Lighting upgrade question

[kelly]

I am going to get new lighting for the 75 gallon. Looking at going with MH & VHO or MH & PC or MH & NO. Which would you recommend? The PC would be 2x96W, the VHO & NO would also be 2 bulbs.
Should I use 5500K MH or 10,000K MH? Looking at the retro from M... Depot, could not find any combo retrofit kits here.
Or would it be better to go with the IceCap 660 from here and use a PC & VHO combo or 4 VHOs
Thanks in advance for you input.

 

[saltyshark]

I say the MH and the PC combo...not too sure on the Kelvin rating though

 

[mlm]

I would say the Metal halide/VHO combo with an Iwasaki 6500K for the mh and URI Actinics for the VHO.

 

[broomer5]

Are you building your own canopy, upgrading an exisiting or wanting to buy the entire lighting fixture ?
What corals are you wanting to keep ?
What I run on my 75;
Dual 250 watt Ushio 10,000K
Dual PFO 250 watt HQI ballast
4 110watt VHO w/PFO ballast

 

[attml]

A general lighting rule for keeping a large assortment of corals (SPS. LPS, soft) is that the higher the kelvin rating the better (up to 10000K -20000K is overkill in IMO). Lower end spectrum ratings (the 5500K's, 6500K,s or lower) tend to be more prone to algae problems!

 

[kelly]

broomer5,
I will probably build the canopy, I currently have 3 NO, and mostly soft corals. Not sure what I will add down the road, would would like a little more variety than I can currently house.
attml,
I was sort of leaning towards the MH & VHO, with 2 10,000K MH, and atleast 1 actinic on the VHO, and not sure on the other, maybe another 10,000K bulb.
mlm,
The kit comes with either a 5500 or 10,000K on the MH, I those are the only options.
SaltyShark,
Why PC over VHO? Most seem to like the looks of the VHO as compared to the PCs. I realize the PCs have a little more bang for the buck though.
Thanks

 

[tvan]

20,000 K is not as yellow as a 10,000K. And seems to have slowed down the algee growth. Corals are still doing well though.
HTH
Tom

 

[beefcake]

Kelly: Your using NO lights for your soft corals ? How many watts is that? Are the corals doing ok? How long have you has this setup ?

 

[kelly]

Beefcake,
I have had the setup for about 12 years, and everything is doing ok. Last year I added a 3rd 40w light. I run 2 10,000K tritons and 1 actinic bulb. I am up to a whopping 120W, about 1.5 wpg if you like the WPG thing.
I currently have mushrooms, toadstool leather, devil's hand, a finger leather
(Sinularia sp), button polyps, two types of gorgonians, branching frogspawn, a flower & curlique anenome, yellow polyps, lavender rock (a hairy type of mushroom), green star polyps and a pearl bubble coral. There are the usual things like coralline algae, tunicates, encrusting sponges, etc. I currently have only 1 fish, a yellow watchman goby.
A few months back I put in a DSB (southdown sand). The devil's hand, toadstool leather and the yellow polyps are not growing to fast, but everything else is doing just fine.
Raising 7 children, I did not put to much money in to the tank. The youngest set of twins just turned 19 last month, and the wife started working, so there is a little extra money now... Hopefully more corals and better lighting.

 

[nm reef]

Kelly ... for whatever its worth I'd suggest somethiong close to Broomers set-up....2x250 watt 10k MH with 2x110 watts of uri VHO actinics. I'm considering a serious lighting up-grade myself and I plan to use the existing VHO's I now have combined with the PFO 2x175's (10k bulbs) over my 55. I've run a combination of 4x65 PC's(10k) and 2x110 VHO(actinics) for a while now ...I seriously like the performance of the current combination but I want to expand into SPS corals and clams.....looks like MH's are in my near future. Best of luck with your decision...
By the way I've located a source for a dual PFO 175 watt retro system complete with reflector and bulbs for just under $400....my current VHO's are LN electronic and they ran just under $140 complete with bulbs.

 

[kelly]

NM Reef,
By chance would it be mar... depot? I was thinking of ordering from them...
They have them for $387 plus shipping.

 

[beefcake]

Broomers setup would probably send her corals into shock! heh I would think that upgrading to a simple VHO setup would do wonders for your coral growth.

 

[bdubbya]

I was also about to order a lighting set up from ***********, until I called them to see what kind of ballast they used in their setup. The particular setup I was looking at was a magnetic ballast. I prefer electronic ballast, because I've been told they prolonge bulb life, use less energy, and produce less heat. Thought I would let you know that just in case you were interested. You can get electronic ballast from them, but it cost a little more. HTH.
P.S. If your interested in a couple other sites that sell lights cheap email me and I will let you know. Blake323@msn.com