Lighting Question

scoobydoo

scoobydoo

Active Member
I have a 125 g, setup for 3 months now. Looking for lights. My choices are
3 150W MH, 4 96W PC, moonlight (834 Total Watts) for $849 S&H $60 = $909. (6.67 WPG) Coralife
3 250W MH, 4 55 W PC, (970 Total Watts) for $920 S&H $90 = $1010. (7.76 WPG). Hamilton
Is it worth another $101 to get 1.09 WPG more? I don't know I only want to do this once!
Any suggestions?
 
wax32

wax32

Active Member
Your second choice has a lot more MH lighting for the buck. If you are looking to do SPS one day, the second choice seems like the better one. But you might still end up needing more MH I'm not sure.
 
scoobydoo

scoobydoo

Active Member
Sorry, Bang, not sure what you mean my DE HQI??? Hope this helps:
First Option:
72" Aqualight pro includes the following.Three 150 watt 10,000K HQI, double-ended, metal halide lamps. Four 96 watt True Actinic 03 Blue square-pin compact fluorescent lamps. Four 1 watt Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow 470nm LED lamps. Three external HQI metal halide ballasts with on/off switches, 12-foot lamp cords and 6-foot power cords. Two on/off switches and two 12-foot power cords (one for two True Actinic 03 Blue compact fluorescent lamps and one for two Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow 470nm LED lamps.) Sleek, anodized black-aluminum housing. Highly-polished reflectors. Built-in cooling fan. Acrylic compact fluorescent and glass lens covers. Mounting Legs included. 72" x 15" x 2.75"
Second Option:
6' deluxe hood with 3-250 watt 10k metal halide bulbs & 4-55 watt actinic PC Compact Fluorescent bulbs, 2 - 4" fans, High Quality electro-white reflector, Black Aluminum canopy. Dawn to dusk effect - two switches for the metal halides and one switch for the compact fluorescents.Includes Bulbs and Ballasts. Dimensions: L72"xW11.5"xH6.5" SHIPPED DIRECT FROM HAMILTON TECHNOLOGY
 
scoobydoo

scoobydoo

Active Member
Bang, what's your reasoning? I guess I thought the more powerful mh the more it would penetrate the water and the better it was for the corals. Thanks.
 
bot587

bot587

Member
the reason i think bang guy is going with option 1 is the wattage is more than enough to handle sps or lps. Also, it covers all soft and hard coral spectrum and allows enough lighting for an anemone if the user plans on having an anemone one day. Also, 125 gallon tanks are not to deep in comparison to some models. The second choice may end up burning some of his corals. Just a thought. Maybe Bang was thinking something else.
 
rayray2857

rayray2857

Member
I have never heard of having to much light, because if you think about it, there is no light on earth that could ever match the intensity of the sun and the sun don't burn corals so as long as you don't run them to long and you keep the temp adjusted on your tank I would still go with the second choice. JMO:yes:
 
bang guy

bang guy

Moderator
HQI DE 150 watt MH put out almost as much light as SE 250's. It is less but not a lot less. She'll (fixed this :) ) also be saving almost 300 watts of power and that will add up over time.
I don't think 250's are too much light but I do believe that you can have too much light.
 
scoobydoo

scoobydoo

Active Member
Thanks for all your help everyone. By the way, I'm a SHE. I really should change my name but I don't want to lose my posts.
 
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