Thoughts on lighting

[Aquattro]

Darren, for the most part, I agree with all the above.

As for Shane's lighting, I meant he isn't concerned with the latest and greatest bulbs the industry pushes on us. I myself have dual 400w over my 75g. And yes, my corals are nice. I realize that we need to compensate for lack of food with light; but how much is too much? Unfortunately, you or I don't know. Personally, I've gone along with the hype and decided I need 10k 400w bulbs. However, I have no real proof that this is in fact true. And I also believe that we need to please ourselves with the color. That's the point of having something to look at. I certainly wouldn't enjoy my tank as much with 4.3k bulbs. My point was the corals wouldn't care.

I also question whether we need to look for ways of providing additional food. Using DT's and other foodstuffs is a great start, but is there more we can do? With the skimmers available today, we can feed fairly heavy with a quick removal rate.
I realize that there is a boundry between ideal and practical. The trick is to try to achieve a balance between them. We all put a lot of energy into finding new and improved ways of doing things, but maybe we need to look in other directions than just lighting.

As it stands, I'm the last person to say this or that. I follow what others have been successful doing and hope for the best. I just find that the more I read about this, the more I think we are blinded somewhat by industry hype. On the other hand, the authors of these articles claiming light isn't that important, are they themselves using 400w bulbs...go figure.
I can't really ramble on any more than I have, but hopefully this thread generates food for thought and we try to look at the big picture, not just the pretty lights.

The End. [img]tongue.gif[/img]