lights???

[aquatics24]

Well i have 2 marine glow and 2 power glow bulbs in my hood. they are 40w...it seems like they arnt that bright, but when the room is dim/dark, they are amazing. Any opinons, i dont really wanna change out my light sources, just the bulbs...would someone recommend 60w or even 80w?? It is mostly a fish only, but will a few corals. thanks

 

[scsinet]

We need to know what size tank this is and what kind of corals you are talking about.

 

[aquatics24]

180g...i dont have any corals.....yet

 

[scsinet]

Well you aren't going to be able to keep anything without a serious lighting system upgrade.
From what I understand, you have (2) "marine glow" and (2) "power glow" bulbs, all 40 watt. This comes out to 160 watts of light. On a 180 gallon tank, this is less than one watt per gallon.
This amount of light is unacceptable for any corals, other than non-photosynthetic (non-light-requiring) corals, but as a rule these are hard to keep.

I have no idea what "marine glow and Power glow" mean, and those bulbs are probably well aged, so you'll want to replace them. Your fixture will only run the types of lamps they are designed for, so you'll have to replace the fixture.
For a 180 gallon tank, to keep even the easiest corals and inverts (Mushrooms, Zoos, Leathers, other soft corals, etc) you will need maybe 500-600 watts, giving you 2.7-3.3 watts per gallon. This can be metal halide or any fluorescent technology. You can probably go lower... maybe 350-450, but really, since you have to buy all new lighting, you might as well spend the little bit (maybe 10%) more to get it done right.
If you want to be able to keep anything, you'll want at least 1000 watts of metal halide, but that doesn't sound like what you want, so we'll focus on teh above.
If you use fluorescent (cheapest), I'd go with T5 or T12 VHO. You can do it yourself or buy a commercial hood. Use half Actinic and half Daylight bulbs, and you'll be all set.
By the way... if you are on a budget (it sorta sounds like you are), then you could also do a FOWLR and Invert system. You can put in your live rock, reef safe fish, and inverts that don't require light... feather dusters, stars, horseshoe crab, conchs, tube anenomes.. be creative. Then you can upgrade your lighting system when you are ready and start adding corals.

 

[aquatics24]

Originally Posted by SCSInet
Well you aren't going to be able to keep anything without a serious lighting system upgrade.
From what I understand, you have (2) "marine glow" and (2) "power glow" bulbs, all 40 watt. This comes out to 160 watts of light. On a 180 gallon tank, this is less than one watt per gallon.
This amount of light is unacceptable for any corals, other than non-photosynthetic (non-light-requiring) corals, but as a rule these are hard to keep.

I have no idea what "marine glow and Power glow" mean, anthose bulbs are probably well aged, so you'll want to replace them. Your fixture will only run the types of lamps they are designed for, so you'll have to replace the fixture.
For a 180 gallon tank, to keep even the easiest corals and inverts (Mushrooms, Zoos, Leathers, other soft corals, etc) you will need maybe 500-600 watts, giving you 2.7-3.3 watts per gallon. This can be metal halide or any fluorescent technology. You can probably go lower... maybe 350-450, but really, since you have to buy all new lighting, you might as well spend the little bit (maybe 10%) more to get it done right.
If you want to be able to keep anything, you'll want at least 1000 watts of metal halide, but that doesn't sound like what you want, so we'll focus on teh above.
If you use fluorescent (cheapest), I'd go with T5 or T12 VHO. You can do it yourself or buy a commercial hood. Use half Actinic and half Daylight bulbs, and you'll be all set.
By the way... if you are on a budget (it sorta sounds like you are), then you could also do a FOWLR and Invert system. You can put in your live rock, reef safe fish, and inverts that don't require light... feather dusters, stars, horseshoe crab, conchs, tube anenomes.. be creative. Then you can upgrade your lighting system when you are ready and start adding corals.

not on a budget, they are 48 inch fluorescent. I dont kno what they are called, just one is blue color and the other is whitish purple...thats why i said they were marine glow/powerglow to see if anyone knew...they are fluorescent, i dont want to change my lights, because i rather just get new bulbs....so you are sayin i should get all new bulbs, around 100-120 watts each? not sure if they make that many watts on that type of bulb

 

[aquatics24]

while we are on the topic, what about the refuge light in my cabinet...i was told a lower wattage light is perfect for the plants...maybe you kno better...I have a dual 12" fixture, only one 15watt bulb is in it now, would you suggest adding the other 15w...its going to be mostly chateo

 

[aquatics24]

Would these replacement bulbs be beneficial? or too much, Im mostly doing fish, but some corals, not alot tho.
VHO T12, 10,000K Daytime bulbs 110w(x2)
VHO T12, Actinic bulbs 110w(x2)
total of 440watts???. Will it look too blue?

 

[aquatics24]

bump...anyone else know???

