Lighting specs.

[rwgreen]

I will soon set up an anemone tank and was planning to use the 55g tank I have with metal halide lights. But after my brother -in-law showed me some ot the new lamps he has I began to question whether they are necessary. The lights fit a regular incandescent socket, give off little heat, and according to the specs have a color temperature rating of 6500k. They are actually self starting florescents. You have probalbly noticed them at Home Depot, and I was wondering if they produce enough of the correct color spectrum, or not for reef and anemones. Any body else out there looked into these lamps?

 

[Mikef1]

These lights are not going to be intense enough for anemones or corals that need high lighting. What wattage and kelvin are your halides? Metal halides are much more intense and penetrate deeper. If you take 400 watts of no output regular flourescents and 400 watts of Metal halide, the flourescents wont even compare. Also if you are a newbie dont go by the 1 watt per gallon theory because as you can see with what I just showed you the intensity is very different.

 

[rwgreen]

I have had a reef tank setup before with a Carpet anemone in the tank before. He was great to watch, although he ate everything in the tank except his clowns. That was when I learned that carpets don't get along with other anemones. I sold it with the house.
I was going to go with two metal halides at 175 watts. I looked further into those lights and although the spectrum looks ok, the wattage isn't really there, and I doubt that the coverage would be sufficient. I would need a lot of bulbs inside the hood, and they probably wouldn't look as good as a couple 10k or 20k MH bulbs.
Rick G.

 

[redfernsoljah]

I have a 90 Gallon and run 2 x 175 Halides and 2 x 96 power compacts for 542 watts. I too ran into many problems when I first set-up my tank albiet a smaller 30 gallon and have found that lighting is something that you cannot skimp on. Good luck