Lighting help

[enrico]

Hi, my tank is a 50g, 36" long/18" high/18" deep

all im using right now is a single 36" coralife t5, which has 21 watt 10,000K Daylight and
21 watt True Actinic 03 Blue T5 Fluorescent Lamp

wanting to get into corals and even clams

thinking about purchasing this Metal Halide unit and mounting it in a canopy with fans

eBay: Metal Halide Retro Aquarium Light 1 X 250 New w/ bulb (item 250027907239 end time Sep-20-06 11:55:31 PDT)

will this be enough light or should i buy two

also should i use my t5 together with this MH

[Ninong]

I don't know anything about the unit for sale on eBay. The description doesn't even give you the brand of the included lamp. I'm afraid I can't advise you there because I would personally be shy about buying lighting equipment on eBay considering how many reports I have read on the boards by people who have been burned trying to buy lighting equipment on eBay.

As far as what would work over your 36"x18"x18" tank, that's a tough question. I don't think I would put two 250w metal halides over a 36"L tank but I would consider two 150w metal halides. I would personally prefer two 150w halides but a single 250w halide would work, too, although the coverage would not be even across the whole tank.

Some people are OK with installing metal halide lamps without a glass UV shield (such as pictured in your eBay link) but I'm not one of them.

As far as your present T5 lamps are concerned, I'm not sure exactly what you have. A 36" T5 HO lamp is 39 watts. If yours are only 21 watts, then I guess they are T5 NO lamps??? In any case, use your T5 lamps for actinic supplementation and dawn/dusk effect. Make both of them actinic. That's assuming you don't choose something really blue for your metal halide lamp(s).

Good luck!

[enrico]

hi there Ninong, i ended up going with a 14 k, 175w metal Halide with an Ice Cap 175 Ballist in a Reefoptic Enclosed Reflectlor thats hanging in the middle of the canopy. It seems to be doing great, but going by the size of the Reflector it doesnt even look like i could hang two units inside.

I think I will just supplement it with 2 actinic's from my t5 fixture


what do you think?

[Ninong]

Yes, I would definitely use actinic supplementation if you can fit it over the tank. Make both of the fluorescent lamps actinic and have them come on about an hour before the halide fixture and go off about an hour after the halide fixture to simulate dawn and dusk.

[enrico]

sounds good, so you figure that should be enough light for some clams?