lighting a 40 g.

bowfront26 · #1 09/12/2004, 11:33 PM

I am going to be purchasing a 40 gallon breeder.(36x14x16... I believe). I am trying to decide on which light set up I need. I don't plan on keeping any high light demanding corals. I will have softies, an anemone, hammers and brains, and maybe couple montipora. Would a 250W SE be enough to cover this tank... I could leave 2" or so on the right and left side of the tank free of rocks or corals. This way the light would really only need to reach 32".
Will the 250W help me, compared to the 150W, as far as "covering" the tank. The tank is fairly shallow so would the 250W just be waisting electricty and $$.

Shayn · #2 10/10/2004, 06:56 PM

If you mean a single ended metal halide in the 250 watt? They are designed to cover a 2' x 2' area, but what really controls that is the hight the light is mounted over the tank, the more u lift the light over rhe tank the wider the area it will light. With a shallow tank u could use 175 watt set up, u did say u arent wanting to keep sps,s, 4 watts a galon would sufice, but a little more would be nicer, my softies didnt like my lights when i went from 5 watts a gallon to 10, and thrived quite nicely at 5, lotsa choices i prefer metal for intensity and color, with atintic supl from vho, but im slowly becoming sps only tank

NuclearReefs · #3 10/10/2004, 07:00 PM

I have a 40 breeder,, same tank as this and I have a 250 watt iwasaki on it.. considering another one actually.... but i am keeping SPS .

here is a few pics,,,,, first one is just VHO's

This one is VHO's and Iwasaki 6500 K

I have a problem with white balance on my camera and its not really this " White" but it is very intense....

Nathan

Shayn · #4 10/11/2004, 04:16 PM

Tanks looks nice but i cant tell if all the tips of your acro's are white with new growth, and i understand the camra not being able to catch the actual picture i use a cam corder with still frame 's and download to pc butt not the best pix, actually they sux wind, ill send u a pix of my newly modified light setup for my 150 mixed reef tank, just waiting for bulbs to mount vho lights, so ill have 2 x 24" vho @ 75 watts each and 2 x 36" vho @ 95 watts each( with pure atinic bulbs all (4) ) and 2 400 watt mh's with coralvue 10k's that actually spec out closer to 14k, butt very white bulb not blue like a 14k bulb, should have bulbs mounted by sometimes next weekend, hopefully! thanks for post!

NuclearReefs · #5 10/11/2004, 05:05 PM

they are white with new growth, especially the humilis in the front of the tank....