lets talk aboot lighting...

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Discuss all topics related to saltwater / reef tanks.


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

lets talk aboot lighting...

by gumbii

that's right... i comicly misspelled about...






anyways...


okay... so my canopy is going to have 260w of power compacts... wait... what's 65 times 4... all right so i'm right...

i have two 10,000k coralife bulbs, and two true acnic bulbs... but... i want to add a MH bulb in there...

since i'm tight and stuff... i'm going the whole DIY route...

i'm going to use a 250w mercury vapor ballast with a 250w 6,500k iwaski bulb... or however you spell it....



my question is... would you keep the PC lights as a 50/50 daylight/actnic setup, or go with 50/50 actnic/actnic combo...??? you know... the pink acnic and the blue acnic...


what do you guys think...???




kthxgoodbye...


schigara
 
Posts: 468
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm

by schigara

I used that same DIY MH setup 4 years ago on my first tank but I didn't have any actinic supplementation. The Iwasaki 6500 is very yellow so I would suggest using all 460nm actinic bulbs for supplement.

I am now using 2- 250w Reeflux 12000k MH's and started out using 1 420nm Geisseman Pure Actinic and 1 460nm Geisseman Actinic+ for supplements and the 420nm had a lot of purple in it and it didn't give a nice florescence to the corals like the very blue 460nm. I switched out the purple 420 and now use all 460nm "blue" blues and it makes the coral look awesome.

For anyone else interested in this DIY Metal Halide setup, the link is below.
http://aquarium.union.rpi.edu/articles/DIY_MH.html


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

by gumbii

but say will the all blue light ballance out the yellow hue of the bulb...??


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

by gumbii

shnaps... i think i rated your tank a 10 a couple of days ago... that is esacly how i plan to make my 90g reef to be... like a trench of coral... a marvel...


anyways... yeah that's the same DIY i was looking at... hmm... i might spend the cash and get two 250w MH bulbs and get coil style metal halide ballast... i didn't know they were that cheap... on ebay they're almost giving them away...

anyways... thx for the input and you have a great tank...


schigara
 
Posts: 468
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm

by schigara

Thanks alot man.

I think 260w of Actinic should balance out the yellow quite nicely.

If you can get an actual MH ballast, you would be able to choose from a lot more bulbs.

The merc vapor restricts to just that one bulb.


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

by gumbii

werd... also... how did you house the ballast...??? did you put it in a fuse box like the guy said to...???


schigara
 
Posts: 468
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm

by schigara

Nah, I just screwed them to the back of my stand


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

by gumbii

yeah... that's what i'm thinking about doing... the PC have a ballast for each bulb... so i allready have to think about putting 4 pc ballast somewhere... i'm thinking about screwing them in the back of a piece of wood, and then screwing that onto the back of the canopy... jeez what a mess... even the LED's have small ballast... and the fans... sigh...


schigara
 
Posts: 468
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:42 pm

by schigara

lol yup, the back of my stand looks like a crazy science experiment with all the ballasts, fans, wires, controllers and power switch boxes.

One of my next projects is to build a cabinet to house all electrical stuff.


gumbii
 
Posts: 1695
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:31 am

by gumbii

i fear that my stand or whatever is going to look alot worst... since it's really small for a 90 tank... i hate it... i can't stuff a big wet/dry down there either...


it's 3' long and 2' deep... well the tank is anyways... so the stand is a bit smaller... so everything is all bunched up in that small stand... so i have to build something to put everything else into...

plus... my protein skimmer came out to be 48" tall... so that's going behind the fish tank by itself... the good thing is that the tank is going in a corner and not flush against the wall... so i have the space... but to adjust and everything else is going to be insainly difficult in the future... oh well...

lets talk aboot lighting...

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