Have bulbs, will they work??

inigomontoya

inigomontoya

Member
Hey, I'm not ashamed to admit, I have no clue what I have for lighting!! Nor do I know the difference between halides, actinic, or pc...
Anyhow, here is what I have under my hood on my 40gal:
96 watt 10,000K 02.10 (4 prong, two bulbs)
96 watt 50/50 10,000K actinic - trichromatic daylight phosphor and actinic 420 phosphor (one blue and one white).
So, with that... How much lighting do I have total? Is this sufficient lighting for a reef? Thanks in advance!!
Paula
 
robn70

robn70

Member
Paula,
You have 288 watts of PC lighting with just the 96w bulbs. I run 2 on my 38 gal. 1 03 actinic with 1 10,000k. Imo you don't need the home depot light. Maybe want to relace it wit a MH light for sps corals later on. As for the PC lighting you may want to run 1 10,000k with 1 50/50 and and 1 03 actinic. This would be just about right for most soft corals. Lighting depends on what you plan on keeping in the tank. I am currently researching lighting for my new 90 gal. and will most likely spend more than I spend on the tank, stand, hood and filtratin put together as I will eventually like to put sps corals in to the tank. Hope this helps some.
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
1) remove the Home Depot light
2) What size tank do you have? This will depend on whether or not it will work for which corals. I see in your prfile you have a 40 gallon but somehow I would want to know that these lights are on a 40 before I respond.
3) I Feel getting 2 10,00k lights and 2 actinics(not 50/50's)
would be better than the 50/50s and the whites.
 
inigomontoya

inigomontoya

Member
If I remove my home depot light, what shall I use for my display light? Keep the 50/50 on for my 11 hours?? I just purchased my 50/50, but I will buy the whites next time around.
This is for my 40 gallon tank.
 
inigomontoya

inigomontoya

Member
I tried asking my husband for help. He just suggests parking my car in front of the tank and shining my xenons on it.
He's not much help!!! :rolleyes:
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
jsut use what you have for now, as for display, yor 10,000k's should provide adequate light for display. they should be bright and really reflect the colors of your inhabitants. Keep the 50/50s for now since you have them, but when you go to replace them get actinic bulbs instead. this will be a blue looking light . That should be plenty for many corals and such in a reef. The home depot lighting wont be much of a help, in fact dependding on the spectrum of light it may become a problem for you.
HTH
 
inigomontoya

inigomontoya

Member
One of the bulbs in my 50/50 is a blue actinic. I guess I will be sort of experimenting for now with my few couple corals until I understand lighting more. Right now, my mushroom is already looking better, but maybe it is becuase my lemonpeel is finally leaving it alone...
Thanks!
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
Unfortunately the 50/50 is half actinic, but that is not one of the bulbs, just one of the tubes. Trust me, there is a difference. Like I said, no sense in wasting it unless you have some more demanding corals. Just use that for now, and when you get new bulbs to replace the 50/50s, go straight actinic on them. If you get it set up like that later on, get yourself some timers so you can set up the actinics to come on before and stay on after your White lights.
 
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