Lighting for a tall 175 gallon?

[rancherlee]

I got LUCKY and picked up a 175 gallon acrylic tank for 125$ that came out of an old custom installation. Its roughly 44" wide, 34" deep , 33" tall cube with one corner cut off kinda like a corner tank but the angle is more like 30* instead of 45*. Anyhow I want to set it up to replicate a freshwater lake to hold my 3 bluegills, 1 pumpkinseed, 2 crappies, and a crawfish that I currently have in my all-glass 55 gallon tank. I'm pretty happy with the brightness of the 40 watt T12 in my current tank and I'm wondering what I should look into getting for this tall tank. I don't plan on planting the tank anytime soon and I want the most efficent light setup without going overboard on price. I only have room under the hood for up to 40" length fixtures.

[Mgamer20o0]

2 24 inch lighting..... you could go with t5 or cf if you wish but its a lot of light not doing much good.

[rancherlee]

Any downsides to using spiral compact fluorescents? I picked up a GE daylight 6500k 26w bulb today and this single bulb puts more light into my 55 gallon than my regular 48" 40 watt does. I'm thinking a pair of these mounted in the hood would work pretty good. I'm waiting on new bulkhead fittings for the 175 gallon before I can fill it with sand, a tree stump, rock pile, and water to test the lighting.

[Sploke]

If you're not doing anything with plants and just need lights to see the fish, I'd probably build a custom hood to hold three 24" T8 bulbs. The screw-ins would work too.

[rancherlee]

If you're not doing anything with plants and just need lights to see the fish, I'd probably build a custom hood to hold three 24" T8 bulbs. The screw-ins would work too.

If I decide to do plants it will probibly be just a lilypad or 2 for the authentic minnesota lake look. They seem to grow good in the natural pond behind my house in shaded murky water. Easy enough to add more lights though I suppose.

[mattmartindrift]

Any downsides to using spiral compact fluorescents? I picked up a GE daylight 6500k 26w bulb today and this single bulb puts more light into my 55 gallon than my regular 48" 40 watt does. I'm thinking a pair of these mounted in the hood would work pretty good. I'm waiting on new bulkhead fittings for the 175 gallon before I can fill it with sand, a tree stump, rock pile, and water to test the lighting.


For your setup, a couple screw-in 6500K CF bulbs should do just fine.

I have 2 18W 6500K and 2 26W 6500K on each of my 29g's -- it's bright. I think without a heavily planted tank, you should be able to get away with something like I have.

[Notophthalmus]

Just a note: if you want the most light per watt, old-fashioned straight tube fluorescents are far better than screw-in compact fluorescents. Lilies will probably not do well in your tank; even a partly shaded outdoor pond would equate to high light in a tank.

[Reddog80p]

Any downsides to using spiral compact fluorescents? I picked up a GE daylight 6500k 26w bulb today and this single bulb puts more light into my 55 gallon than my regular 48" 40 watt does. I'm thinking a pair of these mounted in the hood would work pretty good. I'm waiting on new bulkhead fittings for the 175 gallon before I can fill it with sand, a tree stump, rock pile, and water to test the lighting.

You could get some double sockets and mount them right inside of the current fixture. There are a few DIY ones in the diy section.