Watt Light power do I need?

[Scuba Steve]

Hi
Could somebody help with some questions please.
1. What lighting is required for a 4' x 1.5' x 1.5' tank? Would metal halides be too strong?
2. What lighting will give him the best outcome?
3. Could any of this have a bearing on the colour fading from a fish?

Regards

Steve

 

[chriswho]

I don't own halides and I am no expert, but I don't think they would be too strong. I also don't think you have to worry about the lighting affecting the color of your fish, mostly corals. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just trying to help the guy.

 

[Varga]

Halides would not be too strong but you will battle temperature rising and evaporation. what are you growing? If no SPS or anemones, I'd go with t5's or even PC's depending on what you have in the tank.

2) who's "him"?

 

[Scooterman]

I run 4 T5's & a 250W MH on a 34g tank but you need experience to know how to set it up without have heat issues & you will evap more water if you use fans over a chiller.
Too much well lots of factors play into this, lots of it depends on what you want & how far you want to go later on. If your just starting out, want to set it & forget it, you could easily go with a T5 set-up, 4 or 6 lamps with Individual reflectors for each lamp. These would cover most anything you need in a reef tank, high light demanding sps you could just use placement like up higher to keep them.
List what you want & where yo want to go with all this as in what you want to keep & maybe upgrade later or not & maybe we could suggest better options.

 

[cbrownfish]

I believe that this translates to a 75 gallon tank? You are fine with halides here......probably 2X150W or 2X175W. With a depth of 18" you could also be successful with T5's. If you want to go with SPS, and anemone or other high light creature, then halides would be the way to go.

 

[BigAl07]

Steve the lights wont affect fish much at all. Some fish lose color in total darkness (Yellow Tang for instance) but quickly regain color shortly after lights on.

As for what light is best it just depends on what corals you want to keep long term. I'm a fan of T5's especially on this size of tank unless you have the fundage for LED's. That's the ULTIMATE in lighting