Lighting 180G (72x24x24)

[Myka]

I have those same Coralife 10,000K bulbs too! They sit my closet collecting dust! They are my spare bulbs in case one gets blown, they just came with a fixture I bought. They are horrible. I would also suggest Phoenix 14,000K or for a really blue look XM 20,000K. You will get much more PAR out of the the Phoenix though, and you can always use some heavy actinics like UVL Super Actinic to make the corals pop even more. Most actinic bulbs have low PAR, but the UVLs are out of the ordinary because they have a strangely high PUR output in comparison, so they are really great bulbs as well. Of course if you want even more output you can use a "blue" bulb instead of actinic like 18,000-22,000K. Having the DE halides over your 24" deep tank you should have plenty of PAR to not have to worry too much about that, and just pick bulbs that you think look the nicest. Imo, the Phoenix bulbs look great on their own too.

[ALang]

Thanks everyone! In this hobby, when every little bit of equipment/ livestock is so expensive, this is a great forum for us newbies at the hobby to succeed, without throwing money at things that are sub-par or plainly not work. I have struggled for years and have read all the serious books coming out of professionals, but still have no way of testing stuff that they mentioned due to cash restraint. Or to weed out what is it that I really NEED instead of WANT.
My interest in this hobby have re-surfaced, and I am hoping that this time around, I will have results similar to a lot of the ones that I have admired in these "bragging pages". I will have a lot of questions in the future, and I am gratified that so many of you are caring enough to reply to my simple questions.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

If yours is an Aqualight Pro, then you have 4 x 96w PC actinics (not 65w). Just for future reference.

If you go with Phoenix (good, inexpensive) or Aquaconnects (same colour, more expensive) 14,000k, you won't need to use your actinics at the same time anyways. You can have the actinics on for the "dawn & dusk" effect - turning them on before & after the MH are on to help transition the lighting in the tank from dark, to actinic, to bright, back to actinic & dark again.

[ALang]

Great! Then I maybe able to extend my Actinic's life for a bit longer. Anything to save a few more pennies for those "GOTTAHAVEIT" DAYS.

[Myka]

Oh here I am suggesting T5 bulbs for actinics. *slaps forehead* You don't have nearly the amount of choice with the PCs. I agree that the Phoenix look great on their own, so you wouldn't need to run the PCs all day, just the dusk/dawn. Fwiw, your tank should get 12 hours of light a day, with 6-8 of those being high intensity, so you can run your halides for 6-8 hours, and then the PCs before and after to make up the 12 hours, with say a 15 minute overlap to make up for halide warm up. Does that make any sense? Maybe not...ok something like this:

8:00 PCs on
11:00 halides on
11:15 PCs off
16:45 PCs on
17:00 halides off
20:00 PCs off

That way you will save bulb life, and electricity.

[ALang]

Gee thanks for really spelling it out for me. Sometimes it is easy to assume a newbie may know what you are talking about. I will be doing that when I do my light changes.