Lighting Question

[APC]

We do have central AC, and it's a new house (1 year old), with double paned, UV coated and tinted windows. The office is just on the corner that gets nailed with afternoon sun, and has windows on 3 of 4 walls. In the winter not too bad, but in the summer it gets warm (They don't call it Hotlanta for nothing :-) ) - comfortable for humans - but a warm starting point for my fish tank.

Ideally I'd like to keep the tank in my office so I can enjoy it. So really looking for ways to keep it cooler. The fan on the sump is a good idea, and am going to give it a shot. The main issue is I cant be leaving the stand door open all the time (Like I am now to get airflow in there) as that is not really pleasing to the eye (mainly my wife's eye that is...I could care less what it looks like as long as my reef looks good...:-) ). So thinking the lights might be the next step.

I have a cool corner of my basement where I want to put another tank..with Clams, so the MH fixture would not go to waste.

That being said, I also don't want to mess up my reef by cutting back on the light watts.

Decisions decisions..... :-)

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Power compacts have a higher operating temp(@125 degrees with fans) as opposed to t5's (@95 degrees with fans).Also pc's have a much shorter bulb life than t5 at @12 months for pc and 24 for t5.

[lunatik_69]

I also agree with the fans. I recently had my a/c die on me for three days and I ran the fan 24/7 when usually it runs only when the MH are on. My temp got as high as 83.6. Thats only one fan blowing across the top of the tank. If you would do that and a fan for the sump, you should be more than fine(imo). I also live in miami like dmb roks and the heat here is sometimes unbareable. If I would leave the fan running all day, my temp would fall as low as 69-70.

[ziggy222]

i think your set up is fine and i doubt the 4 degree temp change is enough to kill the corals.you may check into over driven t5's.icecap can overdrive ho t5 bulbs even more but the bulbs burn out sooner.i think 12 months.

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Ziggy,UVL actually makes a series of bulbs for the ice cap ballast.In 36 inch it makes 60 watts.The bulbs have thicker glass longer filiments and last the same 2 years.No more overdrive lol.

[ziggy222]

thats interesting.i also wanted to add that some people turn their heaters up a little in the summer so the temp does'nt change so much from night to day when using mh.