Lighting ?

[Henry]

I'm thinking of changing my original plan for lighting on my tank. It's a 200-215 tank 7x2x2. I planned to do 4-400watt mh and 260watts of pc. Then I was thinking of doing 6-250watt mh and 260watts of pc. The MH would be xm bulbs and the pc would be 2-10k and 2-antinic bulbs. I need some imput, I will be getting my tank back soon. What would you recommend? Anything you would change? I want to be able to keep anything I want. thanks


Henry

[captexas]

Henry -
The general guide is one metal halide for every 2 feet of tank length. The wattage depends on the depth of the tank and what you intend on keeping in the tank. A seven foot long tank makes it a little tricky and will be trial an error for you to see what looks best.
If you put four 400s or six 250s, you are probably going to bleach the corals and overheat/melt everything else. I think you could probably get away with three 400watters and keep anything you wanted. You could also try going with four 250watters and I think that would be plenty of light. Everything also depends on whether you want to go with electronic ballasts or regular halide ballasts. From what I have read, the 400watt electronic ballasts do not perform as well as the 250watt units. If you don't want electronic ballasts, then no big deal. You will find more people running 250's though than 400's.

Hope that helps.
Chris

[matt]

You might check out Chris Pugh's tank photos; he's got a 200. I think he went with 250s, maybe 4 of them. He's using iwasakis (I think), though, and they have more PPFD than the XM bulbs, meaning they're more intense. I'd also check out Sanjay Joshi's articles on reflector performance. Depending on how many bulbs you use, you might find that the PFO parallel reflectors, mounted perpendicular, give you a better light spread. This would be true especially if the bulbs are close together and you're going for a more rectangular, as opposed to square, spread for each bulb.

If you're using the XM bulbs, do you really want or need the P.C. color support?

[witecap4u]

Im running a 4ft pendant with 2 400W's and two 4ft vho's over my 100g(5ft. long) and its quite enough light spread, so I would say 3 400's over a 7ft tank would be fine. Also, Troy was/is running 2 400's over his 135(6ft tank).

cs

[Henry]

Okay, I guess I was a little too ambitious. I like the idea of 4-250's, just that center brace it just to big. Also the pc would just be for the dawn to dust effect. I think i might just use 2-65 for that. I've ordered those parabolic reflectors from hellolights. Thanks for the input.
thanks

Henry