MH over center brace?

[Gools]

I have a 5/8" center brace piece of glass. I'm wondering If I should bother putting a metal halide over it or not. What do you think?

[Chin_Lee]

what the dimensions of your tank? If its not too long, you can put a mh on either side of the brace

[Gools]

I already have haldes over both ends. Just don't know if hooking one up over the brace would be a waste of electricity.

[Skimmerking]

he's needs to know what lenght of the tank is to see if you are needing a 3rd MH
so i take it that the tank is 6 ' long
if so if you have 1 center brace like i had on my 280 you should keep it there even if it's 5/8 glass.

if the tank is 4' long then you will be ok
5' i would say it would be ok
dont bet on it thou..

mike

[Gools]

Yah it's a 6 footer, 180g

[Skimmerking]

then i would keep the centre brace on there ,but you could do it add 2 braces on the ends and take off the center brace then you could run the 3 mh over the tank...

HTH

mike

[smokinreefer]

it really depends on what your intensions are...

if you hate shadows, then add a MH over the brace.

if you dont mind shadows, then its not necessary.

just FYI, i have a variety of sps and softies thriving in the shadow/low light area created from 2 400W MH that are lighting my 180.

[Doug]

You could put a smaller wattage bulb over the center. Whats your outside bulbs?

[Skimmerking]

Doug i was talking to Nigel and he has 2x175 w over the tank and i told him if he wanted to add the 3rd one to add the 2 braces over the ends and then take off the middle one.

But its may be alot of work involved to do it, he has the black trim on the tank and then he would have to cut it out, unless he added the 2 braces and the cut out the third on but then he may be cutting the light down on the corals ,with all the glass on the top of it ..

i think that he could drain it and say half way and then install the 2 braces on the top and thne tak off the other one and there you go fill u with the water and add the rock and corals ..

mike

what would you do Doug.!!!!!

[Doug]

I would never touch any bracing. Just add a 3rd 175 w halide over the center. As long as the brace is glass, all will be fine. Just give the brace a wipe now & then.