ciao monelli

I'm trying to decide what lighting will be best for my tank.

i have decided that i will have 2x4' t5 actinics but have not been able to decide what halide setup too use.

as you can see form my tank my rock stucture is fairly central and im quite high.

heres some options,

2x150w

1x250w and maybe a 150 as well

1x400w??????????????????

i cant decide, the goal is max lighting focused on the rock structure for sps growth. any help is appreciated

For the height and style of rock structure i would go 2 x 150w.

Good thing about these is you can get the electronic ballasts for about $80 each.

You can get lanp holders/reflectors that would norn be set into the roof, with these you can direct the light by i think 90 deg. So you could focus the light to the centre.

to full maximise the lightings, u need to use a good reflectors. If yours is a 4footer, u need atleast 2x150watts or 2x250watts...

why not use a lumenarc? :lol:

i was thinking of a luminarc style reflector for the 400w or 250w

lumenarc will ensure that u will have optimum lights and just by using 250watts, it will be more than enough to keep sps...

do you stock luminarcs Dr evil???

[edit=cees]no commercial links, read guidelines[/edit]

should have looked a bit harder to find these.

these would be good for 250w DE?? or only SE?

Wow they look cool.I wonder if the blue one would be affective. :-?

lol.

i think they would look nice over the tank as well and should be to har to rig up a support thing as shown in the pics.

I love my 2 X 150's i just want to get my t5's on there two supplement.

When i go bigger next year ill stick with all the ame lighting and no more

i dont want my lighting to suffice, i want it to be perfect. i dont think 2x 150 will cut it on my tank.

Did on mine for 3 years

can you tell a difference between the 250 and the 150 steve?? other than the whole uv thing your acros are looking great with the 250

I'd get a couple of 250's. Mainly because they'll be reusable for when you upgrade again

Layton

2x250 or 1x400w

ive never seen a 400w in action so its a little hard to gauge the coverage.

the 250s would be enough i guess but something in my head says get the 400 (probably because its a higher number)

as you can see in this pic im heading towards a central sort of structure that could be covered by one big 400w or a bit more coverage maybe with 2x250's

I recon 400's are overkill, i'll be downgrading to 250's at some point.

i guess the 250's will give a better coverage, what about 3x 150's that might work nicely. one centred up the top and then one on the left and one on the right, or doesnt the 150 have enough punch?

400's are awesome but you may have heat issues. You need a compromise between spread and power. I'd not go back to 250s after having the 400s.

Pie

hmmmm

darn it, time for some more options

im very content with 150's to be honest. just put your lights lower down.

For the lighting, it really depends on what u will be keeping in future. If you intend to keep SPS in future, 250watts is a better choice so u wont keep on upgrading.

Futhermore, if you uses 250watts, for future upgrade to 400watts, u can still u the reflectors and just change the ballast only.

if you just wanna keep LPS, 150watts will do.....

looking at ur tank, u need 2 units... :lol:

looking at ur tank, u need 2 units...

i will need two to get the coverage i need anb 250's are probably the way to go, dont feel like 2x400w is necassary

dont feel like 2x400w is necassary

I would agree with that. Especially if your running low nutrients.

Plus you'd almost definitely have to get a chiller if you ran 400's. Another $900.

Layton

yep claire would love that too.

think i'll invest in a fan next month