Lighting...

N

number1sixerfan

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Sep 11, 2006
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Hi by now you may have seen a few of my threads asking questions. I am planning a reef tank that will be started 7 months from now.

Anyways, I am looking at lighting and I am trying to decide between PC lighting and MH lighting. It will be for my 55 or 72g(haven't decided which I will use yet). I found a coralife 48" 4 x 65w PC fixture w/bulbs for $320, whereas most 48" MH fixtures I have seen are $600+ without the bulbs.

I have learned from keeping planted tanks that buying what you might later is better than upgrading and paying almost double. I want to be able to keep soft corals, polyps, sps and lps hard corals, etc. I do not want to be limited to much.

What would I be limited to with just pc lighting? Thanks in advance.
 
If you think you want to keep SPS corals, you should consider at minimum T5 HO lighting or preferably MH. If your tank will have a canopy (a tall canopy in particular), you could buy DIY MH retrofit kits for much less than $600 and install them yourself. The kits come with all you need (except for the bulb in some cases) and assembly is pretty straight forward. Bottom line... PCs will not cut it if you want to have SPS corals thrive in either tank size you mentioned.
 
I know for sure which ever type of light I go with, I want to be able to suspend it using a ceiling mount. Do you have any links to the diy stuff? I want to stay away from diy as I am very not diy when it comes to this type of stuff lol.

Thanks
 
There's many places online that sell them. Here are a couple to help get you started:
http://www.hellolights.com/hqit5retrofits.html
http://www.hellolights.com/elbalsys.html
http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/Metal_Halide/

If you went with a DIY retrofit kit, you'd have to buy or construct something to house it so it can suspend from the ceiling. Otherwise, they make actual MH pendants that are meant to hang above the tank, which I'm guessing you've already seen --
http://www.hellolights.com/pendants.html
 
You might get away with some SPS using two 150w MH over a 55g, but it would most likely only be low- to mid-light SPS species and in the upper 1/2 to 2/3 of the tank. It really just depends which SPS you'd want to keep and how you'd like them placed in your tank. Two 250w MH would be better and give you more flexibility, but that would increase the cost.
 
They are Metal Halide right? If so, just go for the same version but with the 250 watt lights rather than 150 watt. The 150's won't penetrate deep enough, and by the sounds of it you don't want to be limited with the type of coral you want to have. Some coral, even with 250watts will still need to be located very close to the surface, and others will have to be close to the bottom.
 
Ok, so I am gonna go with the 250w coralife. I feel much comfortable not messing with electrical stuff.

I have a another question though. Does it require much construction skills to put together a decent sump? I guess my main worries are the plumbing.

Thanks.
 
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