"Desired" Lighting Mix

Tank is 48" wide, 24" front to back, and 26" deep.

I have 4" of sand though, so the effective depth is probably 24".

So you'd recommend that MH's are overkill and 8 T5's would be good, correct?

M

 

What corals???

Still learning. Right now I have zoas, paly's, ricordeas, yellow polyps, acans, sunflower, frogspawn, green star polyp, etc. Nothing too difficult. I'd like to evolve into acro's and others but taking it slow.

Also interested in calms down the road.... haven't even started reading about calms yet.

My reef tank is about a year old now and I feel like I finally understand the water chemistry side at a BASIC level. Now, I am delving into lighting. I feel like a complete noob again. When I started, I bought a light that was recommend on 3reef and accepted that. Now, I am trying to improve my knowledge and understand WHY....

Thanks
M

 

Yeah an 8 bulb T5HO will work fine. 5 ATI Blue Plus, 1 GE 6500K, 1 UVL Actinic White and 1 ATI Aquablue Special will take care of all your needs.

 

Why 8 vs 10?
Why that selection??

Just trying to understand...

M

 

8 is enough for that sized tank. You could do 10, but you don't need to (assuming, of course, that you have a quality fixture such as Tek, ATI, etc.) - with quality reflectors.

I notice in your bulb suggestions you are always trying to fit in some GE 6500K bulbs. You don't need these. You will have pretty much a full spectrum from the "full spectrum bulbs" such as the aquablue special or even the KZ new generation 14000K. The Fiji purple bulb also has quite a bit of the red spectrum in it. So you don't need a yellow bulb like the 6500K just to get those wavelengths.

For an 8 bulb fixture, for maximum punch to your corals, I would go with the following (front to back):
ATI blue plus
KZ Fiji purple
ATI blue plus/UVL superactinic
ATI aquablue special/KZ new generation 14000K
ATI blue plus
ATI aquablue special/KZ new generation 14000K
ATI blue plus

PS: Adding MH bulbs to 6 T5s on your size tank is overkill IMO. Too much light. You may see bleaching from it. BTW, sticking to your 6 bulb T5 fixture alone would likely be ok, but I would keep SPS and clams directly underneath it in the top half of the tank. With 8 bulbs you could likely put them anywhere.
ATI blue plus/ATI aquablue special (depending on how lit you like your background)

 

You may have a hard time squeezing that many bulbs under your hood, and you will most likely will have past the point of diminishing returns and could actually be over saturating your light. You may not be able to keep less light needing corals.

 

Good inputs....

I'll modify....

M

 

2in10,

Thanks for the explanations....

A few more questions

1) You only listed 7 bulbs????

2) UVL superactinic is only 210 PAR, why would I swap that for a ATI Aqua Blue Plus at 311 PA???? It seems ATI is a better bulb...

THANKS
Mark

 

That was JJK that listed the 7 bulbs and superactinic. The use of the supperactinic would be for a more blue look. I responded on one of your other posts about T5 lighting. I gave you a recommendation that is half blue and half daylight.