Light Hunting..

triggerfinger

triggerfinger

Member
Could anyone help me out with light hunting... Here goes my question.. Bear with me..
First of all, I need to decide exactly what light I need. I have a 55 gal tank which I propse to put around 50 pds or live rock on top of 50 pds of "dead" base rock. I plan to have a 4-6 inch DSB. Now to the Lighting question... The corals I would like to have are as follows: Frogspawn, Hammer Coral, a couple of brains, some mushrooms, maybe an Elegance, some star polyps, a ricordea, and maybe a few others..
Which lights should I go with.. Would VHO's be fine, or should I move up and use MH? How many watts would u guys recommend? All the information that can be spared would greatly be appreciated...
TIA
 
sea goblin

sea goblin

Member
VHO's will work, so would MH, PC can work as well. I would suggest the HM with a combination of either VHO or PC. As a rough rull of thumb you are going to want about 6 watts of light per gallon. This is a pretty crude method for determining lighting needs though so dont go just by that. 2 MH with a VHO or PC to add blue spectrum will look good, and give you pleny of light.
Sea Goblin
 
marine fanatic

marine fanatic

Member
Hmm...a 55 gallon
a PC system with 2 x 55w 10,000 and 2 x 55w 03 actinic lamps would work well. Then upgrade to some halides when you are ready for some corals that require strong lighting. Maybe a 2 x 175w mh system to combine with the above pc system...would look nice.
IMO
 
marine fanatic

marine fanatic

Member
Maybe go with mogul MED base MH's. 2 x 150w or 2 x 175w would be good. If you want to do it yourself, try going to an electronics supplier and look into....
2 Mogul Sockets MED Rated
2 Advance R7000 Remote Ballasts
2 CLEAR (not frosted) 150w or 175w MED Mogul Lamps
Remember to get sockets, not fixtures (fixtures have the ballasts connected to them and that will reduce your working room plus alot more money). Build your own hood using measurements based on your tank, add a reflector and that should do it. Do a search in the Equipment section about DIY lights and you will get much more info to go on.
HTH
 
S

sebae0

Guest
if you don't want to be limited by light go with the metal halides and vho combo. with mh you can keep just about anything without worrying if you have enough light, 175's would do good but imo 250's would be better as long as you can control the heat. hth
 
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