Curious about lighting wattages in tanks.

[d12monkey]

I'm curious to see how many watts you guys have per tank. More interested in the crazy wattage per gallon people are using on their setups. I personally have 550 watts (250W 13000K MH and 300W Actinic VHO) on my 29 gal on the display and 130 watts of PC on my 20 gal long refugium.
So that would be 680 watts to a total of 42 gals total water volume. That's 16 watts per gal total and 19 watts per gal on my display.

And that's not including the 10 bulb led moonlight system on the display.
Anyone else runn crazy high watts per gallon and what effects are you getting from it?
Here's a pic of my lighting system on my 29 display.

 

[d12monkey]

bump

 

[mobikobeyob]

I have a 36 gallon bow, I run 2X150W de Hqi Mh -20k and 2 65w actinic/daylight Pc's for 10 hours a day. Thats 430 total watts, or 11.94 wpg. I figure why just have the minimal lighting required. I have been doing so for a month now and The only effects I am getting are excellent polyp extension, coraline on glass, and a very fast growth rate.
I initially thought it was overkill going with all that light, but now I am glad I did. Overall I am very satisfied with my amount of light, and spectrum also.
Mobi

 

[nm reef]

Dang...I guess when it comes to lighting(and only then) I'm a conservative!!!!
I run 2x400 watts of Ushio 10K MHs and 2x110 watts of URI super actinics over my 100 display and the 55 gal refugium has 4x65 watts of 10K PC's.

 

[d12monkey]

Well do you think there's a point in which it becomes overkill?
I'm having a little prob with red slime. The only thing I can think that's causing it is my lighting. My turn over ratio is 500 GPH maxing out my overflow. My nitrates and nitrites are 0 and my phosphate is also 0.
My photo period is 7 am - 10 pm on the actincs and 7-9am and again from 6-1pm on my metal halide. All Bulbs are less then 2 months old. And my refugium lighting is on 24-7 and it has no red slime. Weird huh?
But it's good to see that I'm not the only one with crazy amounts of wattage under their canopies.

 

[mobikobeyob]

I think your Photo period is a little long, and may be the reason for the slime. the bulbs are kinda new too. cut the time down to 10 hrs total.
I would also increase the flow, I personally run a 960gph Iwaki on a closed loop with a scwd. as well as skilter 400, whatever gph that thing is.
As for overkill, I think you are approaching that point at 19wpg. lol, then again I say forget about the wpg rule, and use whatever works.
Mobi

 

[dacia]

Whoa...if I could afford more lighting such as you guys have, I would defintely get it. I have 4.3 wpg over my 30 gallon reef. I have very pleasing results with softies and LPS...I would like to have at least 6 wpg so I wouldn't necessarily have to worry about starving some of the LPS from light.

 

[dburr]

A better skimmer would help the slime. The skilters are junk. You can mod it with an air stone to get it alittle better.

 

[reefer44]

first off, lighting as nothing to do with nusiant (sp) algae(as long as the bulbs aren't extremely old), it is all water quality......as dburr said get a better skimmer or find another way to get nutrients out of the water.....
another thing is that lighting is very important but is highly over rated.....when i say this i speak from experience........curently i run 6 x 250w DE HQI lighting over my 180g and although i get some colors that would not show under only 3 250's it is not worth it...........i have seen tanks that get just as good or better color then mine (although mine is a new system and most of the corals are just beggining to color up and show there true colors) that run only 3-4 250w's over the same tank........IMO the importants goes: water quality, and lighting and flow are tied..........
here are some pics:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/show...hreadid=144419
Brad

 

[d12monkey]

My nitrates and nitrites are 0. My tank has mag 7 tuned down to 500 gph pointing directly at the sand where the slime is a problem and I've seen no improvement in the condition of the tank. It actually got worse once I put in a the skimmer.:notsure: I guess I must be doing something wrong. I'm going to cut the time on the actinics to see if that's the problem on the display. But would wouldn't I have a worse condition in my refugium which is on 24-7, but I don't have any problem with red slime in it?
bout read to give up and put in that red slime remover. Don't want to do that.

 

[reefer44]

nooooo...i hate that stuff its just a cover up......by any chance are you using Oceanic salt???....there seems to be a connection between it and red slime.........also i would up ur flow with maybe a maxi jet or 2.......cutting down the lights is only going to effect the corals....
Brad

 

[searcher]

fyi cyanobacteria does not need nitrates or nitrites. So those measurements are irrelevant regarding a cyano problem.

 

[mobikobeyob]

Originally posted by dburr
A better skimmer would help the slime. The skilters are junk. You can mod it with an air stone to get it alittle better.
Umm, :notsure: no aglae prob here.:notsure: but the skilter has been modded. Thanks
Mobi

 

[dburr]

Oops

, sorry, i've been burning the candle at both ends lately and getting messed up on who wrote what. I need a few nights of good sleep.

 

[motohead]

wow,nutso on the lights you people are.loli got a hundred w/360 watts of vho's.course i have nothing that requires the high intensity lighting ya'll got.dont reckon i ever will either lessun you know where i can buy a chiller for about a hundred bucks.

 

[d12monkey]

Originally posted by motohead
wow,nutso on the lights you people are.loli got a hundred w/360 watts of vho's.course i have nothing that requires the high intensity lighting ya'll got.dont reckon i ever will either lessun you know where i can buy a chiller for about a hundred bucks.

Motohead: I'm in the process of buying a drinking water chiller and doing some mods to it. Hopefully it'll create a more effective chiller. Will post on a DIY tread on that the turnout is. But all in all I think the math comes out to $95.16 including tax. let y'all know on efficiency of this project. I haven't really seen anyone trying this type of chilling.

I have a 10" fan blowing across the water in my refugium and a 5" fan blowing into the canopy. Temp is constant at 78 degrees. Had to place a DIY auto top off system to compensate for the evaporation.
Update on Cyano problem... seems to be going away, Haven't changed anything in the system yet. Photo period is still the same. But looks like my macro algae is starting to win over the cyano for nutrients.

 

[hexagon30]

Noob on the scene here, any good suggestions for "full blast" reef lighting on a 30 gallon hex, it's a FOWLR now but I will make turn in into reef when everything is stable.
BTW there's a big cherry hood on top so space is kind of limited.
Thanks

 

[hariii2]

Just my 2 cents. I had red slime algea too, but it went away when I started using only RO/DI water for changes and top offs.

 

[d12monkey]

Hey Hexagon30, what do you want to grow inside that tank.
You could run a halide on it but that canopy would have to be replaced with a taller one. Or you could run some PC lighting or VHOs.
Thanks for the input Hariii2, I do use an RO/DI system that's on an autotop of.
The cyano is completely gone, and my marco algae is flurishing. No change to the photo period.

 

[hexagon30]

Originally posted by D12monkey
Hey Hexagon30, what do you want to grow inside that tank.
You could run a halide on it but that canopy would have to be replaced with a taller one. Or you could run some PC lighting or VHOs.
Thanks for the input Hariii2, I do use an RO/DI system that's on an autotop of.
The cyano is completely gone, and my marco algae is flurishing. No change to the photo period.
Thanks for the reply D12, well that's what I'm wondering, I just examined the cherry canopy and the room from the glass cover to the roof of the canopy is about 5.5 inches.
I have a retrofit in there with a 15"inch 15watt flourescent. If I can get some high wattage setup in there then I can determine what livestock will thrive.