Quote:
Originally posted by tsr770
I figured I would come to the T5 guru's and see what you all think on this one.... Just ordered a new tank, 36" long x 30" wide x 20" tall. Being that the tank is so wide, they will not eurobrace it when building it, so my idea of having a single halide over the middle is kinda killed by a 1.5" wide piece of plastic. So the start of my questions is... if I hang a halide say 12" over the plastic brace, combined with 4 39w T5's 3-4" off the water , will the even lighting from the T5's hide the shadow that the halide will make from the brace?....
Or I could go all t5's, how many bulbs should I put over the 30" wide tank so that I can feel safe with SPS and possibly a clam down the road? I was thinking 4 TEK 2 bulbs retros in the canopy would be a good starting point?
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That tank would do really well with a couple of 150 watt halides and say 4 T5's. You could have the halide say 6" above the tank and easily add as much or more light to the tank as a single higher wattage lamp lighting the whole tank from 12" above. If your did do a single lamp I doubt you would see a shawdow but the shimmer lines might be disrupted a bit below the brace.
For T5's I would do Tek II retros, not the ready fit junk. 8 lamps would cover it really good. Clams would be fine.