dconyers
Tue, 29th Apr 2003, 01:37 PM
Gents -
I currently have a 250W MH running 10,000K bulb over my 42G hex. I am converting from a fish-only tank to a reef tank. The 250W MH is extremely bright (almost too bright for my living room) and runs very hot(I didn't buy an electronic ballast :cry: ), so I was thinking of adding two 12 and 11/16 inch Compact Fluorescents to my canopy so I wouldn't have to run the MH for 12 hours a day. I built my MH setup myself and was looking at doing the same for the compact fluorescents. My questions are:
1) What basetype/endcaps should I select? I've seen japanese, german and a few other varieties... Which is easiest to buy bulbs for?
2) What bulbs would you suggest I run? I was thinking I would run atleast one actinic, but I really don't know about the other one... My tank is very 'white' currently and I would like to give it a richer color to it (of course, having more than just base rock and sand would probably help out a lot as well).
3) I really only see 28W bulbs in the 12 11/16" size... Is there anything more powerful? Will this be enough light to run for the first and last couple hours of the day without the MH running (Sorry, but I don't know what type of corals I want to keep - I'm still reading on that!)?
Thanks for all the help - Doug
I currently have a 250W MH running 10,000K bulb over my 42G hex. I am converting from a fish-only tank to a reef tank. The 250W MH is extremely bright (almost too bright for my living room) and runs very hot(I didn't buy an electronic ballast :cry: ), so I was thinking of adding two 12 and 11/16 inch Compact Fluorescents to my canopy so I wouldn't have to run the MH for 12 hours a day. I built my MH setup myself and was looking at doing the same for the compact fluorescents. My questions are:
1) What basetype/endcaps should I select? I've seen japanese, german and a few other varieties... Which is easiest to buy bulbs for?
2) What bulbs would you suggest I run? I was thinking I would run atleast one actinic, but I really don't know about the other one... My tank is very 'white' currently and I would like to give it a richer color to it (of course, having more than just base rock and sand would probably help out a lot as well).
3) I really only see 28W bulbs in the 12 11/16" size... Is there anything more powerful? Will this be enough light to run for the first and last couple hours of the day without the MH running (Sorry, but I don't know what type of corals I want to keep - I'm still reading on that!)?
Thanks for all the help - Doug