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#1
12-09-2010, 03:48 PM
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The tank was designed to allow a 4' photon (German) fixture to sit on the overflow extensions. The fixture had two halides and 6 T5s. The position of the halides was moved to the far outside edges of the the fixture which provided most of the light for the two sides of the tank. The fixture was wide enough that the T5s filled in the remaining parts of the tank.
If the tank isn't going to be viewable from all sides anymore I would suggest moving the overflow box to the back so you can light the tank easier with a standard 4' fixture. If you can't move the box and you're pretty handy I would suggest building a fixture which uses either halides or LEDs. Two halides will not be enough, and T5s alone won't be ideal either. 
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#2
12-09-2010, 03:54 PM
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totally agreed plus you dont want your halides on all day so your gonna want something and leds can fit just about into any plan. i hope you plan on using the tank as all sides viewable gives you so much more room for growth and coral options 
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#3
12-09-2010, 04:08 PM
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I would be pretty easy to build a low profile fixture out of plywood a little smaller than the tank perimeter and then install LED modules in it or low profile halide retros or pendants. You can just get the pre-primed plywood and paint it black and have it sit on the overflow extensions. It would look pretty sharp. This was an option the previous owner and I considered at the time of the build but we went with a stock fixture because it was easier at the time as a lot of other work was needed.
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#4
12-09-2010, 04:38 PM
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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?
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#5
12-09-2010, 04:48 PM
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#6
12-09-2010, 04:54 PM
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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.
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#7
12-09-2010, 04:58 PM
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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.
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#8
12-09-2010, 05:09 PM
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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.
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