Metal Halides
- Thread starter saltylake
- Start date
sonny
Member
Determine the wattage of MH based on the depth of your tank. Less than 24 inches, get 175 watt, 24-30 inches, get 250 watt, over 30 inches, get 400 watt. This is a general rule. If you are trying to keep colorful SPS corals like acroporas, seriatoporas, etc, you might want to consider higher wattage. 400 watts is good for those SPS corals. I do think it's overkill to use that on a small tank. I think 75 gallons is the smallest tank I'd use MH on. Heat can be a real problem with MH's. Generally, you should use one lamp for every 2 feet of tank. You can push that to 30 inches depending on the length of the tank. For instance, a 30 inch tank will do okay with just one lamp. A 60 inch tank with two... etc. Lighting is such a subjective topic. There are lots of opinions. You will have to decide for yourself what you want to do. The starting point should be deciding what animals you want to keep, and of course what size tank you have. Good luck.
Sonny
Sonny
ironreef
Member
I know a few ppl with 250w on 29g. nice growth of sps. It depends on what you want to keep. I would at least go with 2 250w I would use 10k they are better and more reliable bulbs than 12k. But whatever you use i would try 250w. Depending if heats going to be a problem in your area. if so you may want to try 150hqi or 175w. If you plan on only using 10-20k bulbs I would look into hqi ballast. They run 10-20k bulbbs 10% brighter or give more par than regular ballast.You can use hqi ballast on single end bulbs
