Questions about lighting

[vder]

I would like to upgrade my lighting on the tank. I have an Oceanic 135 and the matching hood. Currently it has 4*96 watt pc lights. 2 daylight 10000 k and 2 actinic.

Would like to keep SPS and clams down the road .

Several options I have

1. Go with 8 pc lights 96 watts (my LFS says this is the way to go no need for Metal Halide)

2. Go with 2 Metal Halide lamps not sure what to use though.

Any idea's or advice would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

Ed Yaworski

[rwag]

Vder,
My first advice is ignore your lfs.(almost always)
My personal opinion is to go with metal halide.
I just set up a oceanic 125 6'long and I went with
3-250 watt metal halides iwasaki 6500. And they look awesome!! I know in my tank if I only had 2 metal halides it would not be sufficient. I dont know how long you have been a reefkeeper but I know I put off buying metal halides the first two years I had reef tanks and I wish I never waited.
They just look so much better.IMO
Ryan
ps. I also supplement my mh with 2-165 watt vho actinic

[hllywd]

http://www.premiumreef.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/005077.html
Check out the last post in that thread sounds bogus to me but who knows??? The whole lighting thing is a highly contested issue, I personally don't have any clams but most info I read prefers MH. BTW I do have MH over my reef and the pitfalls the detractors always cite such as heat, operating costs and so on are mostly unfounded....
Tim

[PerryinCA]

Metal Halide are really the only way to go, especially in a dedicated Clam/SPS tank. It is somewhat more expensive, but the light is much better for a variety of reasons which can include focusing ability, penetration, spectrum, and output (up to 2000w lamps).

Its tried and true. PC's can keep a tank going, but to best represent nature (which should be at least part of our goal), go with MH.

-Perry

[turtlespd]

Please do your self a favor and buy some 250w plus MH...not saying that you cannot grow sps and clams under anything lower..but you going to thank your self from spending anoths 300-500 buks when upgrading..with a pair of 250-w mh you can set them up on most tank..50g -150g max...this kind of gives you more option or ugrades later, unlike PC...250 mh will allows sps and clam to GROW and THRIVE...PC IMO will sustain them with little growth...availablity of lights and spectrum of MH is far greater than PC..MH give off more PAR..something we all would like more of...and dont froget MH will give off the cool ripply effect in the water...I have spent over 3000 in lighting..from NO to MH..i wish i would of just went MH..i would be 1000 gallons happier!!

Do not listen to the LFS..some might have nice intentions but they are just not updated...

good luck and keep reading the BB

Paul

[dattack]

What they said.

[Chris Lakies]

I'm not sure what your situation is with money/hood or no - but I would go with about 3 400 watt pendants @ 6500K or 10K. Or you could use 2 metal halide 6500 K on the outsides and the 10,000 k in middle section for deeper water simulation or vise-versa. The reason I would use the pendants are, you can keep them further away from the water surface with better access to the tank.