Lighting... suggestions Please

[TheSaltySpitoon]

I need lighting for my newer 125 tank.. I have no fish or inverts yet but i know i am going to need proper lighting for what i want. right now on my tank is just stock lighting the tank came with i waited a bit to purchase lighting. so what light fixtures & bulbs should i get for a 125 gallon Mixed tank? suggestions and links would be awesome I have no price range

 

[Woodstock]

If it is 4', I would use dual 250 watt MH and dual T5 actinic supplemental bulbs.
You'll be able to keep anything and everything in it

You could get a retro set and install them yourself into a nice wooden canopy (what I did) ...
or
you could get a plug-n-play fixture that sets on top of the aquarium,
or
you could get the pendents that hang from the ceiling.

 

[glampka]

What's the tank going to be - reef or FOWLR? That will be your determining factor. If reef, what kind of corals do you plan on keeping?

 

[chrome91]

If youre going reef, personally i would go with 2x250w MH with 10k bulbs, and 4x65w PC actinics retrofitted

if youre going FOWLR, T-5's should work

 

[BigAl07]

I'm "Sold" on a QUALITY T5 set up. If you get a quality fixture with individual reflectors and good bulbs you can keep just about anything you want. If you want the Cream of the Crop you can go LED fixture. Then the sky is the limit.

 

[TurboSnail8898]

For a mixed reef, 6, T5 bulbs would be just fine, they don't come in 72" bulbs yet, so you would have to get 12, 36" bulbs. Halides are hot and the bulbs generally need to be replaced every 10 months or so, depending on how long you use them for each day. T5 bulbs only need to be replaced about every 24 months. Power compact bulbs need to be replaced every 6 months or so and are inferior to T5 bulbs, so I would avoid them. If you plan on keeping SPS and like the look of the ripples then halides might be a good choice, but they are expensive and as you would need 3 halides and 4 actinic T5's it can add up, you might also need a chiller if the bulbs are going to be contained in a canopy. If you told use more about your setup and what you want to do more specifically we will be better able to help you achieve your goals.

 

[TheSaltySpitoon]

yea its going to be mixy i plan to have fish but i will probably run into an anenome at my local salt water fish store that wil have a great deal on it and wont be able to resist.

 

[fatman]

With an anemone in a 24" deep tank a 400 watt HQI Halide center light would not be too much light, so that pretty much puts you at least in the three 250 watt HQI halide range. The cost is steep but the 72" Outer Orbit Pro Series with three 250 Watt HQI, eight 39 watt T-5's and 24 moon lights is a great light, but the price is $1100. The comparable light in PAR to that light is the Aqualight Pro at a price that is $400 dollars higher in price and 72 watts more lighting, not including moonlights, but they use three 250 watt HQI halides and Power PC's instead of T-5's. The Reflectors are better on the T-5's so the PAR is a little better, but they are not as good as the good individual reflectors used in the better straight T-5 fixtures. If it were me and I planned on an anemone I would use all retrofit equipment with a 400 watt HQI halide (and place the anemone under this light along with any large acro SPS corals) flanked by two 250 watt HQI halides with 8 39 watt T-5 actinic all in individual reflectors for a total of 1212 watts. I would use all 10000K halides and no moonlights. For your tank to have 1000 watts per square meter shining on its surface that would mean 1195.38 watts. So what I would recommend is just 16.62 watts higher than the average wattage of lighting energy striking the earths surface. Lots of coral see higher lighting than this on clear days, but considering cloudy days and depth factors ans such a 1000 watts per square meter is good figure for estimating lighting needs for shallow water marine organisms. Three 250 watt halides would put you at 133.3 watts short of this level. I personally would not recommend a straight T-5 lighting system for a tank that long, and that deep, that will contain both SPS and especially anemones. As far as replacement times on HQI halides my bulbs 10000K bulbs are not dropping appreciably in PAR until over 16 to 18 months of age, and still have a better PAR at 16 to 18 months than a T-5 bulb that is brand new at a depth of 24 inches. Typically fans will control heat dissipation through the promotion of evaporation which removes great amounts of heat.

 

[TurboSnail8898]

Here's a photo of my buddy's tank that uses T5's, its 30" deep and he has no problem growing SPS, as you can see. So I think you will be fine of you decide to go T5's only on a tank that's 24" deep. But if it were me I would get halides and put them in a canopy so they are hidden.

 

[Fish Crazy]

I switched from HQI to LED on my 36 and loved it so when I moved up to the 180 I purchased the new Solaris I series LED light and all of the fish and corals love it - yes it is pricey but I will not have to replace bulbs, it's cooler, and cost less to run so over time it will pay for itself

 

[kinghokus420]

i am running 3x250 Reeflux 12000k on lumatek ballasts with 2 48" VHO actinics on a 6'135 mixed reef.

sorry bout the bad pic.

