Metal Halides

[Reefhawk1]

I am going to be upgrading my lighting system from my Coralife 150 watt HQI setup to a higher wattage MH setup.

The question I have for all fellow reefkeepers is what is the best wattage to go with for a tank with a 30-inch depth?

I am housing LPS and SPS corals at the moment and I am planning to go into SPS further in the future.

Also, what bulbs would you reccomend or are you running at the moment?


Thanks

[Joe Reefer]

You might want to think about 400's, but 250's with a good quality reflector should work well.

[marcingo]

personally I would think 400s would be overkill not to mention expensive to run- I have 150s HQI on my 22 inch high tank and I can keep everything and anything. Although Im not sure if your running single ended or double ended- I have double ended(which to me seem brighter than single ended). Anyway I would say 250 should be enough

[Reefhawk1]

I am running De HQI 150's 14K's at the moment.

[marie]

I have 250w DE bulbs on a 29" deep tank and all the sps have good colour and are growing

[Reefhawk1]

Originally Posted by marie

I have 250w DE bulbs on a 29" deep tank and all the sps have good colour and are growing

What type of bulbs and reflectors are you using Marie?

[marie]

It's just a plain old hamilton canopy with whatever reflector they use (*read* probably not the best ), 3 geiseman 13000k DE bulbs, a 165w actinic vho and a 165w 10000k vho

[Reefhawk1]

How close to the surface are your sps? Nice picture by the way, Corals are beautiful.

[michika]

I use 3 x 400w on my 32" deep tank. I like having the ability to place a wide variety of SPS, LPS, and clams through the different levels.

[marie]

Originally Posted by Reefhawk1

How close to the surface are your sps? Nice picture by the way, Corals are beautiful.

Here is another pic that better shows where everything is.


As you can see everything is in the lower half of the tank