Light Question

scsinet

Active Member
Holy Crap!
While the amount of light may not directly harm the inhabitants, any amount of light you have above what you need is simply wasted electricity, both in direct power consumption by the lights and in power consumption to run a AC in the house and chillers on the tank to get rid of the heat.
 

05xrunner

Active Member
its fine..i had a 760w MH fixture over my 75 and thats teh same depth as a 55..its just 18" wide as well and 55 is only 12" wide. It also depends on what you are keeping. If you are only keeping Softies and LPS then its a big waste.
if you have SPS then your not doing any harm cause they need it. hell i have seen people run 400w on a 10g..LOL thats retarded but still.
its funny, Its either you have to much light or not enough. Thats why I take what alot say with a grain of salt.
 

scsinet

Active Member
Originally Posted by 05xrunner
its funny, Its either you have to much light or not enough. Thats why I take what alot say with a grain of salt.
I disagree... there is too little light, there is more light than you need, but there is also a range of light where it's a good amount. It's not as if 300w=too little, 301w=just right, 302 or more=too much.
I honestly think that "too much light" is hard to achieve, but really what defines too much light is a subjective term. More light than you need causes heating and electricity waste, but it probably won't actually harm livestock. Too much light can literally burn fish and corals, but that is an insane amount of light usually.
I personally look at electricity waste and excess heating as a bad thing. On the other hand, I know of lots of teens and kids on the board who do this who don't care, presumably becuase it's not them paying the electric bills, so it's all in where your priorities lie.
Is this OP's lighting going to be too much? Yes, by my definition, but it probably won't hurt the tank provided it doesn't heat it too much.
 

scsinet

Active Member
Originally Posted by derekc
its 2X250W MH and 4X65W T5 ..............the stands are 5" inch high also
Just a point of interest to you (that is if it's interesting)... if it's 65w lamps, it's going to be Power Compact lamps, not T5.
 

harlequinnut

Active Member
I think it's a bit excessive, you would almost certainly have to run a chiller to cool the water down in the summer months. You said the stand is 5" high, does that mean the lights will be 5" above the water level? The lights need to be at least 8" above the water IMO.
 
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