Hi fellow T5er's, sorry for the longish message
I'm planning my next tank and it will be some 200g (280g total) tank with, 64*32*26 dimensions. Water level will be some 24". Rock design will consist fiji plates. I will place the light and current loving species to upper levels; and others to sand level. This tank will contain sps, lps softies and some fish. I'm new in the hobby, so specialized tanks are a decade away from me. I want to taste everything in this tank
I'm confused for the sizes of the lamps. I have a somewhat weird idea of placing the T5's parallel to shorter side of the tank. By this way I can place some 20*39W units instead of possible 10*80W's.
http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fotoqc1.jpg
Well, in fact I can only list three reasons for this:
1. Simulate the path of sun.
2. In case of adding a MH in the future, loosing minimal watts of T5's.
3. increased chance of tuning the spectrum and characteristic of lighting since the number of the bulbs are increased.
From these, the last two are minor reasons, so what do you think about the necessity of simulating the path of the sun? I'm planing to fire the lambs from left to right -let's say- in two hours. You get the point for the sunset. By this way corals will get the light in changing angles plus the nature of this firing method will eliminate the necessity of dimming. Even a seasonal simulation is possible. In winters, I can increase the "firing" time to three hours etc etc.
What I lost with this set up:
1. money (since the cost of the single 39W and 80W units are almost same)
2. again money (number of balast and other accesories are twice the number)
3. possibly more heat with the increased number of the balasts and tubes (not sure because the total watt value of balasts and total length of the tubes are almost same in two setups)
If you are still with me, I'm waiting your precious comments..
