I have a 50 gallon tank with a wooden canopy, 3 fish, couple of mushrooms, colony polyp, and a 30" lunar aqualight compact fluorescent light(130 watts). I have 3 1/2 inches of room between top of aquarium and canopy lid. I would like to upgrade to a 36" light does anyone have any suggestions as to which light to purchase? Which would be a better choice: compact fluorescent, vho or t-5? Retrofit kit and how many WATTS? Thanks
lighting upgrade
- Thread starter lifeform
- Start date
lifeform said:
T5's can be very effective, especially the ones by Tek lighting which have individual reflectors for each bulb. People have been able to so high light SPS and clams with these lights.
VHO are also good, but get very hot, and evaporation may be a problem on a tank that size with that much heat, unless you can vetilate it with fans.
Personally, id go HO-T5's from tek light. They work amazingly well!!
Depends on what you want to do. You could get two 2X96 watt PC retro kits from http://www.ahsupply.com/96watt.htm, and have enough light for almost anything. You could also put in four HO T5s, which would be less wattage (about 160 watts total) but the T5s will probably give 20-40% more light per watt.