[crete456]

Hello...I just purchased a used 75 gal...I've have a 37gal FO tank and just started introducing live rock, so far so good...the 75 gal. came with 1 strip light and a DIY double flour. light...48"...$ is a little tight for now...can anyone suggest lighting for a reef setup with these current fixtures...

[charlie]

Are these all normal output florescent bulbs. If so, you are going to have a problem getting anything that is reef related. The least you need is compact florescent or T5 bulbs for even soft corals like leathers or even mushrooms. JMHO

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by crete456

the 75 gal. came with 1 strip light and a DIY double flour. light...48"..

Can you be more specific? Does this mean you have a total of three 48" normal output (40w) fluorescent lamps???

What exactly do you have right now? How many lamps do you have? What wattage? What Kelvin rating?

[crete456]

Thanks Ninong...CurrentlyI have a 37 FO tank & just starting to introduce live rock...so far so good...I happen to come upon a great deal on a used 75 gal.,it came with a DIY standard double flour. & 1 perfecto strip light...from what I've been hearing I might as well just throw these out...I want to make the 75 gal. a reef tank & didn't want to waste the lights that came with the tank...

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by crete456

Thanks Ninong...CurrentlyI have a 37 FO tank & just starting to introduce live rock...so far so good...I happen to come upon a great deal on a used 75 gal.,it came with a DIY standard double flour. & 1 perfecto strip light...from what I've been hearing I might as well just throw these out...I want to make the 75 gal. a reef tank & didn't want to waste the lights that came with the tank...

OK, I still have no idea whatsoever what you have???????

You say you don't want to "waste the lights that came with the tank" but you have not yet identified what lights (lamps) came with the tank. You say you have a "Perfecto strip light" but you have not identified it either.

What do you have? You seem to be talking about fixtures instead of lamps. The lamp is the tube that lights up when you plug in the fixture. If you don't know the wattage, knowing the exact dimensions will give us the wattage. The exact dimensions means the length and the diameter of the lamp (fluorescent tube).

I don't know if you should be saving these or throwing them out because I have no idea what they are. Each lamp should have something printed on it.

If you have three 40w normal output fluorescent lamps, that would be a start. You can keep some low-light corals with four 40w NO fluorescents.

[crete456]

Sorry Ninong I don't mean to sound like an idiot...but your right the strip light & DIY light are NO 40 W 48" flour. that came with regular 20 W bulbs...this was a freshwater tank that I bought...I know that the bulbs are no good but I'm wondering about the fixtures...I was going to use (2) 10,000K or 20,000K coralife 48" 40W tubes and (1) 48" 40W actinic03 coralife, but I'm hearing that this is not enough...I don't want to waste $ but on the other hand don't want to shell out $ for tubes that won't be good for my tank...entually I think I can build my canopy w/MH, but I still have other things to buy to get the tank up and running e.g.:live sand,live rock,the corals, a bigger protein skimmer,refugium, sump...heres another ?,everyone says to go with T5's or MH...but as I'm researching what is the difference between say a T12 48" 40W 10,000K coralife,or a URI Aquasun 40W, or a Compact 34" 96W 10,000 K, or a Aqualight 48" 28W 10,000K or a 175W 10,000K MH, they all have 10,000K just the wattage is different...I don't get the coralation between Kelvin and wattage...I would think one would want lower wattage for less heat and expense...thanks again Denny

[Ninong]

There is no correlation between wattage and Kelvin rating. Wattage is a measure of power consumption. Kelvin refers to the apparent color temperature of the light relative to a theoretical standard.

For example, a 10,000K lamp should be whiter than a 6,500K lamp. And a 13,000K lamp should be more of a bluish-white when compared to a 10,000K lamp. A 20,000K lamp should be very bluish. The operative phrase here is "should be." Unfortunately the manufacturers assign whatever Kelvin rating they please, often with little regard to the obvious appearance of the light from the lamp.

