MH for 120G

[erreich]

I am looking at using 3 175w MH for a 5' 120 G tank with 2 2 bulb 40w strips using the actines. Does this sound reasonable? 685 Watts of light!! I have about 13" between the bottom of the bulbs and the water.

[kmk2307]

Hi erreich,
That sounds pretty good to me. Maybe even 250s instead of 175s if you want a full blown sps / sps + clam reef. What kind of corals do you want to keep? There are a total of four 40 watt actinic fixtures, right?

Kevin

[Doug]

Hi Erreich,

Like Kevin asked, what kind of corals do you intend to keep?

[hubris007]

Bah! Go with 3x1000watt mh. Then you never have to upgrade, even when you get that 300g you've been wanting.

[easttn]

I just sold a bunch of old equipment to upgrade my lighting. I have a 90gal w/ 2 175W 10K's and actinics. Do your self a favor, a year from now you will want something better. So...buy big. Buy more than you think you need buy one step. If you think you need 175's buy 250's, if you want 250's buy 400's. I want 250's so I'm buying 400's. Yep 175's to 400's need to budget more to the power bill, and allllllll those SPS that iv'e never been able to buy before.

[taku]

I have a 5' 120 gal with 2 x 250 watt MH with twin 96watt actinic pc's and after 1.5 years of running this lighting config I want to redo the canopy and add another 250watt MH and add another 150 -220 or so watts of VHO actinics.

.. started w/ 6500K MH then swapped to 10K but it's still not as blue as I'd like so that's where the extra VHO actinics will come in...