Lighting Education

[Blues]

I'll be buying lights some time after the holidays, want to welcome any and all to give me their opinions on the subject of lighting. I'm a noob still, and since lights are pretty expensive, I'm hoping for learn before I open my wallet.

 

My aquarium is deep, 24", and I'm thinking fish and coral and plants.

 

So, can I draw of the PNMAS pool of knowledge? Feel free to write your thoughts!

 

Thanks,

 

Brian

[Mr S]

What size tank? Do you want to grow sps?

[OwenReefin]

If I had the room and desire to chill a tank I would go Metal Halide, but T5's > Power Compacts. I think they look nicer. +4 bulbs depending on what you wanna keep.

[thatguy559]

i have 2x 250w icecap hqi ballast with 2 large lumenbright reflectors and 15k bulbs for sale for 300 ballast/refectors 6 months old bulbs 3 months let me know i can ship them too you

[Blues]

It's a hexagon tank, about 21" across, I would like to do seahorses and the few corals that are compatible with them.

[jgf86123]

You can get a nice MH pendant, a nice reflector style, an you could get away with a 250w HQI an be able to keep anything that would be compatible with seahorses.

[NoobtoSalt]

If your going to do seahorses you probably will be looking at doing all soft corals. If you do SPS you will find that they will need much higher flow and the seahorses from my understanding won't like that. With that being said you would probably be fine with a T5 setup if that is what you are looking to have in the tank. If you choose to do SPS you may want to get a different tank for the seahorses IMO.

[Blues]

Sun Coral (Tubastrea), which I guess is LPS, is listed as very compatible by seahorses.org. No SPS, 's Red Sea fans are good. That's probably what I'm looking to do.

[Mr S]

t-5's. Like Noob said

[moovinfast]

I'm a big fan of MH. Like what was said. You could do a single 250w MH with a good reflector and you could keep anything you wanted and not need to upgrade later. I find it cheaper to run MH over T5s if you factor in bulb changes. I know I would get better results with a better MH bulb but Ive been happy running my cheap ones. If you hang the light high enough over the tank you shouldnt have heat problems. I'm running 5 over my system. 1 over a 20" cube and 4 over a 240 cube all hooked to the same sump and my tank never gets above 79 degrees without a chiller. And my heater runs at night.

[Blues]

Any thoughts on LEDs?

[reef165]

I think if you are going to do seahorses, I would do non photo corals and just use standard output florecence, prob 3 of them, 2 blue and one 10k, I think they come in 16 or 18 inch lengths. If you want to see a coral tank that dosnt have much light go to RC and look at the past, tank of the months, it's like 3 or 4 monthes back. That way you dont need to worry about having/needing much flow eather.

[titus'reef]

T5's will work the best for your project. if interested i have two 24" T5's that are in my way around the house.