90 gallon reef lighting

[frankb]

My lfs recommended a power compact with 4 96 watt bulbs to light my 90 gallon tank. I am converting to a reef tank and wanted to see if this was good advice. I have gotten mixed recomendations from them in the past. I would like the flexibility to have both hard and soft corals. I have a oak cap so a retro kit may work as well. Any objections or other recomendations??

 

[diatom]

Frank~
I think that setup might be a little underpowered for some hard corals but otherwise out to work fine.
Personally I prefer MH but everyone has their own opinion.

 

[q]

If the tank is 48 inches long then I would go with 175 or 250W halide and pc or vho support.
This will give you the best options in the future IMHO.

 

[ironreef]

ditto halides. pc would be fine but halides is cheaper in the long run.hard corals=lsp or sps. if you don't want any sps pc/vho will be fine but you will still get better growth with halides

 

[frankb]

Thanks for the advice. What exactly would I need? Would a combo kit work with say two 55k m hallides and two 65watt blue power compact bulbs?

 

[q]

The 55K would be too yellow for me. It all depends on what you like though. If you want higher PAR the 65K souldn't affect if much.

 

[ironreef]

what are you keeping? a 250w 6.5k has more par than any 10k 400w. But I belive the 10k 400w is better just saying there's more to par than k, ballast and bulb each is different

 

[frankb]

Whoa hold up a minute. I have no idea what you guys are talking about. I have kept a fish only tank for a long time but I am a first time reefer. I know I would like to keep a combination of hard and soft corals and some reef friendly fish. What does PAR mean? Too yellow?? Could you expain a bit more from the beggining? If the board is not the right place to research this where would you recommend I go or read? I feel really confused right now...!

 

[frankb]

Ok I did more research on the site and found the bulbs are rated for the color temperature they emit. You need at least 5500 degrees Kelvin (k) for a reef. They are available in higher colors: 6500 k (looks more like sunlight, but more yellow), 10,000 k (crisp white looking light), and higher numbers like 12,000, 14,000, and 20,000 k (bluer with higher numbers).
1)IS THE COLOR CHOICE JUST FOR AESTHETICS? IF SO WHAT LOOKS THE BEST?
2)FOR BASIC SOFT AND HARD CORALS WHAT COLOR WORKS BEST? BEST VALUE? (It seems the higher k the more money)
3)I still cant find any reverence to PAR?

 

[q]

I don't have my book handy or the time to look up PAR but it is basicaly a measure of light intensity as it relates to photosynthesis. LUX is also a measure of light energy.
The hight "K" value means that what the manufacture has done is filtered out some of the spectrium of light thus changing it't color. Which is also why it's PAR is lower because some of the light has been filtered out. Higher K value the more yellow and red has been filtered out.
I like a blue tint so I am going to buy 14K bulbs and supliment it with VHO. I am not to concerned about light loss because of the 4 VHO tubes that I'll be using to supliment them with. I plan on buying a light meter to find out if I can keep the corals that require the most intense light but until I do I won't try them.
For basic hard and soft corals and even some sps that require lower light levels IMO I would say that you could choose the color that you would like the best. I have been going crazy trying to figure out the colors and which one I would like the best. Good Luck.

 

[swtanks]

Best bang for the buck. Your corals will love it. 6500K Iwasaki with actinic supplementation (if you don't like the yellow tint). The new Iwasakis (6500K DL) are supposed to be a lot whiter than the older ones but I have not seen it so I can't verify it for you.