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m/halide selection GT's tank!
- Thread starter Garry thomas
- Start date
What do you have right now? I have a 36" tall (6' X 4') tank. I use 4X400W halides in a rectangular configuaration, each light set 14" from the width and 20" in from the long side. In between the halides are 6 55W PC's (3 blue and 3 white) In terms of the halides, I have chose to go with 2 10000K Ushio's and 2 20000K Radiums set diagonally. I have tried all radium and all Ushio, however the all radium does not produce enough light, I think, and the all Ushio looks too yellow to me. I think that if you have a deep tank and plan to use 10000K or lower colour temperature, then you need some high power actinic flourescents to balance off the yellow effect. I have also seen in previous posts that some people are stating that by having 20000K halides, you do not need actinics. This may be correct if you are considering coral health alone, however, the 20000K halides do not give the flourescent appearance to the green corals that is seen with actinic flourescent lights. I therefore feel that, for aesthetic purposes, the actinic flourescents are still a must. In terms of light reaching the bottem, 400W should be plenty for your tank unless you want to start growing acros on the bottem.
I don't know what the availability of the ballasts that we use in the states is in Europe, but I have a 8(long)x3(deep)x2(tall) tank. I have four 400 watt radiums on blueline e-ballast. No actinic or anything else. Love the color and it is plenty bright for me. I have 100% SPS and they are growing just fine. I do plan to add another two lamps to make it a total of 6. One of my biggests complains with my current set up is that I think the reflectors I am using are wasting quite a bit of light. I plan to upgrade reflectors in the fture and maybe the intensity will increase from that alone.
i currently have 634 watts per metre sq, which is 1600watts, 2x150 triples , 1 x 250 and a few high wattage actinics. I'v just ordered 5x 400watt 6500k's of which will be supplemented by 4x140 actinics, 2 in the front and 2 in the back. i run my present lights at 12 inchs off the water, how high for the 400's? Tex can you see differant kelvin ratings on your tank. what i mean is do you notice the change of lamp colour?
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