lighting help

[rjd0521]

Hi,
I have a 185 gallon custom tank which is 50"x30"x26".
I am planning to grow sps and have questions about the lighting.
Can I grow SPS with 4x54w T5HO Wavepoint brand?
If not, what would you recommend? (T5 or LED wise, no MH because of the electricity bill). My budget is around $300. Please provide brand and price.
As a note, I am planning to keep the SPS and coral in the upper portion of the tank as I have bottom dwelling fish so no corals will be at the bottom.
Thanks.

 

[snakeblitz33]

Hello and welcome to the forums! I hope you enjoy your stay.
There's a guy on here that is going to upgrade from a Tek T5 8bulb system with almost new bulbs in another thread. His screen name is verojeremy or something like that. You might need to talk to him to get a pretty good deal.
If you are building a custom tank, why would you skimp on the lights? I would say that LEDs are the way of the future - and there are some good Chinese built lights in your price range, but you would need two.
I would love it if you could post some pictures of your setup!
Again, welcome to the forums! I really hope you enjoy taking part in our little community.

 

[1guydude]

+1 ud be better off with a 6-8 bulb t5 unit but there are cheap oddysea MH units out their. Get one large enough with two MH's 250w or better!
Ive never done MHs and ive always refered to them as tanning lights so make sure to get a chiller (big$$$)
honesty the two best upgrades for a reef tank are lights and filters... dont skimp on these!

 

[snakeblitz33]

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1guyDude http:///t/392532/lighting-help#post_3486142
+1 ud be better off with a 6-8 bulb t5 unit but there are cheap oddysea MH units out their. Get one large enough with two MH's 250w or better!
Ive never done MHs and ive always refered to them as tanning lights so make sure to get a chiller (big$$$)
honesty the two best upgrades for a reef tank are lights and filters... dont skimp on these!
I don't know if you caught it or not, but the OP's original purpose is to not increase the electric bill. He said he didn't want to go with metal halides. Just letting you know. LOL
Personally, I am going to be trying my hand out on building a DIY LED fixture for my next tank. I am seeing some pretty good results from people who have built their own units... on average it's costing right around $300 to $400 dollars to build a 48" fixture.

 

[1guydude]

well with a low E bill it'll have to be LEDs....snake do u know anything power wise about the plasma's?

 

[snakeblitz33]

Quote:
Originally Posted by 1guyDude http:///t/392532/lighting-help#post_3486236
well with a low E bill it'll have to be LEDs....snake do u know anything power wise about the plasma's?
Nope.

 

[1guydude]

man one was offered to me at payments...almost to hard to pass up a $900 light. Almost....

 

[rjd0521]

Thanks for the reply.
Let me provide you with some background.
I did not build the tank, I actually got it as a birthday gift from my wife. She bought it used for $200.00 and surprised me with it. So I went from a 65 Gallon SW tank ( had it for 4 years) to this 185 Gallon.
I will take pictures of the entire setup and will post the pictures in a few days.
When I first got the tank, I bought a used 48" Jebo Power Compact light for $50.00 (which really sucks by the way) as I was suckered by my LFS (what the owner told me " yeah, you can do anything with those lights" Sure, but at $50.00, I was like whatever I can upgrade later). Now, I want to do SPS but the Power Compact will not even be near close enough to sustain the lowest light requirement Corals.
My electricity bill is $680.00 this month no kidding. Usually, it averages $400.00 per months. So I definitely don't want to add to the bill by getting MH.
I just looked at RapidLed and it looks very interesting right now but I will need to spend about $800.00 to be able to sustain SPS.
So my question right now is, can I get away with getting the 4x54w Wavepoint T5 which the LFS is giving me for $170.00 and use it for 10-12 months and then get the Rapid Led in the near future to add to the T5? or should I just start getting around $200.00 of Rapid Led and then add to it later on?

 

[snakeblitz33]

I'm a penny pincher myself. I wouldn't invest into a lighting system that I know isn't going to do a thing for what I wanted it to do and then put more money into the light that I really wanted.
Take this time to save up for your LED light and go get an energy audit on your home. It may be able to help you determine problem areas. If you can save some on your bill, you might have the money faster for your LED light.

 

[flower]

Quote:
Originally Posted by rjd0521 http:///t/392532/lighting-help#post_3486095
Hi,
I have a 185 gallon custom tank which is 50"x30"x26".
I am planning to grow sps and have questions about the lighting.
Can I grow SPS with 4x54w T5HO Wavepoint brand?
If not, what would you recommend? (T5 or LED wise, no MH because of the electricity bill). My budget is around $300. Please provide brand and price.
As a note, I am planning to keep the SPS and coral in the upper portion of the tank as I have bottom dwelling fish so no corals will be at the bottom.
Thanks.
Hi,
Wecome to the site! Lights are the most expensive thing to purchase for keeping a reef tank. It's the one area you should never go cheap on. I had MH lighting for a few years and to be honest I didn't consider the extra $5.00 a month increase on the electric bill to be such a big deal.
$300.00 lights, LOL...I paid $300.00 for a fluoresent two bulb unit 10 years ago. So unless you are purchasing used lights, you will spend more than $300.00. Save up your money, you will need super good lighting to keep SPS corals. Having bottom dwelling fish doesn't mean you can't keep corals on the bottom. On a nice deep tank like that you can keep all kinds of coral that require lower light that are beautiful.
I would love to see pictures of your set up. I look forward to you hanging out with us here.

 

[rjd0521]

This is the "Before" picture of my tank. That was right after I got it and just filled it with water to test the sump for leaks. I double checked the measurements and it is actually 52x30x28. The light fixture that you can see on top is the Jebo Power Compact. I will take the "After" pictures tonight of the entire setup and will post them tomorrow.
As for the MH and electricity bill, I was thinking 2x250w MH so a total of 500W or roughly 550 watt at the ballast. So with some rough calculation, it would be .5kw/hour so leaving the MH on for 8-10 hours would be a total of 4-5Kw per day, times 30 days, so roughly 150Kw per months. My electricity bill always goes to the last tier which is .35 cents per Kw so it would be approximately give of take between $40-50 per month extra. This tank is adding an average of a little over $100.00 per month on the bill so an extra $50 is actually a lot. A list of my equipments includes: 4 powerheads (2 Koralia 1400 and 2 MaxiJets 1200), a rio 3100 return pump (as you can see in the picture), another rio pump feeding my skimmer, a reef octopus dual 6 recirculating skimmer which has 2 external pumps, and a heater. All the equipments are running 24 hours. I am going to get rid of the 4 powerheads when I can afford to go with the Ecotech mp60 and mp40.
Addressing the corals on the bottom of the tank, I have a stingray which burrows himself in the substrate. Every time he comes out, he moves a lot of sand which gets on the corals that are placed on the bottom. I am speaking from first hand experience as I have previously placed a brain coral on the substrate and the brain was covered with sand after a few hours as my stingray was moving around so all in all, I will not be keeping corals on the substrate.