Starfire Lighting Suggestions

[Jfish]

Thanks for all the great info and ideas here guys. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a canopy until you described it like that. It makes a lot more sense with just pendants and led's without trying to cram that t5 fixture in there as well. So i might just have to raise the canopy a bit higher off the water and add some fans for cooling the pendants. And with the led's being more a more focused beam it wont matter if they sit higher up off the water?

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Jfish

Thanks for all the great info and ideas here guys. I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of a canopy until you described it like that. It makes a lot more sense with just pendants and led's without trying to cram that t5 fixture in there as well. So i might just have to raise the canopy a bit higher off the water and add some fans for cooling the pendants. And with the led's being more a more focused beam it wont matter if they sit higher up off the water?

I was kind of suggesting either LEDs or Halides, you could do both I guess but I think it would be better to go with one or the other. For LEDs they will be fine that high but you'll want to use narrower optics and possibly more LEDs tighter together. The halides will be a much cheaper option and easier to setup, you'll just need 4 250W DE retro kits.

[Jfish]

Hmm, gets me thinking to either go with three or four 250w pendants in the canopy or strictly led. How many led's would you suggest to still provide enough light for some higher demand corals/sps or anenome.

No offense, but can I ask why you would run one or the other but not both togeather.

[Jfish]

Hmm, gets me thinking to either go with three or four 250w pendants in the canopy or strictly led. How many led's would you suggest to still provide enough light for some higher demand corals/sps or anenome. Also how are the led's controlled. Would I need a specific controller to power up power down the led's or could I just run them to a timed powerbar.

No offense, but can I ask why you would run one or the other but not both togeather.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Jfish

Hmm, gets me thinking to either go with three or four 250w pendants in the canopy or strictly led. How many led's would you suggest to still provide enough light for some higher demand corals/sps or anenome. Also how are the led's controlled. Would I need a specific controller to power up power down the led's or could I just run them to a timed powerbar.

No offense, but can I ask why you would run one or the other but not both togeather.

4 halides for sure with the overflow in the center, not sure how 3 would work with that tank.

You could do both but for simplicity I would stick with one or the other, if you went with both I would still suggest 4 halides and then extra LEDs for supplemental. If you tried to light part of the tank with halides and the remaining parts will LEDs it will look funny as they both have a different effect and you would see a visible lighting difference through the tank.

For LEDs alone you would be looking at around 144 to 168 LEDs. You'd be looking at around $1200-1500 for a fairly complete retro kit.

[reefwars]

The fusneedit pendants are fairly cheap and are clean looking.

The lighting is the hard part when doing a full walkaround tank, I'm going with 4 fishneedit pendants I got all four for under 500 and I'm using 24 LEDs to supplement they will cost around 300

this was the cheapest way I could think of to work out mine

[Jfish]

Yeah, well its a good thing the tank was a steal cause this lighting might get expensive. Honestly considering going the homemade led canopy resting on the overflow. Won't be cheap but I think in the long run might pay for itself.

[Jfish]

Well I didn't exactly get the tank moved since my friends thought it would be too heavy for four people. I at least managed to get it in the house by myself fairly easily. Don't really have much to show but here are a couple pics of it. Hopefully can get some help soon to get it down the stairs.




It appears my new kitten Zeppelin thinks he has a new cat house.


New Vertex 200 alpha skimmer. Can't wait to get this thing setup.