Help with my lights.........

[JULZ]

I'm just putting together my first aquarium (reef) and for my lighting I'm installing 4 X 72" VHO (Ice Cap). I actually ordered the 660's ballasts but the vendor mailed me 430's instead. I'm wondering if I should return the 430's for the 660's? Is the only difference that you can't use a dimmer on the 430's, right? Do I need a dimmer? Need your expertise, please respond.

[GaryP]

Julz,

What size and kind of reef tank are you setting up? I'm assuming because you are using 72" bulbs its going to be somewhere in the 125-180 range. That may not be enough light for a lot of high light corals.

[Pacman]

The 430 won't fire 4x72", it will only fire 2x72". You need to return the ballast for the right one! Sorry if this is bad news.

Matt

{edit} oops, guess I was thinking 48" :wacko

[JULZ]

right, I got 2 each of the 430's. My tank is 125 gal.

[JimD]

If you paid for 660's, I'd return the 430's and get my mony's worth or get refunded the difference.

[GaryP]

right, I got 2 each of the 430's. My tank is 125 gal.

What sort of reef are you planning. 4 X 72" VHO's will give you about 640 watts of light. A typical 125 gal. is 72X18" and has a foot print of 9 square feet. That's a little over 70 watts/square foot. That's enough for most soft corals but not enough for SPS and some clams.

[GaryP]

I'm running 73 watts/sq. foot of VHOs on my soft coral/LPS tank so that puts you in the same league as what I'm doing. I don't have any SPS or clams in that tank though. I suppose I could put a Squamosa or Derasa light clam in there if I had the room.

[jaded]

I'm interested in the equation I should use for the w/sf I should running... I'm surprised to see that I'll be running only 83.33 w/sf (not counting the T5 actinics) do you have a link that would help me?

[GaryP]

Here's a very rough guideline:

watts per square foot:
100+ High light SPS tank
50 Mixed reef including an anemone or some not-so-colorful SPS at the top of the tank.
30 Low light stony corals, most leathers.
10 Low light leathers and mushrooms

This came from a pretty good resource someone posted a while back:

http://www.c-sea.org/members/brad/articles/light/#howbright

[GaryP]

Does that include incandescent bulbs? :P What about 1000 watt halide over one side of the tank and an LED on the other? How about a tank that's 6' deep and 18" wide? hehe... I'm not busting your chops, just trying to point out that any "guideline" is majorly flawed.

No, you are correct, just as it doesn't include lighting a tank with candles or whale oil lamps. Note the word "rough." I suppose these guidelines assume some general common sense. Which is better, some general guidelines or telling someone to buy as much light as they can afford? This may not be a perfect solution, but it will help some of the newbies get on the right track when making initial lighting decision IMHO.

[jaded]

well... my plan is to have SPS and clams, so I'm hoping I'm on the right track...

3 250w MH (elec ballasts), 10K bulbs, 2 48" T5 actinics, 135 gallons (72Wx18Dx24H)

I'm not hijacking the thread... sorry, I just thought it was the right place to ask the question

[GaryP]

Sounds good. More than enough light. Did you ever figure out how you are going to arrange three bulbs with a center brace?

You might eventually want to re-think the actinics though. Not for the corals, they won't care, but just as far as the color you will get from a fairly low percentage of actinic light wattage. It has more to do with how happy you will be with the color that you get from your lighting set up.

Just as a comparison, ~39% (320 out of a total of 820 watts) of my total wattage in my SPS tank is coming from VHO actinics and I wish I had more. Admittedly, T5 are probably more efficient than my VHOs but I have never really seen anyone give a conversion ratio for VHO to T5. Tim has said he thinks its around 2:1. In other words, 100 watts of T5 is as effective as 200 watts of T5. I guess you would just have to get a Lumen meter and do some testing to figure that out. I don't know if anyone has ever done that. If you are aware of any info on the net, please let me know.

[jaded]

I was considering getting a lumen tester... I think there are several on the market with submergable probe at a very reasonable price. of course that will have to wait for some time as I'm totally broke now!!!

[GaryP]

I did a little research on RC and someone that is a lot better at math than I am came up with a T5 vs. VHO ratio of 1.7:1. This was based on the reported lumen output per watt for both types of bulbs (ATI & URI).

So in my case that means that I could replace my 320 watts of VHO with 188 watts of T5 and not get a decrease in lumens.

Jaded, I assume your 48" T5 bulbs are 54 watts? That gives you a total of 108 watts and the equivalent of 183 watts of VHO lighting. On the other hand your 10K have a pretty wide spectrum and you will be getting some additional blue lighting from them that I am not getting from my 2 X 250 watt MH. You can always add more T5s as you go along.

I hope this helped. It was actually pretty productive for me because I am working through the same issues on a tank I have i the planning stages.

[GaryP]

Gary, I vote for as much light as you can afford. :P Maybe we can come up with something more accurate like watt per inch of depth or something.

Josh,

I read something a few months ago about sulfur bulbs that were supposed to be the wave of the future for reef tanks. Do you know anything about them? It was a fairly old article from around 98. Apparently they run off of a magnetron like a microwave and never have to be replaced. There was a link to the company that patented them but when I looked for them it appears as if they were bought out. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all swing having lights like Jim had in his 240.

Actually, I'm looking at building a house with skylights with rotating mirrors to track the sun and shine onto a monster reef tank. All the free 5.5K I want. Sort of an indoor greehouse. All I will need is to supplement with actinic and some minimal daylight bulbs for after sunset when I have people over.

[GaryP]

Apparently they run off of a magnetron like a microwave and never have to be replaced.

You'd only have to worry about killing someone with a pace maker. I wonder what your homeowners insurance company would think about that?

[GaryP]

Josh,

Try calculating your watts/sq. ft. on your SPS tank and see where you come out. Just curious to see how the rule of thumb works out. I bet its not as far out as you think it is.

[GaryP]

Here's some info on sulfur bulbs.

http://www.seabay.org/articles/let_there_be_light_3.htm

[OldSalty]

I'm wondering why places like Home Depot,Lowes wont carry our lamps. They could make a ton of money if they sold that stuff. I too am sick of paying the HIGH PRICES for a darn light blub :w00t thats why I strech mine out to a year. just changed all my lights, over 200 bucks!

[GaryP]

I'm wondering why places like Home Depot,Lowes wont carry our lamps. They could make a ton of money if they sold that stuff. I too am sick of paying the HIGH PRICES for a darn light blub :w00t thats why I strech mine out to a year. just changed all my lights, over 200 bucks!

Because they are specialty bulbs. If they can't sell a thousand of them a year they aren't interested.

[Ram_Puppy]

Julz, I am sure it has been said, but if you are gong to send the VHO's back, then I would just send them back, cancel that order, and get T-5's instead. VHO's (IMHO) are the wave of the past.