Ligthing in my 350G reef tank!!

[John Kh]

I've read a couple of articles about Ligthing Issue in a marine tank and I got confused. I am getting a new 350G tank with a 90Cm depth. The guy building it suggested 2MHX150W each and 8Actinic Blue or a combination of Actinic Blue and Fluroscent bulbs. I was thinking that this might not be enough and more light is needed. Can you please help me? Any suggestion concerning this? Thank you in advance.

I have seen some Led Light with low Wattage yet very high Kelvin output!!! Would that make a subsititute to the MH lights? Or maybe Can I use Enegry Saver Bulbs and and get a hight Kelvin equivalent to the MH one?? Would that be sufficient? Or my Choises are either MH, VHO, T5 or T8!!!

Please help.

J,

 

[Anonymous]

I can say first hand that using LEDs will cost you way too much money to light a 350 gallon tank. What are your dimensions of the tank?

Most use MH with actinic supplement or for dawn & dusk. On a 6' long tank I would use 3x250 watt MH with T5 actinic supplements.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd second the MH 3 x 250W suggestion. Augmented with fluorescents if you would like to have actinics on the tank. I didn't on my last tank and it looked great without them. But some people like them for the way they make corals fluoresce before the MHs come on.

 

[Anonymous]

What types of corals do you plan on keeping? At nearly 36" deep (90cm) I would suggest not listening to your advice guy if he says all you need is 2- 150w MH bulbs.

What are the other dimensions of the tank? Is it long and skinny? or more square shaped? If you want to keep stony corals then you'll probably be surprised at how much light you'd need/want. You could get away with less bulbs and a light mover of some sort, however most people simply opt for having the whole tank covered with light at any one time.

Oh and LEDs can have high kelvin no problem, that's basically says what color the bulb looks, i.e. how blue it is.

 

[blackcloudmedia]

+1 on the 3x250's. 150s would leave you severly dissapointed and your coral options limited. Theres no way a 150 watt will penetrate 3 feet of water and still support corals at the bottom.

 

[John Kh]

The other dimanesions are:

220Cm X 60 Cm X 90Cm

That's the tank dimensions. The guys said maybe I can compromise the MH and get actinics!! Anyway shall I go for 3X 250W and 4 Actinic maybe?!

I could find in the market those LED light with 3W, 3100K each. If I made a collection of those. white and Blue, Wont that be as good as MH??! I mean I could combine, let's say 20 of those, 10 Pure white and 10 Blue together to give the equivalent spectrum of MH?! Wont that be fine and I can compromise the MH?!

J,

 

[Anonymous]

Personally speaking, if I were going to compromise on anything with that tank size, it would be the actinics. You can get similar results with color (if not fluorescence) with MH bulbs in the 20K range.

 

[blackcloudmedia]

This is why I shop at all three LFS in my area, I get a variety of advice. Granted I know a hell of a lot more than their..ehem...salespeople :lol:
Anyways its going to comedown to your personal opinion when it comes to actinics. I personally dont like a tank thats too blue. So I went with 15K bulbs. I used to have 20K but they were too blue. See if your LFS has each of the bulbs( 10k, 14k, 15K, 20k) and will turn them on for you to see. If he gripes to you about opening a new box ask him about his 100% Markup :wink: