Compact Florescents vs MH

[whitneydunn]

I have been reading a lot about lighting lately and have not found an answer to the question of which is better. So maybe there is no answer or the answer varies depending on cost, coral requirements and personal preference.

What I am wondering is can you keep LPS and Clams under compacts? Has anybody kept these under compact lighting and witnessed noticable growth?

[Reefland]

Welcome to Reefland!

Clams would fair better with MH. The decision should be made (as you stated) based 1st on the animals you wish to house and secondly cost/preference.

Optimally, a combination of MH & VHO would be my choice.

Best of luck,
Scott

[icemark]

I completely agree with scott.

And welcome to reefland

[tendar]

MH are the best for clams but depending on the size of the tank your talking about PC's are a better option for smaller tanks since they dont put out near the heat will light light a small tank very affectivly even for clams on tanks 50gal and under.

[Starmstr]

Keep intensity and par at the forefront when making your lighting choices.

[Bubafat]

I'll reccomend MH but I will tell you my "reef life story."

Started with NO's on my 15H (2 of them), pitiful, could bairly keep shrooms alive. Bought a 3x28w PC pennant, wow what a change, corals grew and thrived, but any SPS i tried always died, no matter where I placed it (all were frags). Did a little research and bought a 175w pennant, once again, WOW what a difference, it was like going from NO's to PC's except even better. I now could not only keep but grow many SPS (some of the lighter blue colored ones didn't live and purple montipora's turned brown, yet lived). In this massive endovor, I prolly spent $350 of lights that I didn't need.

Heat is always the problem. I actually found that the 175w pennant heated my tank LESS then the 84w PC pennant. If you run a few small 3 or 4" fans blowing against the water, turned on when the halide goes on, you will not have any heat problems (just a bunch of evaporation, why I reccomend an auto topoff switch).

If I were you, go with 250w HQI double end pennants, you get the intesity of 400w bulbs but the heat and electricity cost of a 250w bulb.

Buba

[mrok12]

IMO Metal Halides are the way to go for sure. The new book by Eric Boreman "AQUARIUM CORAL", has an excellent section on aquarium lighting and goes in to some detals about coral anatomy,feeding habits,water circulation and light requirments of the corals. I would recommend this book to any one. GOOD LUCK.

MROK12