travie

The water column is around 18 inches from substrate to the surface. Which lighting would allow me to have LPS, SPS, and Soft corals throughout the whole tank?

cerianthus

Don't know tank size(L& W)? But def w/ MH for SPS and clams. May have to look into chiller w/ MH during Hot summer unless Central A/C is available or lots of fan on top of tank w/o canopy too disperse hot hot air produced by MH

Mike

I keep sps and crocea clams with T5's. Tanks under 24 inches usually do quite well with T5's. You may need to place any sps corals in the mid to top sections though. No chiller needed (usually) with T5's. Metal Halides are still the best for getting the most par over the corals but you have to factor in the heat issues, electric bill, replacement cost for bulbs, etc.

I would try to persuade you away from mixing soft and stoney corals too. It can be a headache dealing with allelopathy (toxins) in the water and growth rates of the corals being affected.

au01st

I have some SPS growing great and they're right at the middle of my tank. My fixture is the 4x54 Nova Extreme (not the pro) with a single reflector. I have a clam placed on an Rock-Mag (check em out, they're cool!) and it's about 5" from the surface and doing great so far.

edit: BTW, I didn't place the clam on the rock-mag for lighting reasons, I put him there to keep the hermits and CBS off him. Only snails can make it up onto the rock-mag. I think I may put all my clams along the back wall with a little tilt forward to show them off. The first one looks great!

http://www.deepwaterrock.com/RockMag...1/Default.aspx

Peterpiper

I am with Mike on this one, we have 325lt tank 24" high and with 150lt in the sump..
we tried a 400w MH on it.
Tank fry, temp went from 25c to 27c in 8hr, and the living room was the hottest room in the house ( and the brightest ).
Going for the T5HO 4' Quad and may add some more to get the watts up

travie

A 400 watt bulb without a cooling fan will do that to you. How close did you have the light to the tank?

EDIT: After looking around the last few weeks, I probably won't consider SPS in my tank. But softies and LPS, I still want to do. Does that effect my lighting choice much?

au01st

Yes. T5 will be great then.

Mike

That rock-mag thing looks really cool. What a great idea.

Matt

T5's are good lights for most tanks and i dont v why you would have a problem with them.

-Matt

dragonbear

I just purchased a compact flourescent light fixture from marineandreef.com. It will go on my 29 gallon. (30" fixture) and pump out 130 watts. You may want to take a look at this as well? It was only $130, where it is like $180 at some other palces.

Current USA Satellite Dual Compact Fluorescent, 2X65 Watt, 30 inch

travie

Old thread, but at the time I started this thread I was planning to upgrade from Compact Flourescents. The CF don't really allow for good LPS or SPS growth. I ended upgrading to a 150w MH with 2 T5 Actinic light bulbs.

dragonbear

how many watts did you have with your compact flourescents?

travie

One 65w 50/50 PC.