I don't think it has much to do with his lighting but rather all the other junk he doses daily, weekly, monthly... I never did find the part where he said how old the tank is.. might have just missed it. I think with more light he could dose less as he was saying that he can adjust the color from brown (from dosing to much ) to vivid from dosing the right amount.. also reading the picture files a little photo shop doesn't hurt either, in fact there is so much hue shift and saturation in one he has a green and lime sailfin tang, and a teal powder blue tang.

Steve

What he doses the tank with has little to do with what corals need in terms of light intensity IMO ... Like I said I have MH but they are not a necessity

He has reduced excess nutrients to allow the colours to be more vivid but just uses T5's for light

Therefore MH are NOT required for SPS

I didn't read the whole thread either although I have read a lot of it before. If I am not mistaken all of his T5 are on individual reflectors and are HO and changed out every 6-8 months. He also has a whole whack of them on that tank.
I think at the end of the day you will probably spend more on his system than you will on a good MH system and even with increased electrical consumption the cost of replacement bulbs alone will balance that out.

He does have over 800 watts of T5's on that tank which if it was 6' long as I suspect it to be would mean you would be using 3 MH equivalents prolly in the 250W range = 750W ... plus maybe some actinic supplementation of a couple hundred watts

Changing bulbs of any genre 6 to 8 months is IMO too drastic a schedule but hard to argue with success of his tank

I would hazard that anyone that disagrees with his choice of lighting has a tank looking as good or better than what he has accomplished :wink:

Please post a pic of what you are referring to ... he does not own a powder blue tang so not sure what tank you are looking at ???


I did not mean for this to be a contentious issue :sad:

If you like MH then buy MH ... The question posed at the top of the page was whether it was necessary to have MH and that tank proves that it is not ... thats all :wink:

http://www.hausriff.ch/media/DIR_142951/DSC01370.JPG

the first pic at the very begining of the thread, you linked tothe second half:mrgreen: and ya not a powder blue but a powder turquoise:lol:

http://http://reefcentral.com/forums...5&pagenumber=1

anyways no one said you need MH, but rather instead of screwing around with other types it would have been much more cost effective to go MH in the first place.. I had SPS under all types of lighting and I can from experence say while I have growth under PC's I never experenced the color and vibrance I get from MH.

Steve

not a powder anything, it looks like a naso.

somewhere on that thread there is a video if you don't believe those colors are real. i believe he used prodibio and zeovit so it's not surprising the colors are so vibrant.

Thats a naso tang by the looks of it on the right and it looks more grey in the body than turquoise to me ( I also own a naso tang and it looks a awfull lot like that one with MH lights ) ... the only other fish is a sailfin tang in the middle and a purple tang to the left ... any of those you calling a powder brown tang ?

You may want to get that monitor of yours checked or a optomitrist appointment may be due :razz: :wink:

anyways no one said you need MH,

the author of this thread was advised that MH was the only way to go ... I was merely pointing out that there are alternatives to MH and I doubt that these T5's would cost more than a MH setup

and we are not talking about using PC lighting for SPS as a alternative ... instead that beautifull tank is run with 100% T5's

PS ... if you read that monster thread that got auto split by the RC forums ... the tank is 2 years as a mostly SPS dominated tank ... FOWLR previous to that

I was thinking about adding some extra lighting to my system. I think I'll take a look into some T5's and see if I can mount them into my existing unit. Even if those pictures are tweeked a little with photoshop the stuff looks great.

Allright already ! The colour may be because of the combo of bulbs .On my 3 foot tank I have 2 -21 watt 20,000k actinics 1-39 watt HO 6500k and 1-21 watt 6500k for a wopping total of 102 watts .I keep softies ,LPS ,crocea and squamosa clams .The clams are on the bottom off the tank and most of the time the mantles are fully extended down to the sandbed. I find the colour just right,not too white or too blue.

MH's
 

Hey all,

I just wanted to pipe in here one last time. Cam, the originator of this thread, asked me several questions regarding his desires for a larger setup. We all know that there are several solutions to several issues or requirements in reefing. I just gave him my personal opinion.

Hi my name is Brad and I am lazy. I've been lazy now for several years. My last lazy trip was yesterday.

All jokes aside, I try to maintain a reef with minimal effort. I do however like an open top tank and I find myself in the water arms deep quite often.

I have one 250W DE Geisman in a PFO pendant over my tank. That's it. One day if I'm richer, I may need another pendant. I like the pendants because they offer me availability to my tank (I can get in there easier, also I can shut the pumps off and admire things from overhead).

I do wish I could cover more of my corals with a blanket of light as offered from VHO's, T5's, and PC's...Also, I think my bulb is a 14500k, which offers some fluorescing aspects to the corals but not as much as I want. If I was to add another light, it would be a 20000K bulb.

I don't like to spend continually on equipment so I went with MH's, hoping that I won't have quality of light loss as soon as the other fluorescent type bulbs.

Cam is correct to have asked the forum for differing opinions. I just found what works for me, today. That may change tomorrow.

The article posted on reefcentral and alluded to earlier in this thread about "iwan's" reef aquarium is Switzerland is an interesting one. I never thought about where exactly the color in corals come from. I just assumed it was contained the pigments created by the zooxanthelae (sp?) to trap photons. It never occured to me that it might be in the proteins coded by the DNA of the coral itself, makes sense....

I admire what "iwan" has achieved, I just don't want to do water changes weekly as I am lazy. To be honest with all of you, I set up a tank last August and I didn't do a water change until last month when Cam started up his 20 gal. I skim and grow macro, that's it ...but in the last month I have done almost a 100% water change.

I'm lazy (accept for this long-winded post)


Brad