Adding Compact Fluorescents to my tank...

[dconyers]

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

[Work_Puppy]

Check out www.hellolights.com

And my questions under NEW SETUP below, I am putting together a 85 Hex Reef Tank, and have asked some similar questions to you.

Hello lights does sell Power Compact Retro Kits..

[witecap4u]

I would think that two 28W's would be fine. I was running a 400W 10K with two 15w atinics, and they would barely show through the 400 when it was on, but were decent for the dusk dawn effect. You'd have twice the fluorescent power and almost half the MH.

If you are trying for more color(blueish), I'd go all actinic, but if you will be viewing the tank alot during just PC lighting time, you'd probably want to go with a 50/50 bulb which is half atinic half daylight, or possibly 1 actinic and one 50/50...cs