Supplemental Light For 10k Halide

[Mr. Fish]

I doing some research on lighting a 36",24",24" tank and I'm thinking about using one 400watt 10k SE halide along with some sort of florescent supplemental lighting to get the look of 20k.

What supplemental lighting would you recommend? I was thinking 3 39watt HO t5 ATI True Actinics?

Also what is the best 400watt SE halide? I heard Ushio was good. What ballast is best to fire them?

Thanks!

 

[sirreal63]

You will be hard pressed to get a 20K look out of 400 watt halides. You won't really have enough room to fit in enough actintics to change the look that much. For that tank, I would reconsider the 400 watt bulb, that is an extremely powerful bulb for a 24" tank. Photoinhibition comes into play with that much light. If it were me, I wold go with 250's and use 3watt Royal Blue LED's, and a lot of them. T5 and VHO will not be powerful enough to change the look to that 20k that you want, but the LED might if you use enough of them. You have space limitations that make the T5 and VHO difficult but the LED's are small and you can pack a lot of them in, and you can dim them to get the look you want. I still don't think you will get to that 20K look, but you will get closer.

 

[allsps40]

Why not just get a 20K bulb instead of a 10K and trying to make it more buld with supplements? I would get a Radium and call it a day.

 

[Mr. Fish]

I've seen quite a few 180 gallon tanks use two or even three 400 watts and since this tank is half a 180 I thought one 400 watt should be okay.

The reason I'd like to avoid just using a 20k bulb is because I'd like to have the better growth of a less blue bulb.

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