Lighting

[strayvoltage]

I think it would be interesting to find out how all of you light your tanks and how it works for your tank.

I will start here
I have four ten inch solar sky lights that light my eight foot long three hundred gallon tank from the time the sun comes up until it sets. All of the corals love this bright natural sunlight and grwo well.

I also have three lumenbright 250W metal halide pendants with 20k bulbs. These lights are run for different amounts of time during the year, depending on the time of year. These lights are really only supplemental lighting so that I can view the tank after the sun goes down, thus the reason for 20K. The tank gets more than enough light from the solar sky lights and could do just fine with only that lighting.

Ok lets hear from everyone about their lighting and how it does or does not work for them.

Thanks
John

 

[ryan_paskadi]

Thats interesting. I thought those skylights would only be supplementary, but I am surprised that your tank can run on them alone.

I just have a small compact fluorescent over my 26 gallon nano. It works well I have had no problems growing sps under it. My last tank had a Nova Extreme 36” T5 and grew soft corals and algae real well, but never had luck with sps.

 

[psuedopimp]

i am running a no name single 250 Hqi unknown temp; however, i believe it is 14K.
and i think 4 moon lights.

i love the fixture much more than my dual 250 single ended lights i had on my 75. i think it was much more of a function of a proper reflector and not just a piece of sheet metal.

i will just say light is not the limiting factor in my ability to keep livestock.

 

[strayvoltage]

Ryan, the skylights light the tank up very bright and the light moves all around the tank at different times of the day. All of the corals love that light and grow like weeds. There is nothing wrong with CF lighting, I kept some nice LPS under CF lighting as well as some caps that grew really well under it.

Justin, there is no doubt that you have plenty of light to grow anything you want to in that tank.

Thanks to both of you for posting here and helping a new thread along.

 

[TimGentry]

I've had an Aquatic Life T5 setup since I first started my tank. It has (2)420/460 nm, and (2)700+ nm and 4 LED Lunar lights in one unit. Timer controls T5 HO Fluorescent Lamps and Lunar LED`s independently. Seems to do well with most corals.

 

[jmait769]

I have a Nova Extreme T5HO 4X54 and I also added my own DIY 2 x 54W T5 Sunlight Supply Tek Retro System in a hood I called the Javo. Here is the build thread for that and a pic of the lighting system:

The Javo Insignificant

I'm still a little undecided on the new tank but leaning towards T5 again.

Jay

 

[strayvoltage]

Tim and Jay, T5 is a great light system if it has good reflectors, but I guess any type of light needs good reflectors. I have not used T5 but I have used Cf and now MH I can tell any of you that read this that, I have heard people say that the fish don't need light. This may be true that the fish don't need light for health but I can tell you the fish do look much much better under better lighting. I see totally different fish under the 20k MH lights than I use to see under the CF lighting I had on the tank. I am sure you can get the same resuts with the T5 as far as the look of the fish, maybe even better because there is so much more color combinations that can be made.

Jay one thing that I am really liking about these MH pendants is the dimmable ballasts. I have 20K bulbs in them but when I dim the ballasts they get bluer and look a lot like actinic lighting. Just something to think about. The draw back to them is that on a timer you still have to turn them down for dim when ready for that. They dim by 50% and can also over drive the bulb by 10%. They ballast has four different settings, 110% 100% 75% and 50%. I use 100 and 50.

 

[psuedopimp]

untill we talked the other day john, i was under the impression that you could set the dimmable ballast on a timer and set it up on a computer to simulate actual sunrise and sunset (i still believe that you can).

anybody know how they can do that, since you have to dim after the ballast?

 

[deehz]

John,
My next tank, I am going to do a similar setup as yours w/the solar tubes. Do you have any filters on the solar tubes to filter out the red and yellow light spectrum? I read this on another forum and will show you/all the link. It was beautiful! I hope to someday see your setup John, hopefully sooner than later. I am sure it is just as beautiful as the one I saw.

I was going to do a LED setup but I am now considering the all natural way. Hey, most of the corals we all have were raised by the sun and sea right? I still might do a solar/LED as supplemental lighting setup but this will be later on down the road. Also, I was not aware that you can dim MH lighting. Were did you get the ballast's? Now I am curious as well. I know that currently anything that is dimmable or that mimics nature is available on some high end LED setups.

Anyways, I would like to pick your brain John as to how you setup your solar lights. That is awesome!

Thanks!

 

[puffin04]

T5 all the way..... Though i love metal halides i just dont like the heat and the efficiency that follows behind them. But i do plan to use them when i get settled in at a house. I am using the Constellation and Tek light DIY on the other tank. So.... T5 all the way for me!

Steffen Sparks

 

[strayvoltage]

puffin04 T5 are good lights.

deehz, I don't have filters on the tubes. You are welcome to pick my brain, I am just not sure how much you mgith find in it.

 

[psuedopimp]

i was digging around and found this and thought i would bring it back up to the top. do you have any pics of your light tubes in action?

 

[strayvoltage]

Justin, I don't have but will try to get some shots for you. I don't have the light filter on the bottom of the tubes and so it does not spread the light out and make it all even over the enitre tank. I do know for sure that all of the corals really like the sun light they get. It is kind of funny, I can turn on the 250W MH and they are bright but not near as bright as the sun that shines down the tubes and spreads out.

 

[pnavarro170]

well i want to spread the good word about the icecap reef illuminations fixture i got. it has 2 tubes full of 75 individual blue led's, 2 54w T5 (got geisman pure actinics) and 2 250w MH went with 14k phoenix bulbs.

the thing is built like a tank, has built in ballasts, and have had no issues and besides the look corals seem to like it, cant tell much cuz its been only a week and i have a few sps frags and a couple brains.

only draw backs is that it is pretty heavy, like 40 lbs. and there are no on off switches but it shouldnt matter cuz you should have timers anyways.