lighting opinion.. 175 watt halide good enough?

[Blitz99]

is a single 175 with 110 watts actinic PC supplementation strong enough for zoos and palys in a 24inch deep tank?

i prefer keeping the zoos on the bottom and have been using this set up for a while now, however i notice slight color fading on SOME of the palys but not all.. some seem great, some a bit dull.

 

[AnimaliA]

That should be fine. You will have to decide if you are interested in growth or color though. The color looks better (IMHO) with the bluer bulbs, but zoas tend to grow a LOT faster with 10k or even 6.5k bulbs.

 

[DrBDC]

If you throw an 175 Iwasaki 15,000K bulb on there you can grow anything you want. It would have more par than most the 250's.

 

[Azurel]

A single 175 on a 24'' deep tank is not going to be that much light, that is why you are seeing some fading. That will be with any bulb, the deeper the tank the higher the watts to push the par deeper into the water of course there are higher and lower par bulbs in each wattage as well, which will effect how well your lights penetrate the water.....Now if you moved them(the ones fading) up slowly you will see a better improvement in color on the ones that like the higher lighting. Blues will like the lower lighting in my experience and will be much bluer in lower lighting and will fade a bit in higher lighting.

 

[Blitz99]

Azurel, i've noticed my blues stretch up high and have real nice thick stalks down low...


so what about ppe's? and rpe's? and nuclear sunshines? i hate having things with color high up in the tank because i dont get to see them put off the color nearly as much... but until i find an iwasaki bulb (which i havent found one yet in stock)

 

[jamesbuf]

Would be fine for zoas, but if you ever try your luck with the harder to keep sps, you'll find yourself in a losing battle.

 

[complexbooger]

i run two 175w ushio 14k on my 125g. i sup with +100w PC Anitinic. i keep the center for lower demanding corals, inverts.

i like it

=JonBlazes

 

[Blitz99]

i only have LPS and softies.. i dont get into the sps stuff for the most part...

could i put some SPS in the very top of the tank if i ever wanted?

 

[salsipuedes]

yes. while it may not flourish, you definetly will see growth with most sps

 

[DrBDC]

With the Iwasaki 15,000 bulb even sps will flourish lower in the tank. To upgrade the par output at higher kelvin bulbs, you would have to go all the way to 400 watt mh's to have a higher output and color temps at colors above the 10,000K level.