Is 800watts of Halide, and 80 Normal flourescent too much for a 90 gallon?

azonic

azonic

Active Member
Hey again, I need all your lighting guru's help! :)
Looking at picking up a PFO dual 400watt ballast, with two Iwasaki bulbs, 2 spider reflectors. To go with it I'd be running 2 40 watt normal actinics...Would this be too much light on a 4 foot 22 inch deep tank? Also, what does MV stand for in "Dual PFO Ballast MV"? Thanks
 
azonic

azonic

Active Member
A chiller? HRM!! I dont know about that...Im not in a very temperate place....I live on the east coast of canada....our summer is pretty well gone, temps no higher then 15 degrees celcius these days....within a month or two we wont go above 0 degrees....Would i still need one? Or could I just put fans in the canopy?
 
lucentclownfish

lucentclownfish

New Member
that over lighting can be hazardous to your health.
I have one I would suggest that you run two lights end to end maxing at about hmmm probably 500 watts.... Throw out the flourecents......or keep the flourecents and only runt the blues at night...
This would make for a cool moonlight effect at nighttime and would allow for you to rid yourself of some of that dainty light..
I dont know if you can gather all this at a whim so I will say
that further more if you run all that light all the time you will have to change 25% of your water at least once a month.
All that light will create a large ammount of algae growth
brown pink and the ever regretful red slime.........I suggest getting rid of some of your light for sure.
One halide at each end should be sufficient and even better two together at one end would be better.. Fish dont like to be in the sun for all that time I bet that corals dont either... Just a whim.
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
If it helps I have 2 400 MH and 2 110 VHOs over my 75 ;) Really depends on what you want to keep, my 75 is dominated by sps, if this tank is going to contain a variety of coral with different lighting needs you might be better off with just dual 250s. If your going to run iwasakis I would suggest a pair of VHO actinics, NOs wont really be bright enough to rid the sakis of their yellow tint. I love the color of the iwasakis, they are not the nicest color but when combined with actinic supplementation they look pretty good and they are by far one of the brightest bulbs you an get, of course opinions vary, and their are certain bulbs that have a much better spectrum. The best thing to do is play with different bulbs and decide for yourself ;)
 
chris l

chris l

Member
I for one am trying to understand what Lucent is trying to say about that lighting being too much. A lot of people on this board run about 10 watts per gallon. Also what does all of the light have to do with doing 25% water changes? It's my understanding that one should be doing 10% water changes every week anyway.
You are looking at less than 10w per gallon so I say go for it. I have a 44g and I will be putting 575w of halide on that. JM2cents
 
broomer5

broomer5

Active Member
After doing some research, and much advise from many here on the board, I'm in the middle of updating my lighting.
75 gallon mixed reef display tank.
Want to be able to try my hand at some sps soon.
Going with (2) 250watt 10,000K MH and (4) 110watt VHO ( mixed lamps )
That's potentially 940 watts over a 75 gallon tank, and I've factored in distances from lamps to top/mid/bottom of tank.
No one said I plan to run them all at the same time ;)
 
lotr_clown

lotr_clown

Member
Hey broomer,
I'm running the same setup on a 105gallon. It is has been great so far. If your gonna start with new live rock you might get some wild sps out of it. Some of the stuff came back after 6 weeks in my tank. I'm real happy so far with the 2x250 and 4x110 vho 03's. Being an 105 mine is taller than the 75, so you will have plenty of light. Frags at the bottom of the tank don't keep color as well in my system. You should probably not have that problem. Temp was a problem at first, but I got an air conditioner unit to help the central heat and air. It keeps my tank and me cool. 10,000K bulbs run close to white, but with that much 03 supplementation, it will be a nice blue. The VHO's will seem to be too much until they burn in and you will like the colores. GL and keep us posted.
 
dad

dad

Active Member
OK, OK, I just have to jump in here, lol
I think the setup is sounds great!
Alot of heat, yes. Depends on how the are set up though etc?
Good luck, I wish I had the money to do so myself, ;)
 
bobothewizard

bobothewizard

Member
Watts per gallon means nothing. And that light setup will most likely heat up the tank so much it will kill your fish. Just my opionion. For a 75 gallon tank, depending on the DEPTH, a 250 would most likely be fine. Unless that tank is close to 36 inches in depth, then you would want to run 400's. If you had more water volume to dissapate the heat it would also be fine. 75 gallons wont take much to heat up.
 
bobothewizard

bobothewizard

Member
Dont forget though you have double the water.
Edit: Well not really double. Thought this was about a 75gallon lol. Dunno where i picked that up. Ugh, chiller... Hope i never have to get one, there soo dang expensive.
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
My tank runs between 79-81 with no chiller, 3 4" fans in the canopy, one 8" fan on the sump, lots ov evap, and the central air is set at 72. HTH
 
lucentclownfish

lucentclownfish

New Member
you may or may not get bad algae growth with all those lights , but think about the downside. If you have too many lights it may be "uncomfortable," for the fish. It may casue undesired erosion of rock and its inhabitants. I dont think that having more than enough light is desireable in this kind of closed enviroment.
You may think this: Fish like shade and corals need light to live.
Well, how bout selecting certain areas for light and corals and areas for fish to cool and sun themselves without over lighting...
This is just a suggestion but remember that if your taink raises over 83 degrees for any length of time say over an hour or two you may loose corals due to coral bleaching.
Lucentclownfish
 
jonthefb

jonthefb

Active Member
lucent, i strongly disagree. i keep my reef tank at 82-84 degrees and my corals do much better than at 78-80. none of them have ever showed signs of bleaching, and never will! where are you getting your information from? id really like to know
jon
 
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