to much light?

diggardens · 01-18-2007, 02:15 PM

I have the option of getting these almost free from a friend... 2-110 wt vho and 2-250wt metal halides. I didn't want to jump into halides because of the heat but hey. The tank is 24" deep so what if I hang these 5 to 8 inches above it? Still to much light and heat? I am still trying to figure out what would be the best long run. I don't want to be limited to what corals I can have because I was afraid of the lights.

Thanks

jtReef · 01-18-2007, 02:32 PM

You really can't have to much light.
However you do need to worry about acclimating your corals to the extra light as well as the heat it produces.
So shorten the time your corals are under the light as well as start them pretty far above the tank.
I'm not sure how wide your tank is but with that depth you should be fine.

diggardens · 01-18-2007, 02:48 PM

Ok, so if I start of shortening the time, will I be able to then keep the lights on all day? Or still to much light and heat no matter what? I work from home so I want to enjoy this all day? I was going to go with a Tek 8x54wt T5 but when I added up the watt's it came to 432. I know they are powerful but shouldn't I shoot for around 6 to 8 watt's per gallon? My tank is 48"Lx 24"Tx 18"D. I don't want to rush into this but I have to think down the road.

Thanks again.

jtReef · 01-19-2007, 05:53 AM

I thought you had 2 vho's as well as 2 metal halides to put on?
If that is the case just start out with a few hours a day of light and then slowly increase the time the lights are on. If you see bleaching then your coral has not acclimated to the new light as quick as you are increasing it.
It will be more of an obversation that helps you add more time to the length the lights are on. So in a week or 2 you should be able to go all day without any issues.
The heat issue is if your starting out metal halides for the first time they can increase your water temp more than other lighting so you just want to make sure you monitor that as well.

coral reefer · 01-19-2007, 06:07 AM

jtReef is right on! You really cant have enough light. Think about how much light from the sun hits the reef surface. It is very difficult to match the average irradiance of the sun with our lighting schemes. For example the irradiance of the reef surface at midday without any cloud cover is 120,000lux!
Our lighting doesn't come close to that!
As for the heat issue, just set up a fan to blow across the top of the water(evaporative cooling) works wonderfully. You will just have to replace the freshwater lost from the evaporation process!

milesm4 · 01-19-2007, 08:16 AM

I agree you can't have too much light. A friend of mine just bought a couple of cooling fans from radio shack, plugged them into the surge protector for the halides and when the timer turns on the halides the fans also turn on.

diggardens · 01-19-2007, 02:31 PM

That's a great idea about puting the fans on the same times as the halides. Thanks everyone for your replies. I've never done halides so they seem a bit scary at first but I'm going to go for it. I want lots of different corals.

I actually feel more relieved about this than any other purchase I've made.