1 300w or 2 150w MH?

[.::Jun77::.]

hi!

what do you guys recomend?

1 300w or 2 150w MH

for a 18w x 24H x 29L , 45g(tall) tank

tnx

[ahullsb]

What are you trying to keep?

[MalHavoc]

I'd probably go with the single bulb. A single bulb covers about a 2x2 area, and you'll get better deep water penetration with the 300w bulb. It will also make your canopy simpler. Were you going to do a pendant?

But yes, what did you want to keep? A single 150w HQI bulb might not be a bad choice if you were aiming at corals that need less light, like softies and LPS corals. It would also cut down on your cooling and power consumption requirements.

[luvmylo]

I think for your tank the single bulb would work well.

[.::Jun77::.]

thanks for the reply guys,

im planning to keep LPS, softies maybe some zoa.

so you think MH 150w would be enough? thats great coz its great to conserve energy too.

im using 4 x 65 pc now, if im going to "upgrade" to MH then my wattage will go down from 260w to 150w? and this is gonna be enough?

i read that MH penerates deeper than PC, my tank is tall for a 45g
its 24 inch.

[Shooter7]

I'd suggest a 250w bulb over a 24" deep tank. With one bulb on that tank, you will get some areas off to the sides getting less light. I've always seen it related that with a proper reflector, one MH bulb will typically cover roughly a 2' x 2' area.

btw...who the heck makes a 300w bulb?

[Kreeger1]

Theres not a 300 watt bulb btw

[stanlalee]

You could go with a single 250w bulb with HQI ballast (if you really want that close to 300w) and use a lumenarc or lumenmax 2 or 3 (depending on if you chose double ended or single ended set up) for the 3ft of coverage. you dont need the HQI ballast but thats the one that overdrives 250w bulbs.
I would do the above before putting two 150w bulbs over a 29" long tank. A) the 250w will penetrate better than the 150w bulbs, B) I assume there will be less heat issues with one 250w over two 150w bulbs and C) with the proper reflector you can get 3ft of coverage with one bulb so why do more than neccessary.

[.::Jun77::.]

ooops my bad, i meant to say 250w.

anyway, ill prolly go 1 x 250w.

thanks to your opinions guys, really appreciate it peace!

[XSiVE]

Just a FYI, wattage is how much power is consumed to run the bulb, it doesnt necessarily have a lot to do with the amount of light output. Depending on the situation you can reduce your wattage consumed and actually increase your light output.

for example, your 4x65W PC lights are consuming 260W, but you could switch to 4x54W T5HO (even without individual reflectors) and actually get more intense lighting over your tank. The same would go for the switch to a lower wattage MH bulb, the lights are more efficient at producing more light (in PAR readings) for less wattage.

[aquarius77]

A single point of light that never moves is no good if you can go with dual points of light. You will have alot of shadows with one bulb and the corals will all grow tward the one light. I feel more than one point of light is esp important if you plan on keeping sps.