lilpuffer

how much lighting or i should say wattage per gallon. i have a 155 gallon with two clown fish, snowflake eel and a BTA, i have about 220 watts right now and im buying another one on tuesday. so then i will have 780 watts which is about 5 watts per gallon... is that good?............................................. ................anybody know about vortech wave makers because i just bought one?

lew2000

When I had my reef tank most recommendations were moving away from the watts per gallon rule of thumb because T5's, T8's, VHO's were producing more lumens per watt (60 or more) than FLO's and with various spectrums avialable. However, 1W per 4/6 gallons is a very rough guideline depending on tank size (depth of water)), and lighting used, FLO, VHO, etc. (VHO and others actually put out more lumens per watt).

sgould

Lighting recommendations also vary quite a bit depending on what you are planning on keeping.

lilpuffer

ok thanks! as of right now just fish. maybe coral in the future, im still new to this

sgould

I just noticed the BTA in your original post. 220 watts is definately not enough. If you are upgrading to 780 that will be much better. What kind of lighting will that be (power compacts, T-5, metal halide, etc)?

lilpuffer

three atnic blues and two metal halides

lilpuffer

ok i got the lights but they raised my temp like two degrees today. i turned off the halides when i noticed it. what can i do? is 82 degrees bad my BTA put himself in a ball, untill tonight, any thoughts on the temp??
thanks cory

Tumbleweed

Do you have a glass cover over your tank? If so remove it. 1 Option is to do evaporite cooling, which is putting 1 or more small fans on top of your tank blowing across the top of the water to help cool it. This will usually help decrease the water temp a degree or 2. The down side of this method is you evaporate water from your tank and you will need to top it off periodically. I go through about 3/4-1gal of water a day. Another quick solution is to flot frozen water bottles in your tank/sump. The third option is to use a chiller. You can make one by using an ice chest filled with ice and running a hose from your tank and coil 2-3 feet of it inside the ice chest and then run it back into your tank. You will need a pump to pump the waterthrough the tub, but this method is the most effective. If you have the money you can purchase a chiller for your tank, which is a mini refriderator that the water is pumped through to cool it. The benefits to buying a chiller to using the ice chest is the chiller can be left for extended periods with out monitering it, the ice chest will need constat matence to drain melted ice and to replace ice.
If it were me I would try the fans first and see how that goes. Then you can explore other opotions if needed.
1 last question how far off of the water are the MH lights mounted, and how long are you leaving them on for?

lilpuffer

about seven inches from the water. yesterday i left them on all day, but i talked to some people about the lights and they told me to not have them on so long. so today the timer is set to about four to five hours

Tumbleweed

That will help. With what you have in your tank 4-5 hours is more then enough time.

lilpuffer

cool thanks for all the help!!!