lighting question???

[WickedReefer]

ok I have a 75 gal for a very long time (about 15 years)that has been through it all from discus to south american cichlids to now a reef tank. A couple days ago I noticed that the corner of my stand had a puddle of water, but I have no idea where it is coming from. I checked all corners of tank...no leak and the sump is sitting in a big tubaware so no leak there. I'm pretty much hoping it is a leak which makes me want to get a new tank. This time I'm looking to get a 120 48"x24"x24" probably from ocea. My question is that I now have an aquactinic fixture (2-175 watt metal halide and 2-54 watt t-5) with a few sps. I'm wanting to make my new tank primary sps so is the lighting I have now be ok for the 120 or should I go and get a stronger light????

Thanks ahead for responses and reading my story

 

[Mariner]

IMO, you can keep a lot of SPS with the light you've got, especially if your lights are fairly close to the surface of the water and the SPS are mounted high in your tank. Ideally though you might consider swapping out your 175w MH's for 250w MH's.
FWIW,
Mariner

 

[cadillac]

Your lights are fine!

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I have a 120 with 2 x 250W 14K MH bulbs (no actinic supplement). My light fixture is a pendant type (Aqua Medic Ocean Light fixture) that I can raise or lower depending on the need to my corals.

In my experience, most of my SPS's do fine with just these two MH bulbs. Only a few light demanding acros, mainly tabling A. milli's, requires a really intense light. If you want enough light to color up any SPS's, I would recommend going with 250W bulbs with really good reflectors. If you have a mediocre reflectors, you might go with 400's, but you will be wasting a lot of energy that way.

To give you some idea as to what only two 250W MH bulbs can do, I am going to describe how my SPS's are doing under my light.

My rose tabling milli is bright pink at the very top of the tank (probably 6 inches away from the light right now.) It seems to be very happy there. A light blue tabling milli also seems to need that much light. All other acroporas, except for one other light blue one, seem to do well in the middle level of the tank. Montipora are fine near the bottom of the tank.

If you wish to have enough light for any light demanding SPS corals, you current light may not be enough.

I heard from someone who had an Aquatinic light fixture like yours that it did not produce much heat. You might need a good fan over your tank to dissipate the heat of more intense MH lamps.

Tomoko