Need advice on lighting

[childress5tyler]

We're planning on upgrading our lights in our 90 gallon very soon from power compacts to whatever is best...currently we have 2 day lights (65 watt) and 2 lunar lights (65 watt). We want to upgrade to either a LED or T5 but don't know which to pick. Could anybody give some feedback and even go as far as posting a link to a good fixture that may work. Our tank is 48" long. THanks for any feedback you may give

 

[flyingsean]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Childress5tyler http:///forum/thread/386824/need-advice-on-lighting#post_3399710
We're planning on upgrading our lights in our 90 gallon very soon from power compacts to whatever is best...currently we have 2 day lights (65 watt) and 2 lunar lights (65 watt). We want to upgrade to either a LED or T5 but don't know which to pick. Could anybody give some feedback and even go as far as posting a link to a good fixture that may work. Our tank is 48" long. THanks for any feedback you may give
What are you planning to keep long-term? The livestock you plan to keep is important to answering this question accurately.

 

[childress5tyler]

I have a bunch of hammer coral, zoos and mushrooms...eventually with an upgrade we'd like to get some frogspawn, torch, and more zoos and mushrooms. i'd like to get lights that would sustain all of these listed efficently

 

[siptang]

Hi welcome to the site!
I'm not an expert on lights but I have been looking around for new lights myself and I have been hearing that T5 seems like the better option.
LEDs have come a long way and some are really great but T5s are already been proven to work for those corals that you have mentioned.

 

[childress5tyler]

thank you and we actually found a fixture today, we decided on a 48" t5 fixture. found a great deal on it also

 

[swisswiss]

I would go for the T5 as well they are the veterans of lighting and are much more affordable than the other stuff.
I have been cycling my tank for close to a month now, cope-pods and amphipods are blooming, stomata snails are spawning as well as different types of mushroom corals (WHOOP, WHOOP!) and believe it or not I'm using 4X standard fresh water fluorescent that came with the tank, seeing the bloom of life I too think its about time to slowly upgrade my lighting system and have been doing some research.
I'm sticking to the standard fluorescent T5s but thinking of getting 2 X day lights and 2X night lights ( I have 2 light rails for a total of 4 fluorescent). currently my 4 lights run from 12-21 (9 h) and all seems fine, if i move to this combination of 2days and 2 nights lights would it be a good idea to keep all 4 of them lit from 12 to 21 and then have only the nights turn off later round 1am?
my greatest fear is that the night lights will bother the fish and their resting period, I read on one forum that reefs are never 100% pitch dark and are always lit by "moonlight" but is that really true, and wont 2 fluorescent be a little strong for "moonlight"?
Please let me know what you think.
P.s Sorry Childress5tyler to parasite your question with one of mine. he he -.-

 

[wartooth1]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Childress5tyler http:///forum/thread/386824/need-advice-on-lighting#post_3399862
I have a bunch of hammer coral, zoos and mushrooms...eventually with an upgrade we'd like to get some frogspawn, torch, and more zoos and mushrooms. i'd like to get lights that would sustain all of these listed efficently
Hi,
I have all those corals in my tank. For lighting, I currently have pair of 12 inch Ecoxotic Panorama LED combo strips (the ones where the color pattern goes white white blue). Under these lights, all my corals are doing wonderful. They all fully open within minutes after turning the lights on in the morning and the colors really "pop" out, especially the frogspawn, which looks like its glowing from within. I also plan on adding 2 of Ecoxotic's blue and magenta stunner strips to make the colors pop out even more. Of course my tank is only 40 gallons, so the 12 inch stips are sufficient for me... but I think they make 24 inch strips, so you may like to consider a pair of 24s for your tank.
I like these LEDs because they are low priced, modular (you can keep adding and adding to your heart's content), come already in a spash shield, generate almost no heat (so no need to spend even more money on a chiller), no bulbs that need to be replaced, low electric bill, and makes the corals and fish's colors really come to life, plus the shimmer effect that the LEDs create in the water looks great too,
The only downside I can think of is that the light is in a somewhat focused beam, so if you build your LR too high in the back of your tank, whatever is at the top may appear to be shaded, but if you aquascape accordingly, its not going to be an issue.