Need help with lighting

benwildog

benwildog

Member
I am looking for lights for my newly setup 110. The tank is 30 inches high and want to make sure i get enough lighting. I'm looking for a 48 inch metal halide/vho or pc type hood, but do not know if 2x175 mh is enough. Do I need 250 watt mh's, 400 watt mh bulbs? Also does anyone have any experience with the t5 setups I was curious of the limitations/advantages. Money does matter so Im looking for the best bang for the buck. Any advice is very appreciated.
 
robchuck

robchuck

Active Member
With a 30" tall tank, you would need 400W MH to get sufficient light all the way to the bottom of the tank. 250W would work, but the bottom 6" of the tank or so would only have enough light for lower light corals.
T5 setups are nice in that the bulbs are so skinny (5/8") that they allow the reflectors they sit in to reflect alot more light into the tank than bigger fluorescents, plus they can be overdriven on Icecap ballasts. But because your tank is 30" tall, it would be tough to get sufficient light down past say the 18-20" range.
 
benwildog

benwildog

Member
Thanks for the input, do you need more than mh? I see most detups include vho or pc for the actinic. Also Can anyone give me some advice on the best light or light combination? My tank is 48X18X30 inches, 30 ince=hes is the height. Just looking to get the best idea of what is ideal and also something at a decent price, I can not drop $1000 on a light right now. Thanks
 
marvida

marvida

Member
Quite often the actinic supplementation is for our benefit. It adds blue into the mix giving us a warm fuzzy feeling. However I have read that some organisms do benefit from it.
 
benwildog

benwildog

Member
Tell me if this would work, 1-400 watt mh, 4-65 watt pc with the mh centered would this get enough light to the bottom corners?
tank again is 48 inches long, 18 inches deep and 30 inches tall.
Thanks
 
marvida

marvida

Member
I don't know how it would look but you would have a bright center where you could place clams, sps, etc. and then on the sides you could place softies & such. I doubt if you would get 100% coverage by centering the bulb, the outer 12" on each side might be somewhat shadowed. If there is a center brace, that could make centering the bulb difficult.
 
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