Moreno Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 Anyone know of a good strong light for a 40 gallon thats not too expensive? Strong enough for hard corals, besides MH? Link to comment
mattyice Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 good strong lighting always comes with a price just how much you are willing to spend, im guessing by 40G you mean a 40 breeder, at that depth compact flourescent will work but not the best, T5HO will be better but is quite a pretty penny, i think for what you want the normal TX5 Aquatinics would be perfect, i believe its more expensive then say the tek lights fixtures but, the reflectors are better, the fixture looks better, and customer service is really good with Aquatinics, or i dont know why you wouldnt want MH it ends up being the cheapest of all of them, get a simple 250W DE pendant with a decent ballast and if you want a really really good bulb look at the helios 250W 20K DE bulb that fragfarmer.com sells it gives your corals the best color and "pop" out of any other bulb i have seen Link to comment
eddie29 Posted August 20, 2007 Share Posted August 20, 2007 I have a Tek 4 x 39 T5 fixture that would probably do the trick...PM if you are interested Link to comment
Moreno Posted August 21, 2007 Author Share Posted August 21, 2007 good strong lighting always comes with a price just how much you are willing to spend, im guessing by 40G you mean a 40 breeder, at that depth compact flourescent will work but not the best, T5HO will be better but is quite a pretty penny, i think for what you want the normal TX5 Aquatinics would be perfect, i believe its more expensive then say the tek lights fixtures but, the reflectors are better, the fixture looks better, and customer service is really good with Aquatinics, or i dont know why you wouldnt want MH it ends up being the cheapest of all of them, get a simple 250W DE pendant with a decent ballast and if you want a really really good bulb look at the helios 250W 20K DE bulb that fragfarmer.com sells it gives your corals the best color and "pop" out of any other bulb i have seen Well I do want a MH but their sooo expensive and I dont want to pay a fortune. I know its going to be alot but I want to try to save a little. I did see one on MarineDepot.com that was cool and it had everything I wanted. ( Strong light, Moon beams, cooling fan etc.) but they wanted like over 500 for it! Link to comment
eddie29 Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 Moreno... If you really have your heart set on a MH setup check our the classfields. Not a big fan of RC, but honestly they have a huge used section and you may find exactly what your looking for especially if you give it some time. Link to comment
mattyice Posted August 21, 2007 Share Posted August 21, 2007 MH doesnt have to be as expensive as people make it, you really shouldnt need a fan if you use a pendant at the proper height off of the tank... i recommend for your tank to use either a Lumenmax pendant of the PFO mini pendant both in 250W, i kept over 525W over my 125 in a canopy and my tank didnt get over 81, and i also recommend the classifieds and if you cant do that then check with a local reef club to see if any local reefers have anything you could be looking for Link to comment
Moreno Posted August 22, 2007 Author Share Posted August 22, 2007 Alright then thanks guys really you guys helped alot. Im going to check out the classifieds and see what they got, thanks again Link to comment
AMSR Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 Alright then thanks guys really you guys helped alot. Im going to check out the classifieds and see what they got, thanks again I have a sunpod 2x150w 14k MH over my 40G and I really like it. Its not "too" blue, but not "too" yellow either... Just get the MH up front, otherwise you will want it later, and then you will have paid for 2x lighting fixtures. With MH there really isn't a coral you can't keep... so you can just have your pick at the LFS! :-) Link to comment
Moreno Posted August 23, 2007 Author Share Posted August 23, 2007 I have a sunpod 2x150w 14k MH over my 40G and I really like it. Its not "too" blue, but not "too" yellow either... Just get the MH up front, otherwise you will want it later, and then you will have paid for 2x lighting fixtures. With MH there really isn't a coral you can't keep... so you can just have your pick at the LFS! :-) Thats why i want MH im sick of looking at a real nice coral and knowing that i cant keep it because my lighting isnt strong enough Link to comment
mattyice Posted August 23, 2007 Share Posted August 23, 2007 you could easily get away with only a 250W MH if you put a good reflector on it, if you go with a lumenmax or lumenarc reflector it is such a good design that if you went from a normal 250W MH on a standard reflector to a lumenarc reflector i guarentee that it would bleach corals in the tank Link to comment
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