The 50,000K Iwasaki 150w medium base lamp is a very nice little lamp. However, it's not nearly as bluish as the 150w 20,000K BLV HQI DE lamp. Some of the 14,000K lamps are bluer than the 400w 20,000K Radium lamps. And the 250w 20,000K Radium lamps are much bluer than the 400w 20,000K Radium lamps.

I like URI fluorescents better than the others if you're asking about normal output T12's and VHO T12's. For whatever reason, they upped their advertised Kelvin ratings on all of their fluorescents several years ago. The AquaSun is now rated as 10,000K (it used to be rated much, much lower than that). They didn't change anything other than the Kelvin rating for marketing purposes. The ActinicWhite is supposed to be 12,000K and the SuperActinic has no Kelvin rating (which is the correct way to do it on that one).

When it comes to Kelvin ratings on compact fluorescents, it's strictly a marketing game. Take 6700K and 7100K for example. The 7100K is a number taken out of thin air. It means absolutely nothing! You can't assign a 7100K rating to a lamp that has almost all of its output at 450nm.

The various actinic fluorescents really don't need a Kelvin rating. They're either mostly 420nm or 450nm depending on the brand. The ones at 420nm are usually called true 03 actinic. That's a long story.

The 20,000K metal halides really aren't 20,000K. That's just a number the manufacturers like to use. They should be called "blue" lamps. In fact, Radium does exactly that. They call their so-called 20,000K lamps "blau" -- German for blue. We're the ones who call them 20,000K.

Another point to remember: Wattage doesn't mean much. It tells you the power consumption but not the effectiveness of the lamp for your purposes. You need to know the PAR rating and the spectral distribution. Wattage can be a joke, which is why all of those stupid watts-per-gallon rules are hilarious. Another example, one company's 175w 10,000K metal halide lamp puts out three times the PAR as another company's 175w 6000K metal halide lamp. They're both 175 watts but one of them is three times better.

As far as fluorescents are concerned, your typical 10,000K fluorescent lamp (or power compact fluorescent or T8 or T5) puts out more than double the PAR of the same lamp in actinic. That's OK but it's something to keep in mind. In other words, if you have four 40w normal output fluorescent lamps over your tank, you will have much more PAR with two AquaSuns, one ActinicWhite and one SuperActinic than you would with three SuperActinics and one ActinicWhite. That being said, most people still prefer the appearance of two ActinicWhites and two SuperActinics for a reef tank.

[crete456]

WOW!...you know your stuff Ninong...so what would be your recomendation as far as type,Watts,Kelvin, and manufacturer for the NO 48" tubes for my tank (1 strip light & a double DIY strip light)...I was thinking to put (2) aquasuns in the double strip & (1) super actinic R in the single strip light by URI...thats 330Watts...and also do you keep all 3 on at the same time...and can I replace the ballast from NO to HO do you know...thanks so much...Denny

[Ninong]

Denny,

That's not 330 watts, it's 120 watts. A 48" normal output T-12 fluorescent lamp is 40 watts. A 48" VHO T-12 fluorescent lamp is 110 watts.

You can't put VHO tubes in a regular normal output fluorescent fixture. VHO lamps require different ballasts and sockets, etc.

Yes, three VHO lamps (330 watts total) would be good for a 75-gal tank. Four VHO lamps would be even better.

However, you can get by right now with just three or four 40w NO fluorescent lamps until you're ready to upgrade to something else, like T5 or maybe even metal halide.

If you're going with three 40w NO fluorescents right now, use one SuperActinic, one ActinicWhite and one AquaSun (or similar). This will work for low-light softies only.

[NoSump]

Ninong:

Long time no post - how are you doing?

Thanks to all of your advice, when I first got into this hobby, my tank (72Gal bowfront) is doing very well. It's worth all of the work, when after two years, all of the corals come together in a beautiful display.

I have a question related to this thread. My initial choice of lighting, 4X96Watt PC Coralife fixture has limited my options (for instance clams and hard corals are definately out). I am planning to upgrade my lighting to MH.

