plans for my new 400gal on the way.

[CORALFISHG]

i just bought a used 400gal tank. the mesurments of the tank are a little unusual, 7ft by 4ft high by 2 ft deep 1 1/4 acrylic. this has left me with some question's that i just can't fighure out..

1. this will be a reef, and i am leaning toward 400w halide's. will i have any trouble with the lights penatrating to the bottom of the tank. and what kalvin bulb should i be looking at. im gunna be using vho's for actinic supplement. my main thing is staying away from the yellow looking tank.

2. should i go bare bottom on this tank.. im torn on this. i always like the look of sand, but i also hate the potential for scratches with it. with this being shuch a deep tank, cleaning is already gunna be a issue on the bottom. how do you guys with high tanks clean the bottom of your tanks.

thanks for any help.. and any other advise to get me thinking will be greatly appreciated..

jason

 

[bnlimit10]

with such a deep tank, I would be using 400w mh, however I would chose t5 instead of regular vho's. T5 will go deeper and the colors obtained with them are great. As far as what type of bulb is concerned, it depends whether you are looking to be patient with acro growth or if you want the most growth possible. If you want a lot of growth you should look for lighting that will be heavy towards the 6.5k range if you want color then I would go for bulbs closer to the 20k range. As far as the yellow tint, well that really depends on what you use and the combination of spectrums, I prefer the whiter or bluer tanks, so when I did my last tank, I used 6500k on 3 bulbs 1 10k and 4 actinics, this gave me a great combination of growth and color. just my 2 cents worth.

 

[Fiziksgeek]

With that 48" depth, 400 watters are the minimum for a reef tank. You might even need 1000 Watters if you want to keep clams on the bottom. I would also shoot for a bulb with the highest par you can find...so think 10K.