enough light ?

[X947]

I'm setting up an old reef tank of mine that I bought many years ago. At the time, I just used the recommendation of the LFS guy for my lighting. I'm using an Ice cap 430 ballast driving 3 4' VHO tubes. How can I tell how many watts this set up is putting out and is this enough for a 90 gallon 22 inch depth (to the bare bottom) acrylic tank ??

thanks
Mike

 

[Nolapete]

The IceCap 430 can do up to 12 feet of lamp (i.e. 3 x 4') in any combination and up to 324 rated lamp watts. The 4' VHO bulbs are usually 110 watts, so I'm guessing they are rated slightly less to be under the 324 max. If you want to do FOWLR then you're probably good, but you'll probably need to boost it to get the penetration necessary closer to the bottom of the tank. I'd suggest you build your base reef then position any brighter light loving corals closer to the top and those with lesser light requirements lower. If need be, you can add some CFL lights rather inexpensively.

 

[Ace25]

You can change out the endcaps and add reflectors and go with T5HOs and still use that ballast. I like the 430 ballast over the 660 because it doesn't overdrive bulbs. It will use less electricity and give you a little more output on your lighting if you go with T5HOs vs VHO. But since you have all the VHOs if you didn't want to spend any more $ on lighting what you have will still work ok for soft corals and a good amount of LPS corals. Ideally you would want to get a second 430 ballast and add a total of 6 T5HOs if you wanted a great light that you wouldn't have to worry about supporting any type of coral.

 

[X947]

thanks for the input, suggestions, and information. Sorry it took me so long to post !