Confused

[krkosiba]

I am setting up a fowlr tank, however I am confused with all the lighting. I just don't know what to do. I have a glass top so should I use a set of T-5's or use something else? I love the shimmer affect in the water but I don't know if the lights that produce that affect will be as bright and bring out the color in the fish as T-5's. I know lighting is all personal preference but I would like some input. Thanks

[Carissa]

If you're not planning to have corals it's more personal preference than anything else. I have a set of dual T5's HO on my fowlr tank and they are very nice and bright as far as I'm concerned. I think the shimmer effect usually comes from metal halides, they are a lot more expensive though and very bright, usually only on tanks with corals that require that high light intensity.

If you go with T5's you will probably want to have one actinic and one that's around 10,000K or thereabouts ("daylight") which will show off the colors to best effect.

[Ninong]

Is this for your new 75-gal tank? If so, you have lots of different lighting options to choose from.

Most people do not use metal halide lamps for a FOWLR tank unless it is a large tank, much larger than 75 gallons. That doesn't mean you can't use metal halides. In fact, if you do use metal halides, you will be in good shape if and when you decide to add a few corals.

For a FOWLR tank, normal output fluorescents are adequate but VHO or HO T5s are much better. None of these will produce the glitter lines you are asking about. You can only get glitter lines with a point-source light, not a fluorescent tube where the light is difused along a long tube. The light has to come from a single point.

Assuming you want your glitter lines so that your tank will look like it would if you were snorkeling in Fiji, then you will need metal halides. (We won't talk about LEDs because they're extremely expensive and the technology just isn't there yet.)

A couple of 150w HQI DE lamps (double-ended metal halide lamps) supplemented by a couple of actinic fluorescent tubes would look GREAT over your new 75-gal tank. For a nice daylight look, go with 10,000K metal halides supplemented with actinic fluorescents.

There are a wide variety of ready-made fixtures that are available or you could build your own canopy and DIY.

I don't know if you're aware of the cost of these fixtures, so that could be another issue. These things aren't cheap. It's not like just slapping a couple of cheapy normal output fluorescents on top of the tank and letting it go at that.

Check out places like Premium Aquatics and Marine Depot to see what's available.

Good luck!



P.S. -- Iwasaki makes a very nice little 150w 50,000K medium base metal lamp that would be perfect for your 75-gal tank all by itself without actinic supplementation. A couple of those would be fine all by themselves. This would be something to consider if you are going the DIY route.

[krkosiba]

Being that blue is the longest wavelength and due to lights ability to refract off of water particles and things in the tank is it best to put the actinic bulbs in the back?

[Ninong]

Being that blue is the longest wavelength...

That's incorrect. The red end of the visible spectrum has longer wavelengths than the blue end. Blue is at the short end of the wavelengths.

Blue is around 475 nm long and red is around 650 nm long. For our purposes, we are interested in light between around 420 nm and 700 nm. The 420 nm would be violet and the 700 nm would be red. Longer than 700 nm and you get into infrared and shorter than 400 nm and you get into ultraviolet. A certain amount of UV-A is actually beneficial but too much is not. UV-B is not beneficial and UV-C is deadly.

All of this is beyond the scope of this thread but I had to correct your statement that "blue is the longest wavelength" because it's not and I don't want other people reading that and thinking that I agreed with you.

...and due to lights ability to refract off of water particles and things in the tank...

Again, you're getting into things that would make this thread extremely long and complex -- much more complex than it needs to be to answer your original question.

Light refraction is dependent on density of the saltwater. I think you are a little confused here. What aquarists need to remember is that red light is absorded first, so it penetrates the least in the ocean. In fact, most red light begins to disappear after the first few feet. Blue light penetrates the deepest. If you were to wear a red wetsuit to go diving, it would appear dark gray as you decended past the first few feet. Red fish are perfectly disguised because they appear dark gray at deeper depths. They only appear red near the surface.

Longer wavelengths (red) are absorbed before shorter wavelengths (blue). Again, this is way more than we need to know to figure out what lights you might want to consider, unless your tank is going to be 6-ft deep.

is it best to put the actinic bulbs in the back?

Most people place actinic lights in the front and the back of a reef aquarium. If forced to make a choice, the front is better because the actinics would shine on the corals and cause them to fluoresce. In the back, the front of the corals would not be receiving as much actinic light.

Placing actinics in the rear can give a perception of depth but having them evenly spaced is much, much better.

If you are choosing fluorescent tubes for a 75-gal aquarium, even a FOWLR, then I would suggest four tubes instead of just two. You could mix daylight tubes and blue tubes and actinic tubes. Whatever looks best to you.

[krkosiba]

Thanks for clearing that up. I always thought blue was the longest but apparently I had that completely backwards. I apologize to any reader that read that before you corrected me. Anyways, *scratches head* the science behind lighting gets a little confusing. Then again every aspect of this hobby can get a little confusing.

[Ninong]

Decreasing wavelength equals increasing frequency. Therefore, blue is higher frequency than red. Maybe that's why you were confused?

Red wavelengths are longer than blue wavelengths but blue wavelengths are higher frequency than red wavelengths.

[krkosiba]

Ok, so I know I ask a lot of questions but you can never consume enough knowledge. I have ordered the 180 reef ready tank. However, it will be FOWLR for a bit until I get my feet wet with a bigger tank before I add some corals. Now I don't mind spending a lot of money on lights. Lights can make a whole different world inside of a tank. My question is does metal halides produce a lot of algae growth in the tank? It would be nice to have that glitter affect. Also, do most metal halides come with moonlights, because a little night time viewing would be nice. Thanks so much for the replies.

