lighting options

oscar83

oscar83

AC Members
May 21, 2004
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Middletown, NJ
in a few months im looking to upgrade my lighting in my 75 gallon reef and i have a few options. im looking for other peoples input to help to decide what i want to do. All of these lighting options would be hung from the ceiling above my tank.

option A: diy
i already have a hood that i built to house the lights i have now and it wouldnt be too much work to take those out and put in new lights. with this i would be looking at dual 250 watt hqi + dual 54 watt HO T-5's at around $675. from what ive read and heard from others HO T-5's are much better than VHO's and PC lights, is this true? The only downfall to this set up is that I dont think I'll like how my hood will look hanging from the cieling, its rather bulky and may look awkward.

option B: Maristar combo or aqua-medic aquasunlight (both dual 250 watt hqi + dual 54 watt HO T-5 supplements)
I love the way these systems look! they're exactly the power and everything that I'm looking for and will definetly look good hanging from the cieling. the one downfall with these is that it will cost well over $1000 (the aquasunlight being around $1200 or so).

option C: Dual 250 watt hqi pendants
Im looking at a few different pendants here, either the aqua-medic ab oceanlight, hamilton reefstar, pfo mini pendant, or sunlight supply reef optix. These would, without a doubt look goo hanging from my ceiling and would take up less space. they would be about the same cost as option A, somewhere between $600 - $750 or so, but i wouldnt have the option of upgrading or adding any supplemental light at a reasonable cost. I would have to go with 15000k bulbs or so (i like the bluish look but not overly blue).

if anyone can give me any input on what they think would be best i would appreciate it, thanks all.
 
I basically did option A on my 90, and it works well. Get a couple of 4" fans, and have the canopy as open as possible to get rid of heat.

As far as which supplemental light is "better," it depends on what you want, as far as I can tell. HO T5s definitely give you more PAR per watt than the others, but some claim that T5 actinics still don't give the same glow as URI VHOs. I use T5 actinics, and they do a good job for me.

Either of the other options is quite workable, though. Because the tank isn't all that deep, you will have plenty of PAR to spare from the 250 watt lamps. The main problem I see with the pendants is that you won't have light when the halides are off. I run my halides about 6-8 hours a day, depending on the tank, and have fluorescents/actinics on in the morning and evening. The pendants do look pretty slick, though.
 
I'm not all to concerned about a dawn/dusk effect with actinics because although my tanks are in the basement my lights dont come on until 11 a.m. and by then there's already a decent amount of light coming in through the windows and everyone in my tanks are usually swimming about by then. i was planning on setting up some blue and possibly some white LED's as moonlights so they would help w/ the dawn/dusk effect as well. as of right now i think im leaning towards the pendants because i really think it would look freakin sweet hanging above my tank :dance: <--- i love this little guy, haha
 
I am replacing my crappy T8 lighting at the moment too... I have decided on the Arcadia Halide lighting system with 2x halides at 150watt at moment tho can go up to 400watts if need be but my tank is only 45 cm deep so will see how I go with the 150w, and 2 acintic blue t5 lights supplimenting the dawn and dusk.

I went with this because:

1. Its arguably the best lighting method out there to date
2. Will be able to keep light loving corals without worryiing if they have sufficient photosynthesis
3. Looks pretty cool
 
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