lighting question

[Saltwatercoral2]

I am looking at buying a 48 x 24 x 18 90 gallon shallow reef tank. I am curious as to what kind of lighting to get. Been reading on leds, and alot of people arent happy and making the switch back, so leds are being thrown out, its between halides and t5s. I have looked at a ATI sunpower fixture, would a 48 inch 6 bulb sunpower be enough, for this? corals: lps softies, clam and anenome?

 

[Saltwatercoral2]

any1?

 

[yanks1]

Well I have a 48x24x12 and I'm running a six bulb tek fixture.. I have sps, lps,, and a clam,, been running it over a year and everything is thriving,, hope that helps ya out.

 

[Saltwatercoral2]

how is your spread with 6 bulbs?

 

[yanks1]

I got the 39 inch fixture so I can keep my lower light corals on the sides,,, I have it hung up high around 8 inches from the top. To answer ur question ,, I love the spread there are no shadows

 

[gar732]

I think that for the most part the people that are having problems with LEDs are because of crappy fixtures or improper light acclimation. I have LEDs only over my frag tank and have had no issues at all with them. I just started off low and increased he power slowly. For my display I will be going with a LED/T5 combo using cree LEDs on a dimmable driver.

 

[GR808]

I've had t5s on my 120 and just converted to all LEDs. I was content with the t5s but because of my layout I was only able to have 6. Not quite enough par for a thriving reef tank with 6 t5s but since I've converted over a week ago, I couldn't be happier. My tank has never had this much clarity with the T5s and the pop on the corals are amazing. It's too early to tell on growth just yet since I'm still acclimating my tank to the light about 10 percent every week. Par/sq inch is probably excellent with the LEDs with half the amount of electricity consumption, able to change LEDs for different color schemes, dimmable with controller, runs cooler, and the list goes on. Growth like I said is too early to tell but I am noticing more PE. I like to think that's a good thing...