MH lighting question.

[Tyke]

I'm upgrading my lighting from 384 watts of PC to an all in one fixture with MH and T5. The one I'm looking at has two 56watt T5's and a choice of either one or two 250watt MH's. It also offers pretty much any bulbs you want as options. Should I get the single or dual 250's and what type bulbs do I need? The tank is 36" x 18" x 20" deep, about 60 gallons and contains mostly zoos (my favorites) with a couple Ricordia and other shrooms. This is my first try with MH.

Thanks,
Tyke

 

[Brenden]

IMO you can get away with one and just keep your low light corals around the outside edges. Type bulbs is a personal pref but since you will already have antic I would go with a 10k bulb

 

[joshinjosh]

the more the merrier! like brenden said, one is fine especially on 36", but with two you will get better growth, just rememeber PARs on 10k bulbs are usually greater than the bluer 20ks, and if you want to be super cautious like me make sure to light aclimmate for zoos cause you might possibly lose some to the change in halide (but probably not), i just do it cause some zoos are quite expensive


josh

 

[Krish]

I third it. MH's give out quite a bit of light and I personally don't think it is necessary to have dual 250w MH's on a 36 inch tank especially when they have T-5's for supplemental lighting and won't support any of the highest light demanding corals