MH lighting for new reef

[dodofish]

Hi! I just received my new tank. 60" x 36" x 28". It will be in wall with a fish room / mechanical room behind it. So no worry of canopy or heat. It will be the basement and MH heat will actually be a good thing.

I have a lot of MH options sitting around. From lumearc pendants that I have run 400W radium's prior to 250w DE pendants that I have run Phoenix. I also have 60" T5's that I have run with the MHs.

I have never had a tank that with a 36" depth and 28" tall. So I'm worried for coverage in both dimensions. Any recommendations?

Current thought is 2 400w radium's mounted 16" from water and then run 4 60" T5s. 2 in fronts and 2 behind the pendants?

Thanks for any guidance or other recommendations!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Bump

 

[naterealbig]

Hi! I just received my new tank. 60" x 36" x 28". It will be in wall with a fish room / mechanical room behind it. So no worry of canopy or heat. It will be the basement and MH heat will actually be a good thing.

I have a lot of MH options sitting around. From lumearc pendants that I have run 400W radium's prior to 250w DE pendants that I have run Phoenix. I also have 60" T5's that I have run with the MHs.

I have never had a tank that with a 36" depth and 28" tall. So I'm worried for coverage in both dimensions. Any recommendations?

Current thought is 2 400w radium's mounted 16" from water and then run 4 60" T5s. 2 in fronts and 2 behind the pendants?

Thanks for any guidance or other recommendations!

This sounds like a great plan. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to use 3 or 4 MH in LumenMax Elite reflectors for my own build.....

 

[Bpb]

3x250 at a similar height would give better coverage. Par shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[jda]

The 18-20 inch reflectors cover 36 pretty well, and the flanking T5s will help even more. Two 400w or three 250w should cover excellenty.

 

[RCS82]

Hi! I just received my new tank. 60" x 36" x 28". It will be in wall with a fish room / mechanical room behind it. So no worry of canopy or heat. It will be the basement and MH heat will actually be a good thing.

I have a lot of MH options sitting around. From lumearc pendants that I have run 400W radium's prior to 250w DE pendants that I have run Phoenix. I also have 60" T5's that I have run with the MHs.

I have never had a tank that with a 36" depth and 28" tall. So I'm worried for coverage in both dimensions. Any recommendations?

Current thought is 2 400w radium's mounted 16" from water and then run 4 60" T5s. 2 in fronts and 2 behind the pendants?

Thanks for any guidance or other recommendations!

Are you doin a build thread? Definitely interested in seeing what bulb choices you go with and how they all look.

 

[dodofish]

Thanks everyone for the responses! I'm struggling to decide between the 2 400W or 3 250W DE. I haven't run the 400W for a few years. Used to live in CA and electricity cost and heat made me switch to 250W. In CO electricity cost is not a big deal and the additional heat just means my heaters run less.

This tank will be a mixed reef but with a focus on Sps. Was worried that the 250w DE might not give the PAR or the spread front to back.

Also had my best success with the 400W Radiums but that was in the day when DSB were the rage.

I'm looking to build a light rack and it is important to figure out which path be best.

I have never done a build thread. Might do on for this.

 

[naterealbig]

Either bulb with a good reflector will cover the full 36". Even the relatively small reflectors in my Giesemann Spectra blanket covered my display tank's 38" depth (front to back). You probably could even get away with 2 x 250w using the 36"x36" coverage per bulb..... Although I'm leaning towards Bpb's recommendation of 3 x 250's. And this would cover you up to 72" easily if you upgrade....

 

[jda]

Heat is your friend in Colorado except for July, but then a fan gets the job done if you don't want to run the AC. In Missouri, I had to run the house AC a bit more at about a dollar a day, but who cares when I sell an extra nice frag from the growth. I had to completely shift when I moved here from Missouri.

400W Radiums are still a best-of-breed light. 250w Radiums on REAL m80 ballasts are also output monsters, but these are about 330w, so they are more power than "normal" 250w ballasts.

You can run 400w Radiums on select-a-watt electronic ballasts, which can give some flexibility. If you want to do 250w Radiums, then they need m80 and you are kinda locked into those bulbs, or the new Gieseman line - an electronic on "HQI" or "SuperLumens" is better than a 250w ballast, but still not as much power as a m80.

If it makes you feel any better, nearly nobody puts any corals in the first few inches of the tank. I usually set my reflectors back a little bit because of this and cover the rear part of the tank minus about 4" for the front - still plenty of light for a most this, but I just don't put high-light acropora on the sand.

 

[dodofish]

Thanks again for all the input! I have selectable electronic ballasts that have 250 and 400 setting with the HQI or super lumens options. I have 4 of them. I have 3 DE fixtures - are their better options then the Phoenix DE bulb? I thought that bulb had good PAR ratings. I haven't thought about the 250 SE radium bulb. I do not have M80 ballast.

I also have 2 lumenbright mini's reflectors for SE bulbs. These are the 16" reflectors. I assumed this would be better at covering the front to back (36"). Sounds like both options will work and consume roughly the same amount of electricity.

Also on a side note the tank is eurobraced so no shading from the supports.

 

[RCS82]

You have 2 SE Lumenbrite Minis, those are the 16" reflectors right? And 3 DE reflectors, what size are they?

 

[dodofish]

The DE reflectors are 12" L x 12" W x 5" H - Hamilton Cayman Sun reflectors. I currently run these on my 180 that is 24" front to back. Worried that they would struggle with spread at 36". I run them about 11" from water.

I do plan to add 4 - 60" T5s with either option. 2 in front and 2 behind the MHs. Running blue plus bulbs.

Correct Lumenbrite are the mini's at 16". From what I have researched you can run these higher to help the spread than the DE reflectors and still be in decent shape with Par.

 

[RCS82]

What Bpb and Jda said is the truth. These are 2 guys who know their metal halides and T5s. Personally I would try using the 3 HQI fixtures first with 14k Phoenix bulbs and run your T5s in front and behind.

 

[Lousybreed]

I am loving 10,000k bulbs with Blue led or T-5 The 10,000k really colors up corals like crazy when the blues only come on!!