lighting help please

[fishguyxd]

I'am real confused I want to get somelightingI have been searching the web. That some times makes it info overload. I really like the sleek low profile of the coralife strips and see they are available with lunar lights on them as well (some have 4-65 watts totaling 260 watts) Or I have seen I believe it is "icecaps" or something identical to it in LFS no names stated but I am getting real mixed reactions from salesguys to the next. understandable because the want the sale I have a 48 inch long bow frt tank ,24 inch deep I would really like some imput from others in this hobby I not sure of what the lights I am l looking at will or will not be able to do or if they have the punch for the depth or what corals i can or not keep I just don't want to buy lights every 6 months so to speak. please and thanks in advance.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Avoid the 65w PCs except in shallow tanks. 96w PC minimum & use 10000 not 50/50 bulbs if you decide on PC still. However, if you're planning to keep an assortment of corals,( softies, lps, sps) clams & other light loving creatures, recommend you go with. You'll then avoid the cost of upgrading your lights (like you stated) in 6 months when you realize that PC is limiting you from keeping what you really want. 72g bowfront is big enough that it is worth the investment & at 24" is a depth that 150w or 175w MH should be adequate for most spp. you want to keep. If you read through old threads, you'll see many people who went through the headache & expense of upgrading to MH after less than a year.

PS. I have PC & T5s over all my tanks & if I had to do it all over again, especially my 35g hex, it would have a 175w MH pendant over it. Grrrrrr.

JME

Anthony

[Richer]

Sounds like you're looking at PC fixtures and perhaps VHO fixtures. Both fixture will work fine if you're planning on keeping mainly softies, and only a few selected sps corals. I agree with what Anthony said. I would just go for a MH setup if possible. I had a 2x96watt PC fixture over my 30 gallon tank. Initially I loved the setup, but only a couple months later I found myself upgrading to 2x175watt MH setup. I've also heard that PC bulbs fade out rather quickly over a relatively short period of time. I think Bob_I was one of those people who experienced it. I've seen it happen on my plant tank as well.

For a tank like yours I would personally go with a 2x250watt MH setup with actinic supplements (either VHO or PC) being optional. That should allow you to be able to keep just about everything available on the market. There are a few things you can do to keep costs down if that is an issue. Buying bare ballasts from places like Bartle and Gibson should help reduce costs greatly. DIYing your canopy will always save you money (or even finding someone on this board to DIY it for you). Those Arc bulbs from aquaria.ca are pretty inexpensive.
I bought my 175watt ballasts from Bartle and Gibson for 63 bucks each, much cheaper than what J&L had to offer. My reflector, socket and 175watt 10000k bulbs I bought from J&L. If those Arc bulbs were available at that time I would have gotten a couple of 14000k bulbs from aquaria.ca instead.

HTH
-Rich

[mr_alberta]

Hi Al,

IceCap is only a brand name (like Nike). They manufacture ballast that drive an assortment of different lights as well as other lighting related equipment.

As to your lighting question, on a 24" deep tank, you may be able to get away with 175W MH if you keep any real light loving creatures in the top 1/2 of your tank. However, since the price difference between 175W and 250W isn't too much, I would suggest you go straight for the 250W setup. I also suggest that you do go with Metal Halides as they offer you the most flexibility with respect to what type of creatures you can keep in your aquarium.

Whether or not you need Actinic supplementation is completely up to you though. I personally don't use any actinic supplementation. Instead I use a higher Kelvin (color temperature) bulb (~14000 Kelvin).

[PrairieReefer]

Another voice of agreement here. I have a 75g tank (not a bowfront) and I am running 2 x 250watt MH. I have the icecap ballasts and they are great. The ballasts form Bartel and Gibson work great too, but the icecap run very cool and are supposed to be easier on the bulbs which should double bulb life. This can add up over time. I have a 175watt MH Hamilton pendant which I had over the tank until I got my hood built. It was good too and would work fine for medium and low light critters. However, I love clams and anemones, and for these I definitly needed the punch of the 250s.

Also, I am running 20K Radium bulbs and it is very blue. I put a couple of 5500s Normal output lamps (40watt) on to shift the color a bit. I love the way it looks now. My 175 was a 14K Hamilton bulb and it has great color. I may just go with the 14K bulbs when I am changing out my 250s (sometime this summer).

For the price difference I would go with the 250's and then you can keep whatever you decide you want. For color temp, and supplementation, it is a personal taste thing. It would be best if you could look at a few different setups and decide for yourself what you like.

Hope that helps.