your light opinions and input

[belamy]

hey guys,

 

I'm thinking of upgrading my 2 standard 15w NO lights in my Eclipse 3 into either:

1) 1 32w smartlamp (50% daylight 50%actinic) by (I think) csl retrofit or

2) 2x28w power compacts (1 daylight 1 actinic) from various places.

 

cost wise, they are both within my range, which is less than $100.00. it's the aesthetics and the benifits to my nano that will affect my decision. what do y'all think? which one and why?

 

currently the reef has a xenia frag, a kenya tree frag. 4 ricordeas, couple of individual button polyps and mushrooms. There's also an ocellaris (tank raised) and a scooter dragonette. I might add other corals in the future, but I want to make sure that the one that I have now are alive and waving + check to make sure the bioload hasn't been maxed.

 

25lbs fiji lr with bunchs of coralline, 1 1/2 inch sandbed. circulation provided by the hood and a smallest rio powerhead there is (which I'm changing - any recommendations?)

 

10% wc every week. pH is about 8.0 (bottled water mixed with treated tap + IO mix). the rest of the parameters have been good (everyone in there are fine).

 

just want to know what the rest of the nano crew thinks.

 

TIA

 

arbel

[Brianc_4]

I like the 2x28pc idea better, it will allow you to do dawn and dusk, if there is an xtra switch.

For powerheads, maxijet makes some nice small ones as well as zoomed, who makes one that is only about a square inch.

 

 

Be careful with that tap water(how is it treated?)

[Sahin]

Between the two, I would also go with the 2x28watt setup. There are a few poeple on this board who use have used such a setup (eg Deezreef, and he has an awesome 10G setup with same lighting). And 56w is better than 32 anyway, so go with that.

[Dave ESPI]

uhhh ECLIPSE 3 ? how in the hell ya gunnah fit 2 28 watters in there? a Shoe-horn and a crow bar?

try fer a SEALIGHT by Custom Sealife. its a 27 Watt Quad 55K PC and a 9 W 03 Actinic PC both have seperate plugs. I keep the 03 on 22 hrs a day. it cost like 70.00 championlighting.

[glazer]

Uh, not being "eclipse-experienced" I can only assume it is NOT a three gallon tank if you got 25lbs of rock in it....lol

 

I think I would opt for the two 28's myself... I like having an entire bulb devoted to just the actinic part, won't go into all the reasons (unless ya want me too,hehe) I am just not that big a fan of the combo bulbs.

[belamy]

thanks y'all

 

thanks to everyone I'm leaning to 2x28w pcs. Dave I saw a link in inland reef website where a guy retrofitted 2x28w pc inside an eclipse 1(tl) soo, if he can do it.. I'm curious though, I'll check out what you said.

 

as for the water, the sacramento water is slightly on the acidic side about pH 8.0 (i checked when i started my freshwater tank). When I say treated, I meant treating the tap with water conditioner to remove the chlor stuffs. at first, i used strictly tap for water changes and the results are diatom blooms and cyano. i switched to bottled water (try the alhambra distilled their distilled through RO and/or DI). Yeah,yeah i know you can't trust the bottled water business, but so far everything is good, no blooms or outbreaks. So i'll leave it to the status quo, but i'll be testing and observing.