 

[lobstergrabber]

Originally Posted by aquatics24
Would these replacement bulbs be beneficial? or too much, Im mostly doing fish, but some corals, not alot tho.
VHO T12, 10,000K Daytime bulbs 110w(x2)
VHO T12, Actinic bulbs 110w(x2)
total of 440watts???. Will it look too blue?
They would work fine but will not work with your fixture. You have a NO fixture and these are VHO bulbs requiring different hook ups and different ballast. The only bulbs you can put in your fixture are the same type you have. They are not designed to run different wattages of bulbs.
Rich

 

[scsinet]

Fluorescent fixtures aren't like table lamps; you can't just stick whatever wattage in there. If the fixture has 40 watt tubes, that's what it is designed to run. A 110 watt VHO bulb will FIT and MIGHT light up, but it won't put out any more light than the old bulbs because the ballast inside is only a 40 watt ballast. Even swapping the ballast isn't always a good solution because sometimes those fixtures use plastic components that won't do well under the additional heat of VHO bulbs.
You HAVE to change the fixture or somehow modify it to make this work. You simply cannot keep corals with what you have. Sorry, I know that's not what you want to hear.

The combination of bulbs you specify may look too blue, or may not. The answer to your question is largely a matter of opinion. It'll be somewhat blue, but shouldn't be too bad. The majority of the "visible light" will be from your 10K bulbs. The actinics put out as much "light" but it's not as bright, so it's not as noticable.
Even 440 watts is a very small amount of light. Keep in mind when I said 500-600 watts, 500 would be the absolute minimum that I'd even attempt. 600 would be much better. The setup you are suggestiong (440 watts of VHO) is exactly what I set up over my 55 gallon tank. You're talking 1/3 the size tank wiht those light. Even then, I ripped them out a few months ago and upgraded to even more light. Now I have over 550 watts of fluorescent and halide.

It doesn't matter how many corals you are going to keep. Even one coral requires a certain light intensity in the tank. If you put only 440 watts over your tank, you'd have to concentrate the bulbs together in one area, and place the corals high on the rocks directly below the bulbs. I'd look stupid IMO. :thinking:

 

[aquatics24]

Ya good point. Thank you for your help. It looks like i will be upgrading the lights...and obviously it is ok to have it that bright with fish...how bout the refugium, right now its at 15w...should i put the other bulb in and make in 30w?

 

[aquatics24]

bump

 

[aquatics24]

Ok so ive decieded im not going to mess around, im going to upgrade to a 60", 2x 250 MH with 4x65w PCs. Should i get all the PC's the actinic blue...or two actinic blue and two 10,000K bulbs? I dont want TOO much blue, but i want to be able to get that effect in the tank.

 

[scsinet]

I'd put 10,000K halides in, then put in half actinic and half daylight.
Oh, and BTW, sounds like a great lighting choice for this tank. That'll yeld 760 watts of light, so you'll be able to keep almost anything.

 

[aquatics24]

Originally Posted by SCSInet
I'd put 10,000K halides in, then put in half actinic and half daylight.
Oh, and BTW, sounds like a great lighting choice for this tank. That'll yeld 760 watts of light, so you'll be able to keep almost anything.

Thanks for the help

 

[supermanvx]

So ive had the fixture for a couple weeks now and i finially just hooked them up to see how bright it was...and this is how i looked :scared: ...it seems TOO bright...or is that just my imagination, and thats what it looks like to have GOOD lighting?
**my name changed from aquatics, incase if you were wondering

 

[scsinet]

I assure you , for a 180 gallon tank, this should not be "too much." For comparison purposes, I have a total of 458 watts of light over a 55 gallon reef (2x 54w T5 and 2x 175w MH). That's 2/3 the lighting on a tank less than 1/3 the size.
There is a point with reefs where the lighting gets too intense and starts to burn the corals, but that is when it's ridiculous. If you had this much light over a 75g, for instance.
The lighting system you describe sounds PERFECT for your size tank. I can tell you that in my experience, halides are much brighter at the very beginning than after they've had a week or two to break in. Give it a little time.
I'm sorry if the effect is undesirable for you, but perhaps there is a way to meet your desired look and have enough lighting for what you want to keep.
I'm betting that your lighting system has several power cords, at least one for the halides and one for the fluorescents. You can hook them to different timers and create a sunup/sundown effect so you get a chance to see all different lighting intensities during the course of a day. Set your fluorescents to come on first, your halides an hour later, then the reverse when they shut down.

Another thing you could do... you didn't mention what color temperature the halides were. I recommended to go with half 10K and half actinic fluorescents because you didn't want an overly blue color, but you could swap the 10K bulbs for actinics to reduce the intensity somewhat. Actinic bulbs produce most of their light in an invisible (or less visible) range, so you'd have the same intensity without as much perceived light.
By the way... as far as too bright... imagine what the reefs in the wild look like... lit by the sun.

 

[supermanvx]

Yep i got the 50/50, but yea, its not that i dont like how bright it is, just when i first turned them on i was like, WOW...didnt expect the halides to be this bright, thank you for the help and assurring me im not blinding everything