NEED MORE LIGHTING!

[impreza]

i am in NEED of more lighting. On my 20g, i have 64W of power compacts on it. I have been reading about work horse ballasts and VHO and NO and all that on RC lately. I am VERY confused. If i get a WH5 or a WH7, should i be running a VHO or a NO setup? i saw some URI VHO bulbs that r 24" and 75W each. I was think that if i ran both of those i would have 150W of VHO, but what is the differnce between running a VHO or a NO setup on a WH ballast? What is involved in making this kind of setup with a WH ballast for my 20g?
can anyone design and recommend a proper or ideal setup for me for my 20g? its 24" long and 18" high. I want to keep softies, zoo's, and some lps and an anemone. I wanted to go MH but i have read that it is better for larger applications.

What is better VHO or NO? on the britelite website, the philips bulbs r MUCH cheaper than URI VHO bulbs, if there a major difference?

WHat is the most economical setup? i dont want to pay LOTS more for VHO if there isnt much of a difference. Is it possible to keep SPS without MH?

Can someone guide me through the process of building the best setup for the best price?
thanks!!

[impreza]

oh ya..
and is the britelite store in calgary a physical store i goto? or is it a web based store? whats the address?
thanks

[sumpfinfishe]

Impreza:

Well I don't know how much help I can be in your dilema, but I will give you my two cents worth :smile:

For starters you have a 20gl tank, so you don't need to overkill with too much light. Your right, you definetley don't need to run MH on your tank.
There has been so much debate on lighting over the years-just as much or more than wether to skim or not to skim.

I have a 27gl reef that houses around 70% LPS corals, the rest of the corals are SPS. I do keep an anemone as well as a few softies too.
Over the last six years of reefing I have learned a lot, and still learning lots. :mrgreen: My canopy houses 3 NO tubes which consist of two Philips T3 actinics and one 10,000K daylight tube. To break this down further, I have 33gls total water volume with sump included. So if you do the math I sit at 2.7 watts per gallon. This is done by dividing the total number of watts by the volume of water. My lighting output is below standard minimum tank recomendations, as the standard sits between 3-7 watts per gallon depending on what you are keeping. I should also mention that my reef is only 16 inches in height, so not much light is needed to penetrate my shallow reef.

Over the years I can't count how many times I have thought about upgrading to more intense systems such as VHO or PCF. Everytime I thought of doing an upgrade I would sit down and stare at the reef to see if anything was suffering from lack of light, and the same thought came to mind-"if it's not broken don't fix it". :biggrin:

IMO I would suggest PCF as they run well, provide a decent amount of light for a tank your size, and are cost efficient. I think VHO's would be too much for your setup, taking into account what you plan to keep. The NO setups are cheaper also, but for a few bucks more you can run two or three PCF's instead of 3 or 4 No tubes.

Over this last year I have been introducing the odd small SPS frags, and to my amazment they are all not only living but also growing too. I can say
that the corals would grow even faster under more intense lighting, however this is not a major concern as I have a small reef setup. I even fragged about 40-50 pieces of coral a few months back, so most corals are growing at a great rate!

If I was to upgrade to PCF, I would go with a triple stage setup in a home built canopy. I like to run 3 tubes, this way you can run dawn and dusk simulations much better. With a standard twin setup you could also do this by starting up with an actinic tube and then a few hours later with a daylight tube, and reverse for the dusk cycle.
Hamilton make a decent double tube, 55wt canopy that would work great on your setup, check out the different setups on J&L's website.

Well, I hope this helps you in some way. :mrgreen:
It's simply my opinion on lighting, and trust me the opinions on this topic can be endless. You can see my lighting setup and reef at:

http://www3.telus.net/sumpfinfishe

cheers, Rich

[Bob I]

To begin with, I do not believe you NEED more light. I have run the same setup with the lights you have now, and never encountered a problem with any corals not growing.
I would strongly suggest that you stick with what you have for the next while, and don't listen to all the hype. :eek:

[StirCrazy]

Well, here we are the big lighting debatewhile it is true that you could probably get away with what you have for most of your stuff, others will be severly lacking the light they need.

