x7.25"tall very shallow, about 6" of water.
The catch is, I only have like 6" of light hanging space unless I angles it from the side.


would a HQI 150W or halide in general be too intense ? i want to try something different besides leds since my main tank is all cree, I saw someone selling some small pc lights or two coralife mini t5's but those are only 12w I think ..what kind of lighting should I be looking for in terms of watts if I do pc or t5

 

[cody6766]

A T5 light with 2-4 bulbs would be ideal. The reflectors on a DIY kit are pretty big and the stand-offs are pretty long, so you may want to look for a slim-line fixture with individual reflectors. Your tank is really shallow, so individual reflectors aren't as critical as they would be for a deeper tank.

I think your lighting height constraints are too tight for MH. The footprint will be very narrow and concentrated and it will dump a lot of heat into the tank. You probably already know this, but you're best bet is LEDs with this tank. The height constraints make it a no-brainer, but I understand the want for something different.

 

[matiLanza]

yeah the common sense thing to do is leds but i wanted to test another type of light source. do you think running some bridgelux leds without a dimmer would be too intense ? im thinking maybe 3 groups of 3 leds each, 1 white and 2 blues