reef halide lighting

i have a 55 gallon soon to be reef, i plan on having SPS, LPS and or soft corals. i found this 48 inch 2 250w metal halide lighting hood for a really good price, so i was wondering is 500w on a 55 gallon to much for LPS, SPS and soft corals? its about 9 watts per gallon. also will it cause over heating in my aquarium since its not a known brand?

 

Do not get that, you will HAVE to buy a chiller with it.

 

My dad runs two DE 250w about 5" off the surface with no heat issues. He will occasionally turn on a fan to blow across the surface when the house is opened up in the summer on a hot day.

And IMO that is a good amount of light to have. He grows soft, lps, and sps no problem with that lighting.

 

on a 55? your tank must be in a very large and cold room.

 

500 watts for a 55gallon? sounds like a lot of light. thats like 10watts per gallon. I am running 500watts on my 120gallon and it is doing great.

 

I am running 1400 Watts on a 150 Gallon.

That is not too much light IMO. You should be able to grow SPS just about anywhere in the tank.

My only advice is to make sure that the light fixture has a very good exhaust fan. This will pull the heat away from the tank. I do not run a chiller due to my overkill exhaust fans.

 

Well if you got killer deal on MH, why not to upgrade your tank to lets say 100-120g? That would probably will be my excuse to get a bigger tank

 

no actually to be honest its in a sunroom so it gets a lot of light also! the room is about the same as a normal livingroom size and there are not any AC vents near the tank.

 

500w on a 150 you will need a chiller or your tank will be getting up to 82 degrees. I have 700w on my 90 and was hitting 82 degrees. Put a chiller on and now it stays at 77.

 

well his tank is the oddity, people near me end up with chillers with 6 wpg. I needed a chiller on a 90 with 500 watts.