Need lighting help

[azreefer]

Hi,

I just purchased a 240 gal acrylic tank for my new reef. My current reef is soft corals with 144 watts of power compact. I want to keep sps corals in the new tank and definately plan on running halides. I would like to get good growth rates and terrific colors. The tank is 8' x 2' x 2'. I will be building a new hood for the tank so the lights can be placed higher above the water. What lights would you suggest? Halides and VHO? Halides only? Also, how high should the lights be from the water? Thanks for any and all help.

[dattack]

You might want to take a look into running some 400 W HQI MHs with 20K radium bulbs.

With the radiums, you probably won't need VHOs.

You can buy the PFO HQI ballast which is more of a crisp white/blue look or the Blue Wave, Eballasts, IceCaps which is bright also but a little bluer and run the radium bulbs closely to specs.

YOu can set it up a 3x400 W in different combos.

center
MH 1 MH 2 MH 3
20K 6.5K Iwasakis 20K
10K 20K 10K
20K 20K 20K

If you run 20K throughout, might consider using the PFO HQI considering it is not as blue but the downside to it that it does overdrive the bulb and bulb life might be less than the other combinations.

[scubadude]

Dattack makes some good suggestions. but if you want to play around then maybe you could buy just one setup and also use your VHOs still...maybe one MH for the center and see how you like the coloration...try w/ and w/out vhos on.....Everyones taste is different. If you like lots of blue to make your corals flouresce then I would definately lean towards the Radiums. If you like awesome growth rates then Iwasakis....If you like a nice clean white with a slight bit of blue then go with a 10k. FWIW I think the M135 Pulse start ballast and a a couple of radiums is on the up and up and thats what Im gonna be adding to my 3 HQI bulbs. We have a very experienced moderator here with lighting expertise Perry and he just so happens to work at Sunlight which carries all the goodz and add that with Perry's skillz and you really cant go wrong....I was looking at their site the other day and every setup they sell has a Killer rating...You can look at some of Sanjays extensive reports to verify