MH, T5, PC or VHO lights

[BCOrchidGuy]

You may be able to find a good deal on a 4ft MH set up. My LFS often has them used. I had one, it had two 175 watt MHs and two 4ft actinics. I kept all sorts of nice stuff in there with no problem btw it was a 90 gallon.

Here are a couple links, one is a picture of the aquarium and the other is a 15 second video.

Doug

http://s172.photobucket.com/albums/w...arium15sec.flv

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w...guy/Image4.jpg

[kwirky]

I have the 4', eight bulb teklight fixture, and I like it a lot. Sunlight supply's catalog, though, says the cheaper fixture is not for hanging above open water, and that you have to cover the tank. That'd cook the water in no time. I run a fan 50% of the time while my lights are on (15min on, 15min off, 15min on, 15min off).

As for MH versus T5's... I haven't had personal experience with MH lighting, but from looking at 250W lighting at the LFS's, even supplemented by some sort of fluorescent, my T5's at home look a LOT brighter. I get headaches if I've been working in the tank for an extended period of time. Not to mention my arms get tanned.

I think the reason why is there are fewer shadow areas. The rock doesn't make dark areas in the tank, because the light's not a point source.

My main decision, though, in the T5 fixture myself, over MH, was the small form factor. It's only 2" tall. I only have 18" of space from the top of my tank to this stupid thing jutting from the ceiling in our basement.

btw, if I actually had SPS in my tank, i'd be driven to experiment and see if drilling the top to install computer fans really does improve the PAR of this unit by like 30%. But I have only LPS and softies right now cuz it's a new system, and I'm a new hobbyist

Only complaint I have, though, is bulb cost. About $250 for bulbs every 9 months, when a 250Wx2 setup of say XM 10k's would be like $180 or so. Makes the power savings negligable.