Light ??? please your thoughts

[dgbnyc]

Hi,
I have one simple 40W UV on my 55 gal. tank.
It sits on top of the hood. In the hood there are glass panels that I suppose I could remove.
The light I have is a 20,000K coralife.
Here is my ?
I know my light is very small for my tank.
Would it help if I removed the glass that sits between the tank and the UV light? Would the evaporation be a problem with the light fixture or electricity?
Or should I just leave it as it currently is?
Thanks,
David

 

[javajoe]

removing that glass really wont do much either way. What do you keep in the tank?
We are on a really tight budget for our reef tank, but wanted to go for it anyway. We saved TONS of cash with DIY projects. We built our own tank stand, our own light hoods, used SD sand for a DSB, and bought a little at a time. We started with lower wattage lights, then added to it as we could afford it. Kept just LS and LR with some fish, then after we upgraded the lighting, we were able to get some corals. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have as to our setup-- also, i will almost definately have some pics up by midnight tonight of our setup--- i finally got a USB cable long enough to let me camare reach the computer. (its a webcam, and i have been too busy to move the pc into the other room just to take some photos )

 

[dgbnyc]

Thanks so much for your reply!
Here is what I have.
I bought a used 50 gallon tank with a large wet/dry filter, cpr skimmer & UV steralizer for $300. Don't know if that was a good deal or not.
Since then I've made a stand from a packing crate and added a 20lb bag of LS, one bag (40 or 50 LBS?) SD sand on top of the LS & just yesterday got my 'big purchase' 40lbs LR from Gulf-VIew. The rock is soo cool that I'm all into thinking about upgrading my lights.
I keep reading about VHO, Compact florcesent & Metal Halide. MH seems way too complicated for me but I don't quite understand the pro/cons of VHO or compact florecent. I don't have any fish just now but plan to add some and also some inverts like crabs & cucumbers. Corals and aneminies are kind of a dream!
I'd totally be up for a project in putting together a lighting system if I could save a good bit of money but am not familear with electronice at all.
Well,,, thanks again for your reply & thanks in advance for your up-coming response.
David

 

[javajoe]

David,
I did a lot of internet seaches for DIY lighting, and found an idea for using Vinyl gutters upaside down to hold the bulbs. sounds cheesy, but looks fine. you could even paint them black if you wanted to, but i left mine white. I had bought a used 55 gallon for $20. My tank was 48 inches wide, so the standard 48 inch bulbs were perfect. i hot glued the bulb clips in and bought a coralife 40 watt NO (normal output) ballast. (in case you dont know, the ballast is what makes the flourescent bulbs lite). this whole set up cost me about $50, plus another $40 for 2 NO bulbs- one Blue Actinic, and one 20,000K daylight bulb.
Anyway, this worked for just the LR, fish, snails, crabs etc, but our goal was coral.
For xmas, my wife bought me a icecap 660 ballast (best one on the market if you ask me) and i added 2 VHO bulbs for another $60 or so. (used the leftover gutter for the other light hood.)
my tank is only 12 inches front to back, so using metal halite was not a great idea- would waste a lot of lite- as the average coverage is a 2 ft diameter- and this would spill outside the tank. The advantage of VHO (Very High Output), PC (power compact) and MH (metal halite) is the ammount of wattage you get. You need higher wattage for keeping most corals.
I was going back and forth between PC and VHO, and ended up going with VHO because it seemd the best for my tank size, and also, it is difficult to get TRUE actinic bulbs in PC. The nice thing about the icecap ballast is that it has a port that you can plug in a dimmer to simulate evening, morning. (this is extra- around $200 and we dont have one yet- not for while!) Also the 660 allows for 4 48 inch bulbs, so once we save up some more cash, we can ditch the 2 NO bulbs and go with JUST VHO. A 48 inch VHO bulbs is 110 watts, a 48 inch NO bulbs is only 40. So, with VHO 4 bulbs give you 440 watts.
With corals, there is a "rule" of 4-5 watts a gallong which most people dont subscribe to, but the basis is pretty accurate. If you have 40 watts of light in a 55 gallon tanl, corals wont live too good.
As for your live rock- i would not use the UV filter- you might want to research that, but in my opinion, it will kill the 'good' bacteria in your LR.
I rambled, so i'll stop. let you digest all that, and post back if you need anything else cleared up--- you will find this forum and EXCELLENT resource- 6 months ago, i never knew the reef tank hobby existed, and i have learned a TON from the people here.
Enjoy!
Joe

 

[royce]

Nice reply, Javajoe! dgbnyc, I also have a 55, and I went to several fish stores and looked at how their tanks looked under the various lighting because like you, I couldn't decide betweent the VHO and the PC - I liked the looks of the VHO much better and figured that when I go to a bigger tank, I can use them and add some metal halides. I bought a 4-lamp VHO (440W)set-up from hellolights.com. Electronic ballast, plug in wiring/endcaps and URI bulbs, all for ~$220. This ballast does not have the dimmable feature that the ice cap does, but it is a little more affordable and I like it. It throws so much light that it looks like aliens have landed in my living room <img src="graemlins//eek.gif" border="0" alt="[eek]" /> One suggestions I have is to get the 46.5" bulbs which will make it easier to mount them into the canopy. My husband built one for me and it didn't take him very long - it's a great way to save some $$. I have already told him that he's building the stand and canopy on my "next" tank - whenever THAT is . . .