250 watters over 30gallon too much?

[Michael_Lambert]

Well,

The wedding is now under a year away and we have been really busy.. between liz working on the wedding stuff and myself busy with alot of photography work.. I just really have not have had time for my reef tanks..

So what i have been thinking of doing is down sizing once again.. lol,

Got a 36 inch 33 gallon tank sitting here drilled, thinking i will set it up and run a couple of 250 watt 14ks .. i would hang them and hang them around 12 inches of the tank..

The idea here is to sell of most of what i have in the 90 gallon tank including my BIG Deresa clam! Move 99% of the rock into my fishonly 135 gallon with my softies.. and then set up the 33 gallon with about 20 pounds of rock in the tank and a 20 gallon sump with another 20 pound of rock and just add the frags.. i will be aquiring with sales of my current stuff..

The idea im hoping for is to get 15-20 different colored sps frags this way when we get the house next fall i will have 15-20 decent heads ready to go into the new tank

What all do you think?

Thanks
Michael

 

[ReefLady]

I dunno about dual 250's over a 30... I'd probably go with one. Heat would definitely be an issue to deal with, and I'm not usre what would need THAT much light.



T

 

[mattie]

1 14k 250 watt would be fine except for the heat so plan out the fans for cooling
2 i think would be over doing it

 

[mt79]

Dealing w/ the heat of one 250w MH will be an issue over 33gals. of water. Two would be unnecessary IMO, and would definitely require a chiller. You could add some fluorescents to even out the light distribution(to the eye atleast) in the tank since 3ft is a bit much for a single MH lamp to cover.

 

[mps9506]

Use a PFO parallel reflector and stick one halide in the middle of it. I think you will be fine with one hung about 12 inches above the tank.
But, if you can keep the temp stable, then go for 2 I'm all for overkill.