Frag tank lighting... What's the best for growth?
 

Setting up my frag tank, 40x14x12, and not sure what to do for lighting. I was thinking a couple par 30 bulbs. But what do the experts say?

I personally think you'd need quite a few 4-6 par 30's for a 40" tank 9could be wrong) if your looking into LED why not DIY or something?

2 400w halides.

bang for buck, there is no better.

Diy is fine, just can't figure out how many. Or what colors.

Was hoping the par30 bulbs would be quick and easy and work good.

12" deep tank, frags will be 5-6 inches down at most.
2 400w mh would fry everything.

I lime the par bulbs I went withthe Orpheks. It all depends what u wanna keep also. I've got sps right under the bulbs then zoas around the lightly shaded areas.

okay...lol
ypu can put them high up over the waterline or use 150 or 250 watt.

either way, this will work the best for growth and cost you the least in time and $$

My biggest reason to avoid mh is the heat issues, then power usage. But it's so hard to find what leds grow the best.

I run 400w Radiums over my frag tank, same depth, no issues.

Solatubes or put the tank in a greenhouse

MAYBE in alberta sloatubes MIGHT work.
Calgary is the 2nd sunniest city in Canada.


even then, it's doubtful there is enough annual sun to make solatubes work for a reef aquarium....especially a frag tank.


Do a little research into it and you'll see that a significant number of solatube tanks actually need supplemental lighting.

I would say Calgary is the sunniest city in Canada. You can't really call Manyberries a city. Either way, I would still stick with LED's of some sort to save on cost and heat over time, even if it is still up in the air on growth. I have a birdsnest that grows like a weed under my led's and my darth mauls have double the number of polyps since I got them.

Doesnt change the fact that solatubes, even in the SECOND sunniest city in Canada, will not work.

LED's have not really even been proven to save on cost...especially with halides being so much cheaper than when the LED/Halide debate started.

If even one small thing goes wrong with your led fixture, unless your a technically savvy individual your costs will rise significantly.

Drilling holes in your roof and installing solar tubes for a frag tank will do nothing except earn you a prime location in the book of dumbest reefer's ever.

For a frag tank keep it simple, go with a DIY led 50/50 array of white and royal blue. Save money and go non-dimable as this won't be overly useful on a frag tank. A 48 LED kit is probably about the right size for the tank. Once established with proper flow and water chemistry, if you still find growth lacking it'll be easy to add additional LEDs as you see fit.
http://www.rapidled.com/48-ultra-pre...-non-dimmable/

Agreed. Especially in the sunniest city in Canada. :)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you used to get better growth out of yellower bulbs, but would get better colour under bluer ones, but with less growth. Last I looked into the subject many reefers were starting to experiment with reds (if using LEDs). Granted its been awhile, but you may want to target your search towards people doing colour spectrum research, or experiments.

Yup you are right. A 7600K / 10,000K halide bulb would produce the most growth, but lack in color (however corals would most likely color up after adjusting to your DT lighting). He did ask about the best growth.

Higher Temps produce more color, but slower growth. IMO on a frag tank I would go with 2 X 250W Halides with 10-14K bulbs, or the 48 LED kit from Rapid LED or Modular LED like Steve suggested.

Oh yeah... and Sonotubes would be the most useless thing ever on a frag tank. Most DT's with sonotubes require supplimental lighting if not full lighting setups.

I dunno my power bills gone down a bit since switching to leds on my tank, mind you, that its small scale, I would imagine that a large tank running 4-5 halides switching to leds the savings would be much larger then in my experience it'd only like$4-$5 a mo.th I save in comparison to my old t5 mh set up

Lol my point was that the sun would be the best lighting. But wow people really like beating a horse that was dead to begin with

I have diy led on my display, and good growth.
But wanted to see if there was a known best grower.

Diy led it is.
I'm going to toss a few red, blue, warm white in with the normal cool white and royal blue.

I run twin 250W 14K Hamilton HQIs on my frag tank with a bit of PC supplementing, top row of frags are about 8" from the water surface and I had to raise the fixture 3" so the bulbs are about 8" off the water, the top rack were bleaching out and are doing much better since raising the fixture.
I got the fixture used for $200 and new bulbs for ~$120. LED would be great but I will wait until I sell some more frags to fund it :)
Dan

http://img.tapatalk.com/b897debd-95cf-da69.jpg

Wow, that's an impressive frag tank, I could only wish for something that nice.

I'm already wishing I had made it larger. Even though I know it's big enough for what I need.


Brings me to another question though, what critters and or fish should I keep in the frag tank?

Thanks, i have been building up the supply of frags for a while :) I keep a couple of token fish for nutrient cycling (I find the corals are happier with fish) including a scopas tang as they are inexpensive, hardy algae grazers, as well as an assortment of standard reef custodians for algae grazing and detritus consumption. I went bare bottom to make it easier to get detritus out of the tank but didn't leave enough room under my lowest frag rack to get under it efficiently with a siphon hose (my next mod). I have seen a few of these setup and always see hairy algae issues on the new egg crating, so if you can 'seed' it beforehand, perhaps with encrusting algae, you might save yourself some difficulties down the road. If you are going to be transiting corals into your tank without QT, you might want to add a peppermint shrimp in case you introduce Aiptasia. Whatever you add, I would keep it small enough it can't knock or pull your frags over.
Dan

My tank will be plumbed into my main system, I have lots of great corals that I need to grow out and lots that other people want frags of.

It'll be bare bottom and hopefully enough flow that nothing settles.

frag tank
 

i built my frag tank 2 months ago-48x15x12,with it's own 40 gal sump,and lit with a 3' 72 array cree led i bought from aquarium store solution.everything is on a built in timer;so different leds turn on or off throughout the day.par is good,(between 200-400 at different times-light 12 inches above the water and par meter 3" below the water) and i am starting to see some growth on my sps frags.the thing is i use red leds to grow my phytoplankton,as red light promotes the growth of green algae(blue for brown algae)for the price of building it myself,or buying a ready made fixture,it was cheaper to buy the fixture at $640 delivered