Advice on metal halides

[maury]

I am looking to get a complete metal halide setup for my new 210 I'm setting up. I currently have 6 72-inch 110W VHO's on it. The canopy is 1-1/2 feet tall, so I have about 13 inches over the VHO's to work with. The tank is 84 inches long, and 24 wide and 24 deep. What wattage bulbs will I need, and how many? Also, any links to complete kits (fixture/wiring/ballast) would be much appreciated. I'm looking for something with an electronic ballast that can all be wired together and be turned on by an octopus controller. Don't want to have TOO many separate light sources, as I will already have the refugium lighting, the superactinic VHO's, the white VHO's and now the Halides. Much thanks!

 

[maury]

And I was in error. The VHO's I have are 72 inch long, 160 watts each with built in internal reflectors.

 

[david s]

according to all the reading i have been doing normaly i would say 1 250 mh every 2 feet so 3/250 but u got alot of light allready so 175 may be ok but i think it goes by how deep your tank is if u are keeping all those vho on ???
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[maury]

Also, I was thinking about taking off one of the superactinic VHO's and one of the 50/50 VHO's to allow more room between the VHO bulbs for the light from the MH bulbs to go through. This would leave me with 2-160W superactinic VHO's and 2-160W 50/50 VHO's. If I went with 3 250 watt Metal halide bulbs, should I be OK? Also, do I really need to remove two of the VHO's? Would the halide light get through fine anyway with 6 VHO's below them? (tank 24 in front to back)

 

[david s]

that could be a problem 24 inch width 6 bulbs is 1 bulb every 4 inchs take a inch for bulb u only would have 3 inch spaces and there would be 6 spots so now u limitid halides to 18 inches to get thru to tank u beter wait see if one of the guys with a 210 thinks sounds to me like your vho would block some of the light