can you have too much MH light?

[jhale]

so I'm still working out my lighting,
right now there's a 175 10K on each side of the
60" tank.
in the back there are 2 48" vho's super white URI in the front 2 60" URI actinics.
I have about 3' in the middle of the tank to fill.
my choices
1 x 250 10k
2 x 250 10k or 14k
1 x 400 10k
2 x 400 10k or 14k

would the 400's be overkill ?
I'm planning to buy these next week.
Or unless someone has a deal for me

 

[House of Laughter]

JH,

I think 400's would be overkill based on what you have -

I, personally, would take out the 2 white URI's, split the actinics (front and back) and put 250's across the front. Right now, I have 3 250's on my 72" tank and it's lit up like Meadowlands Race Trac

I decided to go with the 4th over the frag tank

House

 

[jhale]

okay, I decided to go with one 250 EVC Tech 10K and electronic ballast for the middle of the tank. If I like the EVC ballast I'll upgrade my two existing 175's to 250's, in the future.

House for now I'm going to leave the VHO's alone.
I have to unscrew the hood off the wall to work on it.
it's such a hassle that I'm going to leave the fixtures where they are. I could swap the bulbs from front to back, but then I'd have to buy some new VHO's. the fronts are set for 60", the backs are 48".

 

[cali_reef]

Check the reviews for the EVC 10K bulbs on RC, the review I have read is not that great as PAR output and color.

 

[alrha]

depends how deep your tank is. for my 60" tank (30" deep) i am running 4x250W and 2x150W. I am switching those out to 3x400W (and VHOs).
If you do go with such intense lighting, you should just make sure to aclimate your corals to them, especially if they are coming from a dimmer location. but overall, i dont think that even 400W bulbs would be more light than most shallow water corals get in the ocean.

 

[jhale]

my tank is not that deep, the water is 19", the bulbs are 8" off the water.

I read good things about the EVC bulbs.
I also checked out the stats on JBNY's site.
using the evc ballast the 25010k had a 412 par, that was higher than most. the xm had 559, nice, and the iwasaki had 517.
given my shallow depth I thought the 412 par would be okay.
the color is tough, your obviously going by someone else's opinions. I read a bunch of the reviews and people seemed to like them. I'll let you know what I think of it.

 

[spykes]

best to check sanjay's site for a more accurate PPFD i think.
http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/
Xm is definatly awsome on their 10K
EVC is what sanjay is using now.
since you got so much atinics you can do 6.5K