VHOs?

[casper]

I have a 75gal tank w/ 2- 96w 10k daylight PCs and 2- 96w actinic blue PCs
Looks good for now. tank is 48inch long
Question 1: I am looking to put one 110VHO in the middle of the lights for more lights. Currently I only have softies, w/ some interest in harder corals. Will this help, and no I am not going to get MH anytime soon? Is this worth the investment?
Question 2: could I get away with One actinic and three 10k daylights, instead of 2&2, without effecting corals and water color?
Thanks All

 

[jlem]

The only reason to switch to VHO's is to cut back on heat and get a deeper Actinic look. You could keep just about anything with your current set up. I run PC daylight and VHO actinics and really like the look.
10K bulbs have some Actinic spectrum in them already so the Actinics are mostly for looks anyways.

 

[22caddy]

You can not keep just about anything. VHOs penetrate deeper than PCs. That would be a big benifit. You say harder corals, do you mean sps? If so, you need metal halide pretty much. They could survive under VHO, but certainly not that well.

 

[jlem]

Originally posted by 22CADDY
You can not keep just about anything
Well all I can say is that I know you can because I know people who do and have seen their tanks, but then again maybe it's the latitude and longitude in relation to santas workshop that we live at :thinking: :thinking: :notsure: . I am also curious where you heard that VHO's penetrate deeper than PC's. I really don't know which one penetrates deeper and am just curious.

 

[reefraff]

You could also look at T5 fluorescents. I think out of the box a PC will penetrate a bit deeper than VHO but the PC lamp starts losing it's punch sooner because of the heat. The T5 has better output using less watts as long as you add the parabolic reflector. The lamps also last anywhere from 18 months to 3 or mabye even 4 years depending on the color.