Light Question

[Silver_Wolf]

I have a 75 gallon aquarium that I want to turn into a community reef tank. What type of light ing would be best.

 

[kmu]

That depends on what type of corals you want to keep.....I recomend you get a good reefkeeping books...please guys help a future refer picking a good book...

 

[Silver_Wolf]

I have several books, and I was looking at a combination of MH and actnic...however you spell that

I want a mixture of corals and anemones. I was thinking a 175 or 259 watt, 10k. but I wasn't sure how many of each I would need.

 

[freedom75]

Wolf

I have a 72 Bowfront and I use 2 175 watt MH. with german 10k's and everything is thriving. I have a couple of different types of mushrooms. I also have Pulsing Xenia and a Large toadstool. I have a green open brain and a gorgian . Also have a Large plate coral . In the past three months since going to the new light bulbs my mushrooms have started mulipling and the toad also has a small offspring starting to grow. I would highly recommend the MH's for this size tank

John Wray
[email protected]

 

[pez]

I think you should reconsider the anemone. They are best suited for anemone-only tanks. They tend to wonder around and burn the h*ll out of the corals. Moreover, they generally need very intense light. Much more than many corals out there. Finally, there are very few anemones that do well over the long term (>18months). You might want to read Phil Henderson's article on FINS:
http://www.actwin.com/fish/articles/choosinganemone.php

As for the lighting, I had 2x175 MH and 2x40 actinic over my 75. Then I upgraded to 2x250MH. The softies didn't like the extra light, but the SPS's did. Now I have 2x400 over a 120. It is your call. I would recommend VHO actinics though (over the normal output lamps).

It all depends on the type of corals you want. Soft corals, SPS, LPS, calms, anemones, etc.

-Tom

 

[chns0289]

Go with 2x250 watt 10000k + VHO actinics

 

[Bucktronix]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by chns0289:
<strong>Go with 2x250 watt 10000k + VHO actinics</strong><hr></blockquote>

yeah and get a chiller if you do

 

[gt8448a]

As far as good books are concerned, I have 2 that are pretty good. Both are by Barrons, one is for getting started with reef-keeping (Marine Reef Aquarium Handbook by Robert Goldstein) and the other deals specifically with coral keeping (Corals by John Tullock). I've also heard that the New Marine Aquarium book is pretty good for beginners. HTH

Harrell

 

[pez]

I guess it depends on where you live, but I ran 2x250 without a chiller. The tank temp never reached 80F. More than I can say for the dual 400s I have now.

-T