lighting for a 10g nano

martym · #1 05-25-2005, 03:53 AM

I am looking at a 96w coralight for my 10g nano. Any comments, or suggestions?

outtafocus · #2 05-25-2005, 05:06 AM

I am running the 96w coralife aqualight on my 10 gal. Looks quite nice. But I would spend a little extra money and put a 70w retro halide with some supplemental actinics on it next time.
Otherwise I like my light as is.

Matt · #3 05-26-2005, 07:33 PM

I'm also running the Coralife 96W. I'm very happy with it, but a lot of the livestock wasn't too keen on the adjustment from 40w to 96w... Things took some time to adjust, and we had to move some stuff down to make it happy.

It is adding a bit more heat to the system, so we put it up on legs and may still have to add supplemental fan support. I'm also looking for some time to add moonlights to the system - I wish they were built-in.

Matthew

Beverly · #4 05-26-2005, 09:36 PM

Wow, you guys

96w on a 10g? That's 10w per gal. Pardon my saying so, but isn't that overkill? What do you want to grow in such a relatively shallow tank that requires so much light? Would like to see pics of tanks with this kind of lighting, though

outtafocus · #5 05-26-2005, 10:14 PM

take a look at this tank. He is from Calgary too.

http://nano-reef.com/forums/showthre...ighlight=cyclo

outtafocus · #6 05-26-2005, 10:24 PM

I dont really believe in this watts per gallon method of lighting.
If you had a 1gal tank with a 10w bulb over it, thats also 10w/gal but probably not enough to grow much.
I am running a 150w HQI MH over my 25gal cube. When I bought the light I every one on Nano-reef told me I didnt have enough light. But 150w over a 25 is 6w/gal, which I have read on many information sites online is in the upper end of the watts/gal ratio. I am very happy with the 150w over my 25, any more would be too much.
I am only new to this game so I may be way off base. But it seems everyone one with beautiful nano tanks are using alot more light than what would normally be needed.
Opinions?

Beverly · #7 05-26-2005, 10:36 PM

outtafocus,

Thanks for the link. Very nice tank

Doesn't look like too much light to me.

I've got a 175w MH on my 37g, 24" x 18" x 24" H. Growth of my monti caps is good under it.

I've got 4 x 95w VHOs on my mixed soft, lps, sps 67g, 36" x 18" x 24" H. Didn't think it was enough light for my catspaw frag, but growth under the VHOs is better than it was under my 175w MH. In both tanks, the catspaw was high up in the tank. Of course, the difference in catspaw growth in the two tanks may be that I'm now paying closer attention to alk, Ca and Mg levels.

Matt · #8 05-26-2005, 10:40 PM

With 2 20w PC screw-in bulbs (standard issue 50/50 bulbs common to 10g nanos) I had some very serious light seeking behaviour from my zoos and mushrooms. They just weren't bright enough. The 96W has settled them down, but some of the higher-up corals (a torch in particular) didn't like the intensity and got moved down a bit.

I'll post a shot of the tank here this weekend.

Matthew

Beverly · #9 05-26-2005, 10:45 PM

Lighting a tank is a very strange thing, then. I've only got two 55w PCs and a 40w NO actinic on my 120g. Shrooms, button polyps, GSPs, xenia, macroalgae all do amazingly well in that tank:

martym · #10 05-26-2005, 11:22 PM

That is an awesome tank beverly. I've read about putting 175w MH over 10g tanks. To me that is too much. Time will only tell. I'll post pics after I get the lights, on order from Paul's aquarium. I week away