Lighting question

T

thehurts

[I have a 78"x28"x28" size tank, which makes it about 265 gal. Should I use 400W MH or 250W MH with this depth. Also do I need two or three lamps for the length. Lastly do I need two or four 72" Actinic 03 VHO supplement for the MH.


Thanks
Todd]
 
[What I would like to keep in this tank.

Set-up to 1 year ---live sand and rock, a few started fish and soft coral

1 year plus I would like to start adding SPS]
 
[You will need 3 MH bulbs. Because the tank is 28", I wouldn't get more that 250w bulbs. It is my personal opinion that 400w bulbs are for tank that are 36" and deeper. Your tank will have a 4 to 6" DSB, plus your water level will be 1" below the top of the tank, so you only need to penetrate about 22" at the most. A 250w bulb will do fine, and you need one ever 24" inches. (2 foot by 2 foot per bulb)

If you use 6500K bulbs, which are cheapest, you'll still need to supplement with actinic VHO bulbs to get nice blue spectrum into your tank, which your corals will love.]
 
[I have a standard 180g tank with 2 400w Radiums, and will get a third when money allows........I love the way my tank looks without any actinic supplements......]
 
[Newmariner Do you find there is anything that doesn't
grow well without the atinics? What is the "K" rating of the
Metalhalides, I just love to ask "WHY". Maybe everybody got used to supplimenting with atinics because MH were only available in a 6.5k now that we can get 10,12,and 20, are atinics really still needed?]
 
[Ahh, the eternal question.......

My personal opinion(nothing against Marc) would be to use 3 x 400w 20k radiums. No Act. supplementation would be required, but you may want to add some to simulate dawn/dusk effect. 6.5k bulbs are cheaper, and will probably yield better growth, BUT, the colors are typically not as vivid when using 6.5k w/supplementation. I would look into the XM bulbs(on special at Hellolights). I have read good things about them on RC, and they are almost as cheap right now as the 6.5k bulbs. If you do choose 250w, I would probably stay away from the 20k bulbs, as I have read that lamp life is significantly less and that the spectrum(or color) is not as blue as the 400w bulbs. Just my two cents.

Unfortunately, you have asked a question that has ben debated since the beginning of reefkeeping. Also, another thing you may want to ask yourself is whether you want to propogate the SPS or just simply have them for the looks. If all you want is just to keep SPS(without frequent propogation), then maybe 250w bulbs would be the best choice. However, I want to point that those who do propogate SPS can usually pay for a decent precentage of the maintenance costs for the tank......(food for thought)

Good luck
Bill]
 
[@wjfranke wrote:
If you do choose 250w said:
That is the exact same thing I've heard. So keep that in mind.

Also, consider the fact that higher wattage bulbs will draw more energy on a daily basis. So your electric bill will go up as well. If you don't need 400w bulbs, why pay the extra amount each month?

I'm not trying to be excessively frugal here, but it is another thing that should be considered. When Sanjay Yoshi gave his talk at MACNA about lighting intensity and dispersal area, he himself felt that most don't need 400w bulbs. (However, if your choice is the 20,000Kelvin bulb, then that is the only bulb that people seem to be happy with.) Penetrating 24" of water, a 250w bulb will do nicely. And only a couple of months ago, the TOTM on RC was lit with a series of 175w bulbs, much to my amazement as well as others.]
Click to expand...
 
[Added Questions for all. Bill mentioned propogation of soft and/or SPS coral. I have two of these tanks, both 78x28x28 and was thinking of setting them up for propogation. What do ya'll think, can you make any money out it, how hard is it etc.

Thanks

Todd]
 
[Propogation of softies may not be quite as lucrative as SPS. However, there are some corals that are very easily propogated, and don't have the special requirements of maintaining high Ca levels like SPS. I have heard of many complaints about a heavily stocked SPS tank being difficult to maintain Ca levels. But, if you are interested in propogation, I have a few to recommend. One, GSP. They grow like a weed. Get a decent sized mother colony, and then place pieces of liverock next to it. Within a few weeks/months, and the right tank conditions, it will likely be covered. Another one that grows like a weed is Xenia and Mushrooms/Ricordia. The one thing that you will need for softies is LR to replace with. Typically you can keep a decent supply in your sump, and then pull pieces out as you need them. I would say that softies/GSP will be fairly easy, but probably will not grow as quickly as SPS. SPS can be much more sensitive, and will have to be monitored closely. Under the 20k lights, you'll get some fantastic colors. Under 6.5k, they'll likely grow more quickly. Your choice, but its probably a wash, as purple, blue, and green SPS will fetch a higher premium than brown SPS which is more common when under 6.5k bulbs. I recommend that you look on RC as they have some forums specifically about propogation. I wouldn't necessarily say you could make a lot of money once maintenance costs are factored in, but you could likely break even, and pick up fish/liverock along the way. Good luck.

Bill

BTW, where did you get the tanks? If you're not interested in using both of them, I might be interested in purchasing one of them. Let me know.....]
 
[yeah, the tank with the 175's on RC was David Playfair's 120 out of NY. I traded e-mails with Dave and subsequently ordered a couple of frags from him since my light set-up is the same. I believe there is more to keeping sps corals than light alone, feeding, water parameters, ect. I think most of Dave's sps corals are near the top of the tank. Another often over-looked factor concerning lighting is reflectors. I think Sonjay had a great article in The Advanced Aquarist online magazine testing several reflectors. Anyway, I think 3 250's would be plenty for that tank. However if you're going with radiums a lot of people think you need the 400's for the intensity. I don't know because I don't use them. That's just the word on the street.]
 
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