What to do for lighting...

[X-Treme]

Hey all....looking for some opinions here. I am starting a new tank and want some help picking lighting. Tank is about 36 gallons. 24"Lx18"Dx20"H. will have about a 4-5 DSB for my yellowhead jawfish and want to keep ALL corals. LPS, SPS, Softies, Clams....whatever. I have been looking at lighting with 1 250W DE HQI MH and 4 T5 actinics. Now.... I was told that MH lighting with internal ballasts is a no-no, but was told by the same person to go for a Giessman. Ok, no problem, but it almost seems to me that the Giessman infinity that I was thinking about buying might have an INTERNAL ballast. Can't find anywhere that tells me where it is, but JL says nothing about a ballast being included. Help me out here. If this was YOUR tank, how would YOU light it?

[albert_dao]

HO T5's have been well regarded. Aquatinic and Tek units, in particular, are very good.

[BCOrchidGuy]

250 HQI DE with some actinics.... on that size of tank wow you could grow anything. Right now on my 20 tall I've got one T5 10,000k and one T5 50,000k, all my coral is doing fine. I've got a frogspawn which is actually in the gravel and it's gotten much larger than when I got it about 6 weeks ago. I've got my 250 HQI almost ready to go, put the last coat of Varathane on the stand tonight and will probably do a leak test on the tank/sump tomorrow then do some finishing stuff and add salt etc.

I'd go with the 250 HQI but I'm surprised with the T5's for now.

Doug

[Nate]

I second albert on the T5's...never had growth or colour out of sPS like I do with my 8 bulb tek unit.

[kwirky]

i third albert's suggestion on T5's. a 6 bulb deep fixture would probably be enough. I have an 8 bulb fixture over top of my 48x24x24 tank, and it's TOO much lighting for softies and lps lol. i'm going to swap out some of the 50/50 bulbs for pure actinics and hopefully get some colour back.

Eventually when my tank's old enough, I'm going to switch to SPS, and vent my tek light fixture, and hopefully increase my par by 50%

[ClubReef]

I have the 48" Infinity and it comes with external magnetic ballasts and an electronic starter built into the canopy. The ballasts are about 6" longx4"highx4"wide..it will become very hot when fired so you definitely don't want to put it in any cabinets..

If your all about the SPS and Clams, I'd say go for the HQI and 4 T5 HO unit as it will be much much more intense then the 8 T5 banks alone..but please don't put all your cabbage into the lighting if you can't afford a skimmer that's of any good German/Italian quality.

Hope this helps. BTW....the infinity is super sexy :)

[albert_dao]

Daryl, we can't all be as pimp as you, LOL.

PS. Infiniti IS pretty sexy... But it's no Koenigsegg CCX.

[ClubReef]

X-Treme is considering the Infinity..I say go for it :)...suppa sexy

[albert_dao]

Eh? What about fancy German supercars?