reef lighting
- Thread starter fish boy
- Start date
sea goblin
Member
if you want to keep just softies and shrooms then PC or VHO would work fine for you. Rough rule of thumb would be probably 3-4 watts per gallon on that setup. So something like 225 to 300 watts would be good. This is just a suggestion, you can use metal halide if you would prefer that, it would mean you might need to shade the shrooms untill they can adjust, but if you ever wanted to go to SPS and clams then you would have to upgrade from the PC or VHO anyways.
Sea Goblin
Sea Goblin
nm reef
Active Member
Sounds like the start of a decent reef project...established 75 converting to a reef.
Lighting is a open ended topic. It sort of depends on the type corals you prefer to keep. For your purposes with softies and 'shrooms and such you could probably get by with a minimum of 220 watts of either/or PC's&VHO's(thats just for low intensity)....additional lamps would increase your output. Personally I like the combination I use for now. I'm able to keep a large assortment of LPC/softies/'shrooms/polyps/leathers/...even a squamosa clam & a couple of nice SPS corals. I run 4x65 watts of 10k PC's & 2x110 watts of URI super actinic VHO's...on a 55 gal reef.In my opinion my lighting is moderate at best.
There are multitudes of lighting options and combinations...most preferences are PC's/VHO's/MH's...best bet would be to decide what corals you'd like to keep long term. Then design the lighting up-grade to suit your needs.
Just as an example...if I was going to light a 75 reef for leathers/shrooms/LPS corals...I'd install 2x250 watts of Iwaski 6500k MH's & 2x110 watts of URI actinic VHO's...you could build a real nice reef with that lighting set-up. Plus...your imagination is the limit is deciding on a combination of available lighting options to suit your needs.
Not that you'd need it or anything but since you are converting to a reef....check this link out...Reefkeeping 101 ...its full of bits of information that is very useful in regard to developing a reef. Hope it helps ...
Especially check out the section on lighting....lots of tech info that may help you make a decision for your reef.Best of luck....
Lighting is a open ended topic. It sort of depends on the type corals you prefer to keep. For your purposes with softies and 'shrooms and such you could probably get by with a minimum of 220 watts of either/or PC's&VHO's(thats just for low intensity)....additional lamps would increase your output. Personally I like the combination I use for now. I'm able to keep a large assortment of LPC/softies/'shrooms/polyps/leathers/...even a squamosa clam & a couple of nice SPS corals. I run 4x65 watts of 10k PC's & 2x110 watts of URI super actinic VHO's...on a 55 gal reef.In my opinion my lighting is moderate at best.
There are multitudes of lighting options and combinations...most preferences are PC's/VHO's/MH's...best bet would be to decide what corals you'd like to keep long term. Then design the lighting up-grade to suit your needs.
Just as an example...if I was going to light a 75 reef for leathers/shrooms/LPS corals...I'd install 2x250 watts of Iwaski 6500k MH's & 2x110 watts of URI actinic VHO's...you could build a real nice reef with that lighting set-up. Plus...your imagination is the limit is deciding on a combination of available lighting options to suit your needs.
Not that you'd need it or anything but since you are converting to a reef....check this link out...Reefkeeping 101 ...its full of bits of information that is very useful in regard to developing a reef. Hope it helps ...
Especially check out the section on lighting....lots of tech info that may help you make a decision for your reef.Best of luck....
nm reef
Active Member
In my opinion that set-up would be low level of lighting for a 75 reef. You could likely keep a decent selection of low lighting corals with success. Really its all in what you'd plan to keep for corals. That lighting would be good for 'shrooms...polyps...leathers...and possibly a few types of LPS corals. But you would be limited in your selection.At least that my opinion.