 

[lcstorc]

For a reef I love Solaris. Just too many long term advantages to ignore. Fish and softies I love T5s. I do have a nem under T5 lights but it is a very shallow tank and they have moved to the very top.

 

[fatman]

I switched from HQI to LED on my 36 and loved it so when I moved up to the 180 I purchased the new Solaris I series LED light and all of the fish and corals love it - yes it is pricey but I will not have to replace bulbs, it's cooler, and cost less to run so over time it will pay for itself

That cost how much for 6 foot of LED's? Have you run any PAR readings? I just haven't seen any good test results on the LED's yet (short or long term) that would encourage me to put over $40000 worth of mother corals under LED lighting. Maybe after another reefer goes a year or more with a mixed SPS load without providing heavier than normal feedings I will consider them in a small way. Being in the engineering field, however, I like empirical data that can be verified by experimentation not solely observation. Of course a huge reduction in price might make a large difference also in when I test LED's in a small way. As is I trust the seperate tests run by Joshi and Riddle, and the results of my own PAR meter readings and coral growth records. Which for now means HQI halides with T-5 or power PC supplements, with 6500K in the frag and grow out tanks (without supplemental lighting) and 10000K in the display tank (with supplemental actinics). I agree that T-5's will grow SPS well, just not as well as halides in deep water (over 16 to 18 inches deep). As is shown in the above photos where the SPS are near the top of the tank, even the Monti's which do not have the high light demands of most of the other SPS corals. Most soft corals, mushrooms etc. will grow well under normal output flourescent lights.

 

[rmlevasseur]

Hello fatman:

You only have 13 posts so perhaps you are new here, but there are 5-6 chronicles now (including mine) that all use Solaris with great results. If you haven't seen the good results, you haven't been looking.

 

[fatman]

Hello fatman:

You only have 13 posts so perhaps you are new here, but there are 5-6 chronicles now (including mine) that all use Solaris with great results. If you haven't seen the good results, you haven't been looking.

Do any of them include PAR testing? Are any of them wall to wall full of large SPS colonies? I can go to GARF and see photos of SPS coral morphs grown under normal output florescent lighting with minimal circulation and no skimmers or sumps, but I obviously will not be using that method either. Any links to PAR testing and long term studies would really be appreciated though. I am not really interested in whether a$3000 or $4000 light will sucessfully maintain a few SPS corals in a mixed reef tank where a good portion of their nutritional needs can come from the fish wastes and other organic particulates and not from photosynthesis. However, I do wish to know how they will compare with halides in a commercial growing operation and setting (IE. all SPS and no fish), however I have yet to find that being done or if it has I have not heard any results of such work.

 

[rmlevasseur]

Ask and you shall receive.

Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine - Product Review: A New Horizon in Lighting: PFO's Solaris LED System

Seriously though, the Solaris I series hasn't been around long enough for there to be tanks of wall-to-wall SPS, but we can certainly predict by the growth of our frags that the light is there.

But hey man, I've said on several posts that the Solaris is not the end-all-be-all of lighting. If you want a wall to wall SPS tank, by all means, sit it out until the verdict is 100% in. But very rarely do I see chronicles on this thread where people want that or set that up. Most want a mixed reef. If you will only be convinced until you see a wall-to-wall SPS tank I'd say you are gonna wait about 5 years. In the meantime I'll be saving hundreds in electric and replacement bulb bills and enjoying autodimming, variable K, built in seasonal changes, no need for chillers, sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset...

 

[TurboSnail8898]

I think the biggest argument against LED's is that the technology is still being pioneered and inproved, not to mention that prices should come down as more companies start to produce LED's.


As for the time it takes to grow SPS, check this out, its my buddy Mike's tank.

This is 11 months later.

 

[TurboSnail8898]

LED's aren't bad in any way, they're just expensive, too expensive for me, not to mention that I think people feel more comfortable with halides. When the technology of LED's become more widespread I think we are going to see more and more gorgeous tanks that use them.

 

[fatman]

I really do hope LED's work out. But at the present prices I would definitely have to at least see a couple of PAR tests done in a sane manner at depths between 16 and 24 inches. If they can not produce PAR at a rate equal too or better than a 250 watt 10000K HQI halides run on magnetic ballasts then the costs savings does not matter in my situation. The only concern I need deal with is getting less heat generation for comparable PAR at depth lighting, utilities is not a concern for me, but being able to buy less refrigeration equipment is a factor.
As far as example tanks, if the SPS corals are going to be in shallow water anyway, as in the pictures shown, then T-5's are quite efficient and produce adequate PAR at shallow depths at much less cost than LED's and some what less cost than quality HQI halides and the T-5's are also low heat producers. Did anyone do any research for PAR testing of LED's? Does anyone have any links to PAR testing of LED's?

 

[rmlevasseur]

Did you read the link I provided?

I'm not gonna beat this horse anymore. For me, LED's are working out just great. No light is perfect, but for now the Solaris is the best choice for my mixed reef, and there is no doubt in my mind the corals are thriving.