175W or 250W

[hurrifan]

I have a 180 AGA and I want to keep SPS, Clams and other variuos corals. The tank is 6x2x2, becasue the depth of the tank is 24 inches should I go with 250W MH or are 175W MH good enough. I have heard varying reports and am still unsure. Please advise

 

[myreef]

I would think the better question would be 250 or 400 watt MH's. If youwant to keep any SPS or clam at any level in the tank, get the 400's. If you want to keep them in the upper half of the tank, get the 250's. You will need at least two if not three. You could probably get away with two 400's, but three would be ideal. I have two 250's on my 150 and I am about to add a 3rd. My tank is 5x2x2. Good luck.

 

[2poor2reef]

IME 175w mh is definitely not sufficient to keep sps in a tank that size. I run 250w over my 15g sps and I'm still afraid to drop the par by going to a higher kelvin bulb versus my iwasaki. If you want to go with lower wattage bulbs then I would take a look at HQI.

 

[hurrifan]

Yeah, but from what I have read 175w should be sufficient up to depths of 18". So for the top 2/3 of the tank I should be able to puit anything. Right??? My concern is the additional heat and algae from 250w or 400w. Any more help or info would be appreciated.

 

[Anonymous]

I had dual 250s and VHO actinics in my 65 (also 25") and I felt the light was just about right. If I had a 180 I probably would use 2 12k 250s and 2 10k 400s. Actually thats what I'm planning for the 150 60x24x24 I'm setting up.

Go brighter- I never heard anybody say "gee, that lights just too bright", but I sure have seen a lot of people upgrading to brighter.

Thats said, I'm sure you could grow sps directly under the bulbs, but you would be limited to lower k lights at 175w. (6500)

 

[jdeets]

I've got a 180 Oceanic. I use 3 175W MH 10000Ks, along with 440 watts of VHO. They seem to work fine. I've got some SPS in the top of the tank that is growing and seems to be doing well, and a T. Max about 1/2 way up, and lots of LPS.

Now, with that being said, if I could do it all over again, I'd have gone with the 250s instead of the 175s in this setup. Or, I'd have gone with 3 400W MH 10000Ks and left the VHO off altogether.

 

[Anonymous]

Hey James,
My new tank is an Oceanic, and the glass center brace is very wide, over a foot and a half. If you have similar, do you have a halide right over this thing? I don't see any way around it...

 

[jdeets]

Yep--I've got three MH lamps, one is centered over the brace. The MHs are mounted up in a 12" canopy, so the brace doesn't get that warm. It gets warmer from the VHOs laying over it than from the MH. (I've been a little lazy and still need to mount my VHOs up in the canopy...)