Help me light a 9' tank

[Kevin207]

Hello everyone. This is my first question I have posted to these forums, and I am very glad that you are all here.

I have to make some decisions on what I am going to use for lighting to supplement my two 400W metal halide pendants I already own. I need to cover 5 more feet of a new 9 foot tank to be. I am building in a 9' tank into the house we are about to move into. 8O

Here is a post with photos about the tank I am referring to:
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=1088828#1088828

Current lighting: I have a 120 gallon reef tank currently (4'x2'x2') with two metal halide BlueLine pendants, each running at 400W with a Blueline 10K Superwhite bulb and what seems to be a 10+K (14K) Blueline bulb.

This is a lot of light currently. This was what was recommended by my local aquarium store when I said I wanted to get some brighter lighting for the clams I had. Well, the clams definately grew new mantels. I am currently running them for about 9 hours with no major algae problems. I have a 20K Blueline bulb on order to see how it looks. I like the looks of the ?14K bulb.

Here is the current lighting I have:
http://www.bluelineaquatics.com/products/mh_pendant/index.html

Should I consider getting just two more pendants from blueline shown in the link above? Or maybe two of the other style shown on the bottom of that page called BlueLine Sea Star Prism Pendants? I am kind of liking this option. I plan on suspending the hanging pendants in a way that allows me to pull them up higher and out of the way for cleaning the tank.

Or should I get a 5' combination fixture with metal halide bulbs + fluorescent + LED night lights like one of the CurrentUSA or Coralife models? Here is an example of the 150W metal halide Current USA version:
http://www.current-usa.com/outerorbithqit5ho.html

Maybe the weaker 150W metal halide + fluorescent combination lights in the middle would be good with having the exisiting 400W MH pendants lighting the wall of reef hiding the overflow boxes that will be at the ends in the back corners of the 9 feet of length. Or maybe staying at 400 W would be better for the entire tank.

What are your thoughts? :idea:

 

[Anonymous]

If it were me I would go with 2 more of the same 400watt set ups you have now. If you are looking to be a bit brighter you can go with 14k or 10k bulbs. It you do not like the color of the 10k you could supplement with VHO actinic.

HTH

 

[Anonymous]

Unless your 9 foot tank is overly deep, 400 watt is more than bright enough, I'm not going to go into the color argument because some people like the 20kK bulbs, I personally think they're too blue. Either way if you put 20kK bulbs you'll have less light going to corals/clams.

The deal with a long tank is spread of lights, in that case I think there's only one sane solution. lumenarc reflectors
http://www.reefexotics.com/lumenarc.htm <-- here's one place that happens to sell them (i'm not endorsing them, just giving you an idea).
Forget pendants, forget anything else, you want to spread that light out and these bad-boys will do that for you. You could probably get away with 4 across the whole tank and be good as far as lighting.

As far as extra lighting beyond your 400w, I wouldn't go to 150w bulbs, they are just not powerful enough for any normal depth tank IMO (good for nano tanks though). At a minimum I would probably go with 250watts, depending upon what types of corals you're going to be into (and again tank depth). Not to mention it is going to look nice and bright where the 400watt bulbs are, then where the 150w ones are it'll look really dim by comparison.

 

[Kevin207]

Those Lumenarc reflectors would be good as the two middle fixtures in the tank, with the two BlueLine fixtures of the same shape (but inferior reflector) on the ends of the tank:

BlueLine 400W :idea: Lumenarc 400W :idea: Lumenarc 400W :idea: BlueLine 400W :idea:

Sounds pretty good to me. Are those CoralVue electronic ballasts OK to go with as well?

So a 9 foot long tank with four 400 watt metal halide bulbs across it in the 10K - 14K range isn't too much light in a 24" deep tank with plenty of fish and plenty of reef together?

 

[Anonymous]

I like the coralvue ballast. I do not think it is too much light, tho it is more than I would use. With the 400's you will be able to place any SPS anywhere in the tank. The only issue you may have is heat.

 

[Minh Nguyen]

I would use three 250 W MH in addition to the two 400 W or total of 4 400 W MH. Consider add VHO or PC light for actinic.
You will need good ventilation or chiller in the small enclose space you have. Mosture back there will be an issue that good ventilation will help.

 

[Kevin207]

Sounds like we are arriving at a consensus on the number of fixtures and wattage.

I do plan on a chiller, but have to devise a way to get the moisture out. With two 400 W fixtures I evaporate about a gallon a day right now. This makes for a good humidifier in the winter....too good for the space we are in right now as we get a lot of condensation around the edge of the windows in winter. The new place is much bigger and has a lot more open space so it should disperse the moisture out all over without much condensation (I hope).

Thanks for the input so far! I feel better about the choices I am making for the new setup, and that is probably one of the main draws of forums like these.