My question is: Is there any difference between the double ended HQI bulbs and the old fashioned screw in MH bulbs? For instance do the HQI's generate less heat, last longer, etc. The Orbit 48" fixture with 2-150 HQI, and 2-130 PC, and 6 lunar lights seems like a good option, although a bit pricey ($629). The other option that I am considering is the new Coralife that comes with 2-250MH screw in bulbs, and 2-96PC (I could use my leftover PCs with this option. (even pricer at $769). Thanks for whatever advice that you can provide.

[Ninong]

Originally Posted by NoSump

Ninong:

Long time no post - how are you doing?

Fine, thanks!

My question is: Is there any difference between the double ended HQI bulbs and the old fashioned screw in MH bulbs? For instance do the HQI's generate less heat, last longer, etc.

There was a time, a few years ago, when it was claimed that the double-ended metal halide lamps were superior to the single-ended metal halide lamps. I believe this idea was fostered by tests that Dr. Sanjay Joshi published that showed that the 250w 10,000K HQI DE Ushio lamp provided a lot of PAR with an excellent spectral distribution. In fact, it was superior to just about every other lamp he tested at that time. It even produced more PAR than some 400w metal halide lamps.

Since then there has been a lot more testing, by Sanjay and others. One thing that some folks may not have noticed about that first test was that all of those lamps, both single-ended and double-ended, were tested without glass shields (UV absorbing). It may be reasonably safe to run the single-ended lamps without a shield but it is absolutely verboten to run a double-ended lamp without a shield. The glass shield reduces the total PAR by about 15% but it's absolutely required in the case of DE lamps.

Because of those early tests by Sanjay, I chose a fixture with 250w 10,000K HQI DE lamps. I was very satisfied with those lamps. I have tried both the AB-10000 and the Ushio/BLV 10,000K and both are very nice but I believe I prefer the Ushio/BLV. In my experience, these lamps should be changed about every 12-14 months (12 months if run 10-12 hrs/day and 14 months if run 8-10 hrs/day). You can run them longer but it is not advisable. The 150w 10,000K DE lamps by those same two manufacturers will last about two months longer than the 250w size.

It is difficult to say with certainly anymore whether DE lamps are superior to SE lamps because there are so many new brands on the market and some of those are impressive. One thing that is still true is that, in general, the 10,000K lamps produce a lot more PAR than the 15,000K or 20,000K lamps of the same wattage (e.g., the 150w 10,000K HQI DE lamp by BLV produces twice as much PAR as the 150w 20,000K HQI DE lamp by the same manufacturer).

If you choose 150w size DE lamps for your size tank, you will be OK as long as you go with 10,000K and not 20,000K and as long as you supplement with actinic fluorescents. That will give you enough light for SPS and clams provided you don't place them on the sandbed.

If you choose 250w size DE lamps, you will have more than enough light in your tank for anything. I used 250w DE lamps in a tank that was 27.5" tall and my lamps were 11" above the surface. I found that I had adequate light for anything provided I didn't place things like crocea clams or SPS on the bottom of the tank.

The Orbit 48" fixture with 2-150 HQI, and 2-130 PC, and 6 lunar lights seems like a good option, although a bit pricey ($629). The other option that I am considering is the new Coralife that comes with 2-250MH screw in bulbs, and 2-96PC (I could use my leftover PCs with this option. (even pricer at $769). Thanks for whatever advice that you can provide.

I am not familiar with either of those brands. I have a fondness for the various fixtures offered by Aqua-Medic. I like DE HQI lamps (both 150w and 250w) but I would prefer T5's for the actinic supplementation over PCs. However, if you prefer to stick with PCs because that's what you have, then that will work, too. If you were buying a new fixture, I would recommend one with T5 actinic supplementation rather than PC actinics.

A 72-gal bowfront is difficult to light because of the limited space available over the open tank top.

[NoSump]

Ninong:

Thank you for a very helpful and informed response to my lighting question.

I cut corners the first time around, and tha't why I need to upgrade my lighting now. from your post, I am drawing the conclusion that it would be alot smarter to go with 250Watt (10,000K) VS. 150Watt. Thanks.