Mattie's thinking upgrade again (mh?)

[mattie]

well the 260w pc's over the 20 are doing fine everything is growing well but...... i am thinking i would still be getting better color if i swapped all the pc's out and put one 250mh 20k by itself.....

now i have been doing a little reading and i seeking opinion

i could pull ONE pc and put in a de mh bulb in its place or i could pull out all of the pc's and put a 250mh 20k bulb with a spider reflector

.........

and lastly try to make a new hood w/ the 250w 20k and try to squeeze in 2 65w actincs ........ I am unsure but i also have maybe 4 months away from trying this

 

i guess the questions are

1 is worth the hassle of the de bulb sheilding from uv

2 just go with 1 250 20k radium adn be done

3 well ya can guess what 3 would be......

[OxInYourBox]

If I had to redo my lighting I'd go with a 250W HQI 10K bulb with VHO (or PC if I had it around) supplementation. I've thought about swapping out my 20K XM SE bulb for a 10K XM or Ushio and adding a 24" VHO fixture but that wouldn't look too good over an open top tank. That and the PFO pendant pretty much takes up the whole tank so XM is the way for me.

 

As far as your setup goes-A few people I see running HQI's with canopys actually just cut holes out of the top of the canopy and put the PFO pendant there. You could do this with your hood provided you remove two possibly 3 of your PC's and rearranged things in the top half. This way you could keep some of your PC for actinic, not have to rebuild (just remodify) your hood, and you'll have killer light. Of course you could rebuild from scratch as well.

[Jahkaya]

I agree that the 250 20k will be much better than the 260 of PC. I would go with the 250 20k and 1 55 PC actinic. Dawn/Dusk is always nice.