Lighting question for my 90g tank

If you get t5's with individual reflectors, you will up the par reading at least double. they claim 300% increase in light. HUGE difference between a 4 lamp retrofit kit with individual reflectors and a 4 lamp fixture with a single reflector. For the retrofit kit, each reflector will need 3" of clearance. if you have a 20" wide tank, you'll be able to fit a 6 bulb t5 HO kit with individual reflectors.

 

What are these retrofit kits?

 

sorry for the late response. either sunlight supply tek II's or if you want some over driven IceCap's with the miro reflectors but you will need some fans if you are going to mount those in a canopy. look for either "miro" reflectors or "tek" reflectors.

 

Thanks for the reply, but i didnt really understand what does this retrokit thing actually mean?

//Reuben

 

Question: What light would you use out of the box for a 90 gallon tank (48 x 18 x 25 ) to be able to grow varied corals and clams?

 

they are just the the reflector and bulb(along with ballast of course) that you screw into a wooden canopy, or mount some how on your own.

basically they don't come encased in anything that would be meant to support them above the tank.

 

personally I would use 2 150 halides, with some t5's as actinic supplements.

or just 2 250 halides

 

Hi thanks for both answers,

What ive decided to do is wait 3-4 months to buy the lights till its time to start adding my first corals.

It looks like ill be getting 2x250MH + 2x t5's actinic in a good looking encasement

 

sounds like a good plan, I dont think the 150's are enough and the T-5's let you simulate sunrise and sunset.

 

Like others have said, your current fixture is fine for fish only. You have a couple of options. Replace the fixture when you are ready or adding MH to the equation and replace the bulbs on that T-5 to atinics.

I myself have a Nova Extreme SLR T-5 216W Fixture. I have Live Rock, Live Sand, Green Star Polyps, Bubble tip Anemone, Eagle Eye Zoanthids, Green Zoanthids, Mushrooms, Some other type of star polyps that have started to grow, Sponges, Yellow Tang, Cleaning Shrimp, Royal Gramma, Bi-Colored Angel, (2) Clownfish, Blue-Green Chromis, Hermit Crabs, Mexican Turbo Snails & Coralline Algae growing like crazy. I have Geisemann bulbs in my fixture & noticed within 24hrs after replacing my old Current bulbs everything was much happier & color was amazing.

So, I'm a bit confused on the 400W-500W rule that I have seen? Can someone explain this?