the bigest light demand will be from your anemone (if you feed it regulary , you could get away with lower light). softys and zoos should be fine, but if you ever want to get a clam or sps you should concider a upgrade. SPS are very demanding in the light but not how we all think, they will live and even grow under no lights but the growth forms will be thin and slow and the color will be severly lacking. I can say this with confadance as I have been exparamenting on lighting conditions with a relitivly low light SPS (montipora digitata). in my MH lit tank the coral grew by the day and was a emerald green with large and dence polyps to the extent that all you see is the polyps. In my 25 gal tank which is lit by two 55watt PC's and one no actinic, the color is brown, growth is slow and polyps are sparce to the point that you can see the base. I have taken a chunk out of the low light tank and put it back in the main tank and within two weeks the coral was back to its original splendor.

so no opinion here just some hard factual observations.

as for my opinion, I personaly would throw a single 150 watt MH on the 20 gal with a couple NO actinics on a workhorse 5. When I upgraded my lighting from PC's to MH even my soft corals did better so I am a MH fan now.

Steve

[Bob I]

Now you have heard both sides of the argument. You are now on your own to make decisions on the merits of what you have read. I, however, would do more research before deciding on spending many hundreds of dollars on lighting. Remember you are talking about a very small 16 inch deep tank.
:rolleyes:
You might have a look at the nanoreef forums to see what others do with a tank of similar dimensions.

[Aquattro]

For practical considerations, I think what you have is fine. The main reason to change, whether type or intensity, would be for aesthetics. Although I am also a fan of MH, in your case heat would be a very real concern....20g would get hot real quick.
If you're happy with the color and intesity of your lighting, spend your money elsewhere!! :razz:

[Bob I]

Just one further though on this. Aside from heat, I think another concern is the rate of growth. I would like to set up a tank, and not have to touch it for a year or so, and under MH that would not be possible. As an example my 50 has a lot of softies and zoos and polyps. There are also a Candycane, a couple of closed brains, and a couple of M. digitata frags, along with Organpipe. These things are all growing. Over that tank is a 96W , 10000K PC that comes on at 11:00 AM. There is also a 96W Actinic PC that comes on at 4:00 PM. Then the 10000K goes off at 7:00 PM. and the Actinic goes out at 9:00 PM. There is also a few hours of weak, filtered sunlight in the morning.
In that tank the growth rate is not too high. The only thing that will get out of hand soon is a Colt, and a Finger Leather. :razz:

[MalHavoc]

There are a lot of things that you can keep under lower levels of light, including SPS corals. It may not be realistic, however, to expect the same kinds of growth rates or colouring that you would see under higher levels of light. I've personally kept SPS corals under normal output fluorescents (some encrusting montipora, and some small frags of plating montipora). While the frags were brown the whole time I had them, they grew, albeit very slowly. I wouldn't want to try higher light SPS corals like A. humilus or A. cervicornus under anything other than MH though. Those types of corals enjoy being absolutely blasted by the sun since they are normally found on the crest of a reef.

Something else you may want to consider is the amount of nuissance algae that may begin to appear if you upgrade your lighting. Lighting doesn't specifically cause algae, but it can tip the scales in favour of algae growth if the nutrients are there to begin with. Many people report rampant algae growth when switching to brighter lights, especially when the tank is young and the water chemistry may be unstable.

If you're happy with your tank, stick with what you've got. It sounds like things are going well at this point anyway. If you leave the anemone alone for the time being (they depend on other things besides light, like tank stability), you should do fine. :smile:

[Canadian Man]

I agree with malhavoc on the color issue. some thing's wont show as good color under pc's as they will under halides and the exact opposite applies for other corals.

[impreza]

well, as long as i stay away from an anemone, i should be fine with keeping everything up to sps right? i realize that everything WILL grow, just VERY slowly and the color wont be as nice.
So i was just wondering, how much is a simple setup of NO with a WH ballast, 3 tubes...?

[impreza]

does anyone know where i can purchase VHO endcaps in calgary? can they be bought at britelite? where do u guys buy URI bulbs? on-line?


if i have about 150W VHO, will it be enough light for SPS and maybe even a clam in my 20H?
thanks

[impreza]

^ttt