lighting
- Thread starter gnorts
- Start date
ocellaris123
Active member
Watts per gallon rule is not adequate. For example 400 watts of fluorescent is not the same as 400 watts of metal halide. You will probably need 4-5 watts of florescent a gallon for a bta. In a 90 gallon aquarium i would go for at least 2 175 watt halides to adequately light them. You could probably do t5 lighting or power compacts but the problem is you would need a lot of bulbs spanning the length of the aquarium which can get costly when it comes time to replace them.
Toddrtrex
Premium Member
Anything else you would like to keep in the tank that would be high light?
Back when I kept BTAs, I had them in my75, they were under 6*65 PC (( all 50/50 bulbs )) --- that would be the minimum that I would use for your 90.
However, there are better options. T5's would work -- maybe 4*54 with individual reflectors (( but, I will admit my knowledge of T5's is limited, so perhaps 6 bulbs would be better.
For MH, 2*175 would work, but if you are going to go with halides, I would bump that up to 2*250 (( either DE or SE )), mainly because there is greater bulb choices.
Back when I kept BTAs, I had them in my75, they were under 6*65 PC (( all 50/50 bulbs )) --- that would be the minimum that I would use for your 90.
However, there are better options. T5's would work -- maybe 4*54 with individual reflectors (( but, I will admit my knowledge of T5's is limited, so perhaps 6 bulbs would be better.
For MH, 2*175 would work, but if you are going to go with halides, I would bump that up to 2*250 (( either DE or SE )), mainly because there is greater bulb choices.
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