I export the nitrates and phosphates from my tank out to the grass and don't add as much KW as you in Northern Ohio.
I tried to post this continuation on the lighting yesterday but after the lame table joke RC banned me from posting the rest of the day. Here goes--
Heck Newbie, How do you ever expect to keep a reef tank without MH lighting? Or, MH light will bleach your corals and they’ll all die!
Sound familiar. You bet. All as I can say is---
HOGWASH!!!!!
There are thousands of reefers out there that have very nice tanks without any MH. Some even keep clams under VHO. People with about a zillion watts per gallon of MH lights have beautiful tanks of coral.
As often happens newer technology often gets elevated to such a status that older technology is swept to the wayside. This is most unfortunate as sometimes the newest technology only offers marginal improvement over the old. IMO this is true of MH vs. fluorescent lighting. Both can serve the same purpose, either alone, or in concert with each other.
Claims for MH say it is much more intense but in reality this is more of a visual illusion. When you compare overall output per watt of MH to VHO there is not that great of a difference. MH bulbs are a point source and appear brighter than the diffuse effect from a fluorescent tube. Also, as MH bulbs need to be mounted further from the water surface any extra intensity is offset by the standoff height.
MH bulbs last longer than fluorescent is another claim. Not so much these days as improved phosphors have made most fluorescents have about a year of useful life. MH bulbs age too. The process is somewhat different as some of the internal filament is sputtered off and then condenses on the relatively cooler quartz tube. This reduces output and changes spectral output. Again, improvements have been made in MH design and they too can last a year or more.
Spectral output of the two varies with K value and can differ greatly from bulb to bulb. If you go to the Sylvania-Osram site they have graphs of the spectral output of all their bulbs and they tend to keep them updated. If you notice in their graphs, a 6500K daylight fluorescent has a spectrum which covers almost the entire visible light range. This is not a special aquarium bulb but a normal daylight fluorescent.
One of the problems with making tables of bulb outputs and spectra is that it changes with time. Advances in the bulbs make any data over a year old someone outdated. Also, very few people that compare bulbs do so with bulbs that have been run a month or two. A bulb that shows superior output when brand new may have mediocre output a few months later.
An argument for fluorescents is that they are cooler than MH. However, just like MH
appear brighter than VHO because they are a point source, they also appear hotter for the same reason. The VHO just spreads the heat out over a large area.
I don't have the resources to buy a bunch of bulbs and test them all in proper fashion. Also, such data would be quickly dated. Therefore, at the risk of being told it has no scientific value, I declare there is no clear winner. A good tank can be maintained with either.
What is important is having enough light and placing your most light hungry creatures closest to it. I myself use a combination of MH and VHO in larger tanks and use straight fluorescent, either PC or VHO, on smaller tanks. T-5 would be satisfactory here as well.
Boy, how is that for a cop out.
Oh, one more word on heat for you people that plan a tank with lighting that will eliminate the need for street lights around your home. Tanks up to around 150 gallons and running up to 8 watts per gallon can usually get by without a chiller. Tanks over 150 have less external surface area to water volume and don't radiate heat to the atmosphere as fast. So the bigger the tank the more likelihood you will need a chiller. A major cost consideration in any lighting decision.
Well that’s it for today. I’ll wrap up lighting REAL soon.