Lights for my 96x24x30

jjesch

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Hi guys Im getting back into the hobby after being away for 2 years. I have decided to do a reef tank this time and really need help with lights since my last 2 tanks were both FOWRL. I really don't know much about the lighting at all so any help that you could give I would really appreciate. Thank you in advance.
 

Antics

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Well this is a pretty open ended question and you'd need to offer some information about what you're looking for in your lighting.

What is the most important aspect?
  • Ease of use?
  • Controlability?
  • Low cost?
  • Low energy usage?
  • Maintenance?
  • Mounting height?
  • Heat generated?
These days most people will agree you can have success with LED/T5/MH or any combination therein. However, choosing a light really is determined by what you're willing to spend and what you think is going to be ideal for your system. LEDs are very popular because of their (lower) energy usage, highly controllable/programmable features and modular nature. On the other hand, they tend to be significantly more expensive than MH/T5 in initial cost and require a bit more work to tune for your coral or aquarium.

I could be off base here but I think lighting your tank is going to be significantly cheaper if you go with T5 or MH (vs non-black box LEDs), but depending on energy costs in your area you might be spending quite a deal more on electricity both in terms of generating light as well as possibly needing to mitigate the increased temperature generated from bulbs vs LEDs. Bulb cost/replacement use to be a very serious downside to these lighting methods as well... but BRS recently released a video addressing T5 specific bulb life and I think that what they discovered/advised really bring the T5 vs LED debate back into consideration for me personally.

In general, here is a link to BRS 52 weeks of reefing which is useful for setting up a tank overall, but in particular they have a few different videos covering lighting options.
Keep in mind that these videos are geared towards providing information for a beginner/intermediate user and more thorough written and recorded resources exist both on this forum as well as other areas on the internet. However, BRS does a great job of showing numerous advantages and benefits to each lighting system as well as providing examples on their own tanks and how they have aged/matured over time. Hope it helps.
 

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