Picking a lighting system

[ibanezboy]

Hello everyone!
I'm new to the salt water aquarium hobby, though I have had a successful fresh water tank for several years. I'm in the market for a good lighting system for my tank. (55G, 48 x 12 x 24) I'm, planning on having diverse organisms and do not want lighting to be a limiting factor. It seems that metal halides are the closest thing to sunlight out there but they produce lots of heat. I would go for a complete t5 set, but I want the shimmer.

Any opinion on the mixed MH / T5 systems? how do the bulbs get mixed, which type are usually run as actinic, or is one of each actinic. ANY help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[tkeracer619]

Run Metal halide 10-14k with 03 actinic t5's. Look in my gallery and you will see how my lighting is set up. I have VHO actinics but the concept is the same.

 

[ibanezboy]

I'm actually looking to purchasing a ready-to-go hood for 48" Mh/T5 combo. Any suggestions? I have to suspend the hood with feet from the tank, no overhang options in my apt.
the the lights are 2mh and 2t5s, would anyone run 1 metal halide actinic and one 10k and have the t5s both be actinic? What would be best mix be?

thanks!

 

[sir_dudeguy]

as far as i know there are no actinic metal halides. Those are for daylights only (which would be from 65K all the way up to 20K...i suggest using 10K-14K tho)

So you're gonna be looking at the MH's being 10-14K bulbs (if those are the colors you like...if you want more blue go even higher K rating) and then you'd have both t5's be actinic. Actually on my pc fixture i just got some new bulbs. one of the actinics is a true actinic 03. The other actinic isnt really an actinic at all....its just a Blue 460nm which is much brighter but i love the color it gives off. It gives a really blue color and the colors of the fish and corals looks way better.