[CharlotteSteve]

If you don't mind spending money than I would go with PFO's solaris. You can choose what shade of blue you want from 5k to 50k. It will only set you back $2500.

[Ninong]

PFO no longer produces the Solaris. They have lawsuits pending against them for patent infringement. In fact, PFO may or may not still be in business.

PFO has had nothing but problems with the Solaris ever since it was introduced. Now it appears that they had virtually shut down their operations and laid off their employees.

Therefore, I would not recommend PFO's Solaris to anyone.

[Ninong]

Ok, so I know I ask a lot of questions but you can never consume enough knowledge. I have ordered the 180 reef ready tank. However, it will be FOWLR for a bit until I get my feet wet with a bigger tank before I add some corals.

For a standard 180-gal tank (72"L x 24"W x 24"H), I would recommend three 250w 10,000K HQI DE metal halide lamps supplemented with four 5-ft long HO T5 fluorescent tubes (or four 6-ft long VHO fluorescent tubes). Some people would probably suggest 400w metal halides but I think the 250w size would be more than adequate.

If you were certain that you would stick with FOWLR and never go to a reef tank, then I would suggest three 150w 10,000K HQI DE lamps supplemented with four 5-ft long HO T5s or four 6-ft long VHOs.

You mentioned that you want glitter lines and you can't get those with just fluorescent tubes. However, HO T5 fluorescent tubes all by themselves would be more than adequate for a FOWLR tank (just no glitter lines). For a reef tank, you could also use just HO T5 fluorescent tubes (without metal halides) provided you ran at least eight of them.

Now I don't mind spending a lot of money on lights. Lights can make a whole different world inside of a tank.

If you're buying a standard canopy with your tank (meaning you're getting the whole shebang, tank, stand and canopy), then you probably won't have enough remove for metal halides in the standard canopy, just fluorescents of some sort, either HO T5s or VHOs.

My question is does metal halides produce a lot of algae growth in the tank?

I'm afraid I don't understand this question. Any lights produce growth in the tank and they produce growth of whatever it is that is in the tank. I just don't understand why you are asking about algae in particular. Do you intend growing a lot of macroalgae in your tank?

It would be nice to have that glitter affect.

You can only get that with metal halides (also with LEDs, which are not really an option right now because they are not nearly as good as the other available lighting options and because the main manufacturer (PFO) just went belly up.

Also, do most metal halides come with moonlights, because a little night time viewing would be nice.

Many lighting fixtures nowadays do include what they hilariously call moonlights. The only fixture that I am aware of with true moonlights is Giesemann's Moonlight fixture (in the 180cm size, it would have three 250w HQI DE metal halides, four 80w HO T5 actinics and one computer-controlled moonlight. The computer program also simulates cloud cover and various other conditions that can be pre-selected. That moonlight is a true moonlight, meaning that it turns on and off with moonrise and moonset and its intensity varies in accordance with the phases of the moon. Anything less than that is simply a nightlight for the amusement of human viewers. That fixture runs $3,838.99.

Fixtures like that cannot be mounted inside an enclosed canopy. They must either be suspended over and open-top aquarium or you can cut a hole in the top of a standard canopy and then set the fixture on top of the canopy. The hole would be just slightly smaller than the size of the fixture so that the fixture is supported by the canopy.

That's the high end of the price range. I'm not sure if you realized what we were talking about when we said that light fixtures can be expensive and you replied that you didn't mind the expense. If that's more than you want to spend, you can get some very nice fixtures in the $1,000 price range. Or you can DIY for less.

Good luck!

[Ninong]

It will only set you back $2500.

You're talking about the 48" Solaris. The 72" Solaris has always been more than $3,400, unless somebody's now trying to blow them out since PFO no longer produces them. In fact, I don't believe PFO is even in business anymore. They took their website down several weeks ago. And someone reported on another board that they fired all of their employees. Looks like they bet the house on their LED fixtures without bothering to check pending patent applications. Somebody else beat them to it by at least two years.

If you enter www.pfolighting.com (which was their website address), you get this message: Oops! This link appears broken.

[CharlotteSteve]

Yeah, things change so fast these days. One day they're the king of the castle, now they’re looking for a job. There are other LED systems out there like the sun-brite tubes or the CJB. The sunbrites are just cheesy through-hole LEDs. And the CJB isn't very aesthetically pleasing, however it does let you individually control the blue/white. Also eco-lamps has a similar product to the sun-brites. But I agree with ninong, the technology just isn't out there yet. Unless you want to DIY and get quality parts, but even then LEDs are plain expensive. $2500, $3500 it's all way over anything I would ever pay for a light fixture.

[krkosiba]

Thanks you two for the input. I think LED lights are to much for what you get. I think I will actually retrofit my lights into the canopy. One problem, I have never done it before. Am I in over my head and need someone to help that has done it before?...Or, is it a pretty easy set up?

[CharlotteSteve]

The retro-fit kits are straight forward. The kits usually don't come with fans or timers, so you will have to add these. If you are using halides, be careful not to mount any heat sensitive objects in the vicinity (like moonlights). Also watch the water temp of your tank when adding more light, it will def. rise with more power. The only other thing I can suggest is to replace your receptacle with a gfci, to protect the bulbs/ballast, i have found that gfci's work much better with sensitive equipment than power strips.

[krkosiba]

Thanks for the input. Next question. If I go the retrofit route will heat and water evaporation destroy the canopy?

[charlie]

I think if you finished the inside of the canopy with a good quality marine paint, you would be good to go.

[Ninong]

Your canopy will be okay as long as you paint the inside (as Charlie said) and install one or two small ventilation fans.