Upgrading lights?

[e-dog]

I am going to upgrade to MH. My system is:

65 gal 36Lx18Wx24H

corals:

assorted mushrooms
cup coral
open brain green
tree coral
leather coral
brown polyps
yellow star polyps

fish:

royal gramma
longnose hawk
flasher wrasse
algea blennie

I'm thinking of running 1 MH bulb and two 96 watt pc's. I would like to start keeping clams and sps. What wattage MH should I start with 175 or 250? And what kelvin MH would be best with the pc's being 50/50 or all actinic?

thanx Erik

 

[Blown 346]

I would use a 250 watt halide, since you are going with actinic supplementation, I would use a 14 K bulb depending on what brand you choose. different brands will have differnt colorations with kelvin.

 

[Blazer88]

Do you have a center brace? If so, one MH is going to give you a shadow. I cut my brace out and replaced with a clear acrylic one so I could go with a single 250W MH.

 

[j0tca]

I agree with Blown on the 250W, better to go bigger with light IMHO.

I would go with 10K lights though. I currently run 14K Hamiltons but I had to add VHO 10Ks to get the color back to white. 14Ks are pretty blue to run with actinic, I find you need white light to balance them out. So my suggestion, 10K with actinics ( I ran this for a while) or 14K with 10K (or 6500K) pc. I currently run 2X250W Hamilton 14K with 2X165W 10K VHO and 2X110W VHOactinic on my 6' 125.

Good luck with the upgrade.

Will

 

[e-dog]

I should have mentioned my current lighting:

220 watts 50/50 pc's.

Would 250 be too bright or would a little acclimating be alright?

 

[e-dog]

Oh yeah my center brace is not a big piece of glass it is only a thin strip of plastic so I'll be alright there.

 

[j0tca]

Since your tank is mostly softies you'de have to find out if your mushrooms could handle the light. I would say yes but it depends on what mushrooms you have and their placement. A lighting upgrade changes the system so could have unforseen results but I think you'de be O.K. I added 315W VHO and just turned them on without any acclimatisation period and everything was fine.

Will

 

[e-dog]

I have mostly red but there are also purple and green striped. But they can be moved lower in the if need be. I am anticipating a tank reconstruction for acclimation because I have been keeping them under pc's for years. And besides I could always sell some of the mushrooms and help pay for the lights, I have alot of them.