VHO vs. Metal Halide Debate

[Kenny]

I was looking at Champion Lighting's web site and notice that they have an awesome looking 180 reef tank that packed full of xenia and SPS corals. To my suprise, it is lit with only with four 72" VHO lamps. I was expecting to see halides and the whole ball of wax! Is this typical performance of VHO? If so, why the demand for metal halide lighting if VHO is sufficient? What am I missing here?

 

[Anonymous]

There are advantages and disadvantges to both lighting systems. But with VHO you can raise SPS corals, LPS corals, and softies. I'm doing it right now.
I think I might see more explosive growth if I used MH, but that's just a theory.

 

[Seawrath]

moe_k, can you make some more detailed specs on these tanks w/sps lit by VHO, like tank size, vho bulb watt, quantity, ballast info, and the species growing under it?

 

[Anonymous]

I'll give you more info on my tank if you want...

I have an Icecap 430 running two VHO bulbs @ 110 watts each ( = 220 watts), and an Icecap 3000 running two NO bulbs @ 55 watts each ( = 110 watts). The bulbs are the standard 48" length.

My tank is a 55 gallon with about 110 pounds of live rock (very freakin' full).

I keep two different species of Acropora and two species of Montipora; capricornis and digitata.
I also keep a frogspawn, Xenia, Anthelia, and numerous polyps & 'shrooms.

Pics can be seen at: http://www.netsig.com:8080/users/moe/Photos.html

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: moe_k ]</p>

 

[Seawrath]

thanks, that helps. it looks like your tank was very successful with VHO, and i think part might be the large amount of lr, right? those corals are how far from the surface? anyway, nice tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks.

The light loving corals are all pretty much in the upper half of the tank. At the deepest, that Acro mounted horizontally is 6" below the surface.
The large amount of LR is because some day I plan on getting a bigger tank, so I wanted to have plenty of LR ready to go.
It does give me places to put coral frags. Also note I don't have a DSB, so I had to have plenty of LR to host the denitrifying bacteria.