Lighting for my new 200 gallon!

[Guest]

Well I put my 200 gallon oak aquarium for sell the past 6 months and I have sold it to 4 different people! But much to my amazement none of them ever followed through!!! I guess god sees fit that it just wasnt meant to be sold so im going to set this baby back up!!!!!

My tank is 7' x 2' x 2' and I have a custom lighting fixture with 3 250 watt MH bulbs and 2 6' actinic VHOs. The MH bulbs were always so yellow and never looked right at all so my guess was that they were 5600K but im really not sure. The bulbs say Coralife on them and they are single end bulbs (not HQI).

My real question is what types of bulbs should I be getting, I am much more familiar with HQI MHs than these single ended fixtures. I plan on setting this tank up full reef with mixed corals with low lighting corals such as leathers/shrooms/polyps and high light corals such as some kick butt clams/hardcorals/milliis etc. With this in mind what K should I be getting? 14K with softies at bottom and hards on top? Could I go to 20k? Should I dot what DNA did and put 14K on the sides with 20K in the middle? (Sadly this tank is not brick style/euro braces so I do have a glass median.

Let me know what yall think any info would be appreciated! I dont know much about these single ended fixtures. If you suggest a bulb please let me know (if you know) the more cheaper places to get, perhaps provide some URLs. Thanks!

Im going to restain entire tank as well, I will probably post a building log so keep your eyes out! Thanks!

 

[ReefGod]

I find it that the best balance between color and growth comes from 14K-15K, at this point i prefer the phoenix (for DE setup) and XM's (for SE setup). The colors that can be achieved with the right water parameters are just amazing. The 20K is a bit too much because you will get the best color but not enough growth. For a 200 gal system i would instead focus on getting the largest possible skimmer and the best flow to get the best results. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Ok sounds good. Im going to sound stupid but what do DE and SE stand for? I was leaning toward some 12K-15K. I cant decide what to do now though. I havee this 7' 200 gallon thats NOT RR so im thinking about going all out and selling it and buying a brand new one from glass cages and building my own stand for it. If I do that I might even jump to a 300 gallon. What protein skimmer you recommend for this size tank 200-300? I have like an EV protein skimmer on my 150 reef but its doing a sorry job, I must not know how to get it going

Thanks again

 

[DaveJ]

@TexasTravis wrote:

Double Ended and Single Ended. Before you buy a glass cages you may want to do some research on them as they have a fairly poor record of customer service when something goes wrong and they only cover silicon failures with their warranty.

Skimmers... it really depends on your budget. You can go with an Octopus Extreme 250 or 300 that will set you back around $400 or so, or you can go with something like a Bubble King 250 for $1700. There are all sorts between them too, Deltec, EuroReef, H&S etc.

 

[ReefGod]

Never seen the skimmers Dave mentioned, but i would definitely go with the largest one i can fit under the tank. The is no overdoing as far as skimming goes. I'm a big fan of Euroreef, although i'm sure there are other brands just as good like Deltec. There are also cheaper knock off brands that you can get away with like ASM if you do some research.