lighting for sps tank

I know you CAN keep sps under T5s, but It's not efficient; thats why said T5s won't work WELL with sps. They are high energy, you have to replace bulbs once a year, the heavy metals in them are bad for the environment, and you need allot of bulbs for an aquarium 30 inches deep. As i said, I know you can do it, even a tank of the month in CORAL magazine had only T5s. It showed a picture of the hood; it was covered in bulbs. I don't like the idea of a hood full of nothing but T5 tubes. A hood full of hot T5 tubes is a good way to get burned, or start a fire. You could argue that metal halides get hot to; but metal halides are a small surface compared to T5s, so getting burned is less likely.
 
I need a MH combo fixture that comes with 250w MH. I am told that 2x150w mh will not work. Would 2x150w MH work if i keep sps corals in the top half of the tank And would i be able to keep lps corals in the bottom half? Would this work. It is hard to find a good fixture that has 2x250w MH for a reasonable price.
 
The guy's tank is 30 inches deep, I don't think T5's are enough to light the bottom. I don't think you'll get good growth towards the bottom. Yes, I'm sure people have had lots of success with T5's on shallower water but if anyone knows of someone with a 30 inch tall aquarium with ONLY T5's, I would love to see it. Also, it will be more cost efficient if you go with metal halides. If you do T5's, 8 bulbs at probably around 30 bucks a bulb is 240 dollars to change bulbs. Metal halides range from 55-80 bucks new. 2 most expensive bulbs would be 160 bucks. Someone please chime in if I'm wrong
 
tchndie said:
I need a MH combo fixture that comes with 250w MH. I am told that 2x150w mh will not work. Would 2x150w MH work if i keep sps corals in the top half of the tank And would i be able to keep lps corals in the bottom half? Would this work. It is hard to find a good fixture that has 2x250w MH for a reasonable price.
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I think this would work, you may want to go with 10-12k bulbs to get better par.
 
tchndie said:
I need a MH combo fixture that comes with 250w MH. I am told that 2x150w mh will not work. Would 2x150w MH work if i keep sps corals in the top half of the tank And would i be able to keep lps corals in the bottom half? Would this work. It is hard to find a good fixture that has 2x250w MH for a reasonable price.
Click to expand...

Not at all, keep looking for a used fixture. I got a used fixture made by current usa with 2x250w halides for $200 with ballasts. I put some new phoenix 14k's and its awesome now. Keep looking you'll find one.
 
CichlidMan@<3 said:
The guy's tank is 30 inches deep, I don't think T5's are enough to light the bottom. I don't think you'll get good growth towards the bottom. Yes, I'm sure people have had lots of success with T5's on shallower water but if anyone knows of someone with a 30 inch tall aquarium with ONLY T5's, I would love to see it. Also, it will be more cost efficient if you go with metal halides. If you do T5's, 8 bulbs at probably around 30 bucks a bulb is 240 dollars to change bulbs. Metal halides range from 55-80 bucks new. 2 most expensive bulbs would be 160 bucks. Someone please chime in if I'm wrong
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+1

T5s may be great for shallow tanks but way too expensive in the long run compared to MHs and no way they will compete with MHs on a 30+ deep tank.
 
My tank is 23" deep and I have acros on the sand bed - Why not just place the acros no lower than the 2' mark, and go with a 10 bulb ATI unit?

Throw some blue + in there, along with a 6500k GE bulb, and a couple others and you have a nice option to run a SPS dominate tank (just because it is dominate, doesn't mean you can't have lower light LPS/Polyps on the bottom.)
 
Gold Stripe said:
+1

T5s may be great for shallow tanks but way too expensive in the long run compared to MHs and no way they will compete with MHs on a 30+ deep tank.
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I don't think T5s really can "compete" with MH. They are two different beasts.

MH is spotlight - which is great for deep tanks. Color is a bit limited (the reason I'm trying T5 now)

T5 light offers great color flexibility and doesn't put as much heat into the water (my experience so far)
 
If you want to keep an sps dominate tank, sps on the sand, then you would probably want to go with MH. If you think you would like to mix it up with some nice lps then with out a doubt you can go with t5s. If you want a canopy then yes it would be full of t5 bulbs. So What! With the t5s you can use just about any bulb combo you want to get the color you want. If it were me (which it's not) I would go with an ati power module, no canopy, that way you could hang it on an adjustable cable system so if you need to be gettin in the tank the fixture can easily be raised.
While LED's are nice and cool, from what I understand, (no expert) there are very few led tanks that have successfully been able to keep an sps dominate tank goin with good growth and color for much more than a year or two. Yeah you have to change bulbs etc, same with MH. All depends on what you want. Look up Grim Reefer's thread in the lighting and filtration forum, there is a bunch of information on T5's. The real key to T5's or MH is a good reflector.
 
Personally, I think you could get away with an 8 tube setup. You may not get enough penetration down to the very bottom of the tank, but you would have no problem keeping SPS in the top 2/3's of the tank with a quality unit IMO. And you may be able to keep some less demanding (in terms of light) SPS lower than that.

A few things worth noting.

The cost of 8 T5's (7 ATI & 1 KZ) is exactly the same, to the penny, as two 400W radiums. Granted, that was just looking at one vendor, and that's radiums. So yes, it could be more costly to replace T5's depending on the bulbs you choose (both MH & T5). But the cost difference is not much, if any at all.

8x48" T5's is going to put you at 432W in lights vs. 800W for 2x400W MH (Understanding of course that's going off the bulb wattage, and the actually usage may be slightly different). That's not tons of power, in fact, it's almost half as much as 400W MH's and still less than 250's. Less energy used, and less heat produced. Add to that the fact that the heat is spread out over then entire area, it's less intense vs MH which is more focused, cause more intense heat in a smaller area. IME your more likely to get burned from an MH over a T5. And if your hood is a fire hazard, well, you've got bigger problems.

I'm actually a big fan of the look produced by MH. And MH may be the best option for this situation, but it's certainly not the only option, and T5's may not be right, but not for some of the reasons pointed out in this thread. LED is the future IMO, but it's not quite there yet.
 
First off there are some pretty awesome tanks on RC running only T5. Second I am currently running 400W MH at 10" above the water and with an ambient room temperature of 75 the MH will increase tank temp by almost 2 degrees in under 2 hours without the intervention of my home AC. So if you are willing to install a chiller or live in Alaska forget the 400W MH. Your local hydro provider will love you for it. Originally I was running 2 x 250W DE with 4 x PC and that worked pretty well with properly directed fans. In about a week I will be moving to 10 x 54W with 4 x GHL Light stick which should drop the hydro bill and temp which in turn will drop the AC consumption. Judging by the T5 tanks here on RC I'm very excited. :dance:
 
The whole MH SPS requirement has been proven wrong so many times at this point, it is getting ridiculous that people still cling to this arguement.

I am not pro T5 or pro MH, I am just saying they both work and they both have been proven to work time and time again.
 
ATI powermodule 8 or 10 bulb all the way. With the great reflectors, endless bulb and color combos, good cooling, and energy efficiency that's easier on the electricity bill what's there to compete against? (Of course besides LED's but as mentioned they are not quite there yet but most definitely will be the future). I also find it absurd when people slam on T5's just because they haven't use them or stuck on MH. There are many solutions to a problem and in this hobby it's not hard to find something that will be perfect for your specific situation.

I feel as if this might become a MH vs T5 soon so hopefully the OP will find his answer soon enough.
 
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