info on lighting

[Dyncaus]

i am looking for lighting for my 29g tank and i was wondering if i had the moonlight PC fixture, which is 96x2w, what could i keep in the tank? also, what couldn't i keep? i am trying to figure out if what i can't keep is enough incentive to wait until i can get MH lighting.
thanks

[manny]

Dyncaus, you can save the expense and not have to wait for sps and more light loving corals if you buy a metal halide retrofit kit from hello lights and just build a canopy for it. Not too much more expensive than that csl moonlight hood. That's what I've done for my 30 long. I used to have the coralife aqualight with 2x96w pcs and didn't like the fact that I couldn't get any of the more colorful corals because most of them need the stronger metal halide lighting. I was explained this by someone that the more colorful corals which are at the top of the reef, get lighting that is closer to the metal halide lights that we keep in our aquariums. As you go deeper into the ocean, where the mostly less colorful corals are, the lighting is closer to pc's. Don't let this keep you from buying the pcs though because alot of soft corals will do great with pc's. Oh yeah, and there are some colorful, low lighting corals such as mushrooms and other stuff that'll work with pcs but I'm not really a mushroom fan. And if you like the movement of them and don't really care about coloring, softies and pc's would be a good choice. That's just what I've experienced in my whole 5 months of reefing. Hopefully someone more experienced will tell me if what I've said is correct.

[Andrew]

I'm growing montipora digitata (purple and green), and m. cap (purple edged w/ green, and galaxea under 2*96watt pcs in my 40. The color isn't the greatest when both bulbs are on, but do flouresce under actinc.
They run cooler, less expensive to operate than MH.

Andrew

After buying the entire hood kit, next time I would personally get a pc retrofit kit, as you'll still have room for upgrades. The 2*96 retrokits are about 5 1/2 inches wide versus about 8" for the fixture. So you could go with 2 retro kits for 384 watts, or a retro kit now, and 175MH later, etc.
my 2 cents. The retro would have to be mounted inside your canopy, or somehow onto the top, etc.

[manny]

Yep, I agree with Andrew. That would be a better idea.

[matt]

First, if you have a 29 gal, it's 30" long. The 96W P.C. bulbs are 36" long, soooo..unless you're talking about the "quad" which i believe is about 19" long. Either way probably not a great option. 29 gal tanks are kind of hard to light because of the odd size; 19" deep but only 12" front to back. If I'm wrong about the size, sorry!

I'd get a single mh bulb with a PFO parallel reflector, mount the bulb lengthwise. 250W should be plenty. Don't get the hellolights "spiderlight" reflector; in your set up it will only give you about 60% of the light that the PFO parallel one will, mounted correctly. You can check out Sanjay Joshi's analysis of reflectors in advanced reefkeeping (or one of the online mags.) You need a long rectangular light spread. (30"x12")

You can also probably get 3 55W PC tubes over the tank; that would be pretty good light too. When I had a 29, I had 2 55W tubes and it was pretty bright in there. Good luck!