Basically starting over

[birdy]

Well I am partially starting over with my tank. I recently had to dismantle my tank to get my fish out (they had ich even though they were all QT) and I have been battling hair algae. I just purchase the stuff to build a hood with 250w MH, I have some pc's I am going to use for Actinic (I know VHO is better but I cannot afford it right now). Hopefully things will go better this time around, I am going to focus on corals and just have a few fish for the kids to look at.
My main question right now is about mounting the Metal halide. I have seen some mounted parallel to the tank and others mounted perpedicular which is better. Also do most of you have one fan or two in your canopy's?

 

[jim672]

birdy,
My hood has the MH mounted parallel to the tank. I have two fans.....one pulls the air in/across the bulbs and the other exhausts it out of the hood. I like that arrangement. It seems to keep my tank temp pretty stable. BTW, I have a 45 gallon tank with one MH, 175W 10,000 Ushio and two 96 watt VHO actinics. With the fans, I keep the water temp between 79 and 81.
Jim