which spectrum metal halide should I get

B

bchdFLdian

I'm renovating my lighting on my reef tank. It is home to SPS, LPS, colts, shrooms, hydaphora, black and pink and yellow sun corals, etc etc The point of my story is that it's about time to get a new halide bulb(did I mention i had a crap load of zoas?)

Anyway, so i have an icecap ballast running 4 48 inch 110 watt vho's 2 super actinic, 2 white actinic, and the 400 metal halide. I've seen bulbs from 4500 to 20,000. Now I only use the halide for about 6 hours a day but It's showing signs of age and I want to replace it.

Does anyone know my magic number? I've always been told that the corals that carry zooanthelle benifit from the higher (more blue) spectrum, and I have alot of those, but what I want is to be able to relax in front of the tank without it looking yellow, or blue. I want the vibrant colors to glow, but still see a relatively natural type of tank.

While I'm on the subject, I'd like advise on moon lights. I could whip up some LEDS no sweat, but it that really good for the corals? most LEDs are very focused. All I'm looking for is just enough light to feed my sins in the dark :p

Thanks a bunch,
-Donoavn

any sugggestions?

-Donovan
 
Hi Don
The magic answer depends on you! 6500k is what your corals will like the best but the water will look yellow unless you have alto of atinics. Normally 10k look white all buy themselves 15k look like 10k with atinics. and 20k look like straight atinics to me. Just remember the farther you get from 65k the slower the growth is.
HTH Joe
 
That's why I was thinking about doing the white actinic VHO's to offset the two super actinic I already have. I've got two extra slots on my VHO ballast.
Having enough light isn't the issue at all. All my corals are exploding with growth. I've got someting like 8 star polyp frags, 15 pink birdsnest frags, 9 yellow branching suncoral frags, 2 black sun coral frags, the fuzziest hynaphoria I've ever seen (thanks chris), a neon green open brain, trumpet coral, assorted mushrooms, a nice colt, and from rainbow zoas to most of the color of the rainbow zoas. I guess I'll go middle of the road on the halide. the once I get the color of the tank looking good when just the VHO's look good, I'll probably burn the halides maybe 3-4 hours a day. Mind you this is a 75 gallon tank.

I have another question. I have another 400w MH ballast and socket, but the 400 in the tank is really quite enough. I see with flourescents, the bulbs are run in series. I think I might wanna try to burn two 250 watt halides so that the light is a bit more even across the tank. But here is the question, can i run 2 250w off one 400watt ballast in series(will that burn up the ballast? Do I run 2 400 watt bulbs(it'll be like the sun coming in my apartment to visit). Do I run both ballasts and only put a 250 watt bulb in, or will that smoke the bulbs.

Are there any electricians in the club? I'm a disabled vet, so i definately can't afford to be taking a chance and wrecking what I have already. I don't think I'd be able to recoverfrom a financial point of view.


Thanks for the advise,

-Donovan
 
I think you did a poll, must will say they run 10k.
I run 10k and it's pretty white and bright.
I recommend the xm 10k for the best budget 10k bulb.
hth. :D
 
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