Lighting for a 92 Gallon Corner Reeftank

[sshorem@aol.com]

I am in the processing of setting up a 92 gallon corner reef tank. I have a 90 and a 44 gallon reef tanks. I am just looking for peoples opinions for lighting. I am leaning towards a 400 watt, 6500k MH with two 36 watt actinic blue PCs made by Custom Sealife. Because of the odd shape of the tank, I don't have many options

 

[mr . salty]

As soon as I saw the topic of your post I was going to suggest pretty much exactly what you have in mind. MH,with pc's for blue.

 

[burnnspy]

Sounds good to me.
BurnNSpy

 

[sonny]

That sounds good to me. The flourescents are tricky over that shape of tank, so you could consider using ONLY the 400 Watt MH, but use a 10,000 K or 12,000 K lamp. That should give enough blue light for most anything. Call some local electrical supply stores and you should be able to find the ballast for that light. I bought one for my tank (400 Watt MH ballast) for $66. I mail ordered the lamp (Iwasaki 6500K) for $59. You have to be handy to wire this one up though.
Good luck,
Sonny

 

[sshorem@aol.com]

THanks for your input. What I am leaning towards is to building a canopy for it, putting 3 175 MH in a "T" shape in the center, and then three 36" VHO actinics. I think I can fit all that under the canopy, plus cooling fans

 

[sonny]

That will work fine, but one thing to consider is the cost of replacing bulbs. Since you can buy a 400 watt 6500 K lamp for about $60, and the cost of one 175 watt 6500 K lamp is not much less, (probably $50?) you have nearly tripled the cost of re-lamping, not to mention the cost of the ballasts. I believe one 400 watt will be PLENTY of light for your tank. If you center it over the top, it will look great! Make sure you plan for some good fans inside the hood for heat disipation.
Sonny