Too much light?? Where should it stop?

[Schism]

Well I am thinking about upgrading my lighting and am curious if I can go overboard. I currently have 2 175 watt halides over a 60 gal reef. I am almost considering adding 2 400 watt halides to what I have. Would I go blind:cool:, would I bleach out my corals. I have mainly sps corals and some zooanthids and goronians. I want to keep clams and other high light corals, but would this be to far? It would end up at 19.16666 Watts per gallon. WOW. :eek1: :eek2:.
Maybe I should go witht he upgrade and sell off the 175watters??
Let me in on some opinions
thanks!

[tentacle]

Schism there are really numerous factors to consider when it comes to lighting. Rather then give you my opinion, I'll post a few links to some extremely enlightening (pun intended) threads about this subject, and I'll let you be the judge:

http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66822

http://archive.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83188

Happy reading. :)

[turtlespd]

I dont think one can ever go overboard on may reach equalibrium..in which coral growth and coloration would be the same no matter how intense our lighitng..

2 400w MH over a 60g..i have seen much more..youll be ok..just dont start of and run them 10hrs a day..your corals will bleach in a heart beat..slowly up the ligths from 5 to maybe 6 hrs for the first week and then up it slowly..

Paul

[Ironreef]

depends on what you keep. But you have sps/clams so it should be fine. But you may have heat issues??? I've seen tanks with mere 250hqi lighting that looked better than 400w 10k. So IMO theres more than just lighting. ... theres the power bill also. How do your sps look now? What bubl do you use/ Not all bulbs are equall either. If you search theres ppl who have down graded from 400w also= the power bill. The only difference they saw was faster growth but none in color. So it just depends on what you want

[dendronepthya]

I agree that heat issues on a tank that size will come into play before the intensity of th light does. There are a lot of people keeping corals 6" - 10" under400W halides without vaporizing their corals.

I would worry more about the law of diminishing returns in terms of eletricity; both the lamps themselves and the cost of cooling the system. Would you be better off with a dual 250W setup?

[Phillips]

Which 175 watt bulbs are you using? How far are they from the surface of the tank? How deep is your tank & how deep is your sand bed? Are you supplementing w/ VHO or PC's? Are you looking for the effect of the 400 watt Radiums or the Iwasakis or? Which ballast are you going to use? Which sps and clams do you want to keep, and will you be getting rid of the animals you keep now?

There are a lot of questions to ponder. You might want to look at other people's tanks in person to find some of the answers you're looking for.

[Potsy]

If overheating isn't an issue and you properly acclimate your corals to intense lighting there isn't a problem for most corals. Most aquarium trade corals are collected in shallow waters 3-6ft. deep where the sunlight is extremely intense. Light about an inch away from a 400 watt bulb is roughly equivalent to 8 a.m. tropical sunlight.

[ChrisPma]

What other lighting are you currently using? VHO, compacts? it sounds as tho you current halides are sufficient as long a s they are supllemented as the hallides do all their effective work within 4-6 hours after that VHOs or compact flouresents with actinics are sufficient. What i have always done is run my compacts and actinics on a 12 hour timer with the halides running for the middle 6 hours to give the "noon" effect. But in short 2-175s is definately sufficient for anything you want in a 60 gallon tank.