Lighting

[troublemanbob]

I have a choice of lighting. Where I work I can get 100 to 400 watt MH's with ballasts. For a 90 G that is to be reef setup, what is to the best combination of wattage and quantity of bulbs?

Say two 400W, or 3 100W, or 2-3 250W. I also have a 48" light strip that has dual power actinics and dual day lights 10,000k.

I am going to redesign these to also fit into my new hood. Do I need actinics and day lites or one or the other with the MH's?

In the future I would like to add moon lites as well.

Thanks.

[vermonter310]

You'll need to provide more info. Size of tank and what you plan on keeping. Light colors vary widely and much is what "you" like.
general setup would be 1 MH for each 2 feet of tank length. The deeper the tank the higher wattage you should use. Again though, you'll need to provide more info as well as seek out some pics of tanks with different color rated bulbs.

HTH

Mike

[shilo_1]

As Mike said above, a lot depends on what you want to keep, and how deep the tank is.

I would think that 2 400w MH with actinics would be sufficient to allow you to keep pretty much anything in the future.

Apparently 10k bulbs will cause faster growth in the corals, while 20k's will show the colors up much better....although they will still grow well under 20k. :)
Just depends on what you like. :)

[shilo_1]

I forgot...take a lok at these links....think they are based on 250w, but it gives you an idea of the color differences...

http://metricksystem.com/chris/250wcolour/

http://www.coralreefecosystems.com/ltg_bulb_color.htm

[troublemanbob]

Sorry, It's a 90 gallon reef tank 48" long 24" deep and 18' wide.

Would like to have live rock w/ hard and soft corals and some fish.

[vermonter310]

Two 250's with possibly some actinic suppliment would be very good. But if you can get the 400's I'd do that. Then when you find you want to keep sps you won't need to upgrade. Will they be going in a hood or hanging above the tank?

Mike

[troublemanbob]

I'm going to build a hood the length and width of the tank. Probably 15" high to fit the all the bulbs and some fans. I'll have vent slots on the sides and along the rear to keep all cool. The MH's will have reflective hoods as well to disperse light better. The entire interior will be painted white as well.

They other question I had was do I want a glass shield between all the lites and the tank to avoid salt creep and to avoid excess evaporation?