Lighting

T

thumper

ok we need help here, not sure what the difference in the lights are so I guess you could say we are kinda new to the hobby of lighting, so here is my question: we are trying to build lights for our 135 gal tank so we looked at 4 VHO 160 watt bulbs with 4-65 watt actinics bulbs is this going to be ebough or are we wasting our time with this lighting setup? any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
 
The BIG question with respect to lighting is "what are you going to keep in your tank?"

The lighting requirements for a Reef tank are very different from Fish only. Also the size of the tank Length, depth and width are a factor.


So what size is your tank and what do you plan to keep?
 
this is going to be a reef tank and the measurements are
72L x 22W x 24T. we dont want a lot of the sps corals but maily softies and fish
 
VHO actinics are generally considered better than compact fluorescent actinics. I would think 4 to 6 vho bulbs would be a good choice if you decide thats what you want. You may also want to also consider a 4 to 8 bulb t-5 setup. VHOs have a lower initial cost, but the bulbs need to be replaced more often than t-5s. As with metal halide bulbs, the reflectors are very important in a t-5 setup. Is your tank center braced?
 
yes my tank is center braced, and is there a difference in the actinic bulbs that come in the regular light setups and the vho bulb that I am talking about. would it be better to just go with the t-5's instead of the t-12(vho) lights?
 
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