MH timing.

[Chris Lakies]

Here is the scenario.

As you may or may not know I am buying and setting up a 120 gallon AGA with dual overflow's. I'm going to use 2 400 watt Pulse start PFO ballasts running 20k Radiums and 2 175 watt Blueline electronic ballasts running 10k Ushio's. All of the lamps will be aprox. 12" off the surface of the water. In your opinion what should my lighting schedule be to produce nominal grow rates and color?

Also how should I place the MH's in the hood?

175/400/175/400 or 175/400/400/175 or 400/175/175/400

Thanks for the input!

[reddhaus]

It seems as though you are planning on having them all in a row from one side to the other. Since your tank is closer to square than something like a AGA 125, you might consider putting them like this:

400 400
175 175

or

175 175
400 400

or

175 400
400 175

Well, you get the idea.

[kevinpo]

Your tank dimensions should be 4' x 2' correct? What type of reflectors are you going to use? Most are 12" wide so 4 of them would stretch from end to end. Anyway I have my Radium and 10,000K bulbs as close together as possible 12" center to center of bulbs.

Either 175/400/175/400 or 400/175/400/175 will work great. The color blends perfectly and forms a uniform color without streaks. 9 hours seems to be where the best growth/coloration for a wide variety of SPS corals takes place (I am currently running 10 hours but I haven't noticed any change in the coloration or growth).

HTH,
Kevin