Considering switching to MH

[ponokareefer]

Originally Posted by lorenz0

thanks for the input guys. my biggest concern is heat in the summer as a chiller is a bit out of the budget. could running fans across the surface reduce heat from the lamps enought that i won't have to be worried about cooking my tank?

Fans will help, but with 2 250 MH's, you'll need some good fans, and you'll likely hear them, and then you will also have a fair amount of evaporation, so will likely need an ATO to maintain good balance. I just went to an ATO this summer because of this.
So, you'd have the expense of the MH fixture, plus a chiller, or fans and an ATO. You could get a pretty nice 8 bulb T5 for that.