booboo Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 Well i was hoping to setup some strange bright lighting system in a canopy for a 50 gallon like six of those swirly energy saver bulbs (1700lumens) and some harware store bought flourecent setups (spelling) With aquarium actinic bulbs and 2 aquarium with normal light (hopefuly 10000) but some ppl here said go with mh 2 250 watts i m willing to buy mh (im 13 and got a mom and dad who will buy certain materials hehehe) So i m on e bay and find a dual 250Watt mogul base set up with no electrical needs just plug in for $169 ( its still on ebay for 2 days if somone want to buy it) and it has a 2 year gurantee. So to the point i would love some advice and just throw more ideas at me and help plz. Link to comment
booboo Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 come on do u guys know anything Link to comment
SSMangrove Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 2x250 watt metal halide 15,000k. 10k is too yellow unless you balance it out a lot with actinics. 15k is nice looking! 13k is as low as i would go without actinic suppliment. Go to europe though and they will laugh at you for anything over 10k. Those tirds... Link to comment
SSMangrove Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 I used 6 curly q bulbs on my 20 long with 1x65w pc actinic and its too yellow. Those curly q bulbs are good for growing plants but not for corals. they will get the job done but for truly outstanding color go with the halides i talked about. no more than 15k though because then it will be too blue for the zooxanthellae of your photosynthetic corals to utilize it efficiently. Fork out the $ and get the best you can for the money, otherwise you will just regret it in the end. MH all the way! --CORRECTION AND CONTRADICTION-- I have recently purchased a 20k bulb and my corals are lovin' it! my Digitata has turned a nice purple at the tips and other corals have colored up nicely as well.. What i did do though, was balance it out with one 65w actinic (to get that really cool spectrum of blue) and 2x19w curlie q bulbs from hd (6500k ea). Now its lookin good, i have a rediculous 18.5 watts per gallon over a 15g, and the corals are in heaven Link to comment
booboo Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 (thanks for helping seems like no one knows anything) So what your saying is two dual 250 watt 15k metal halides and 1or 2 actinics can i use those hardware store bought flourescent fixtures for the actinics? Link to comment
EtOH_is_good Posted August 3, 2004 Share Posted August 3, 2004 well if i were 13 again and my parents knew i was setting a reef tank, they'd probably knock me around for even considering to buy something that expensive. booboo, kind of hard to recommend what you should get because we don't know what you want to stock. 50 gal tank is lot of surface area to cover and kind of deep for light to penetrate all the way to the bottom. you may have not got the response you were expecting here because people here keep tanks less than 30 gal. for bigger tanks reefcentral may have better answers for you. Link to comment
booboo Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 oh yah by the way any suggestions on what metal halides and where to buy will these work PFO 250 WATT METAL HALIDE RETROFIT KIT NEW IN BOX THIS IS A PFO METAL HALIDE RETROFIT KIT NEW IN BOX. THIS IS A DUAL 250 WATT RETROFIT KIT. THIS KIT INCLUDES TWO MOGUL BASES AND THE BALLEST. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO TO RUN THIS LIGHT IS TO MOUNT THE MOGUL BACES IN HOOD/CANOPY OR ANY SAFE WAY YOU LIKE. THEN ADD 2 250 WATT METAL HALIDE LIGHTS. WE CAN GET THE BULBS FOR AN EXTRA $65.00 EACH. BUYER PAYS FOR ALL SHIPPING AK. AND HI. IS A DIFFERENT SHIPPING RATE. FOR MORE GREAT DEALS ON PFO LIGHTING PLEASE VIEW MY STORE. THANKS FOR LOOKING AND GOOD LUCK BIDDING! Link to comment
booboo Posted August 3, 2004 Author Share Posted August 3, 2004 thanks etoh i will try reefcentral is it similar to nano-reef well i will find out but hopefully once i get use to keeping salt water i will get a jbj 12 gallon nano cube but this is my first but thanks for the tip on reef central Link to comment
SSMangrove Posted August 22, 2004 Share Posted August 22, 2004 Sheit, I was 12 when i bought my first halides :-) Parents thought i was dumb but all that washing cars and mowing lawns paid off, especially when the LFS was amazed at how a 12 year old kid was able to bring in hydnophora frags every month or two ;-) Link to comment
Undertheradar Posted August 22, 2004 Share Posted August 22, 2004 a 50g would be ideal for 2x250wattMH. I wont suggest a specific K, but perhaps you want to use a 10,000K on one and a 20,000K on the other...then decide which you like more. I did that on my 60g cube. Then I did end up using the hamilton 14,000K x2...but everyone has their own idea of pretty. Link to comment
nalbar Posted August 22, 2004 Share Posted August 22, 2004 get the MH set up and never look back. and dont worry about K ratings because you have to eventually switch out the bulbs. if you are unhappy with the spectrum you can change the K rating when you buy new bulbs. dont assume you wont like 10000k. i have two 250 10000K on my 80 and prefer it. nalbar Link to comment
booboo Posted August 22, 2004 Author Share Posted August 22, 2004 oh well but i do have my nano cube know space was to big of in issue so i went smaller after two months of reseach in all oh yeah what kind of fixture can i upgrade my nano cube with and where to get it Link to comment
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