What brand and intensity metal halide for a 55 gal

[oldsalty]

I curently am running a 55 gallon tank with a 48" coralife 265 watt pc. Should I upgrade to halides?I am also going too be upgrading my tank too a 125g tank which is also 48" long in about 6 months And if i do upgrade what will work for a 55 and a 125?

 

[mojoreef]

Well it really depends on what you want to keep. If you plan on just softies/lps and simular you pc's should be fine. If you want to go to a more light demanding corals and some types of clams then MH would be a better option. As per which kind, I would look to 2 x 250 watt lights, that way you can go any color bulb with out worry ad if you upgrade down the road, you can use them thier to.


Mike

 

[oldsalty]

How much money for those halides?

 

[mojoreef]

To be honest I am not sure. Click on the sponcers links above and you should be able to get a few prices from them.


good luck


Mike

 

[oldsalty]

Thank you for the help.

 

[clayswim]

The cheapest way to use halides is building the system yourself. This means buying the ballast, reflector and bulbs separately. http://www.hellolights.com/ has good prices if you're interested. For cheap, but very effective bulbs I would recommend XM. The new 15K bulbs look great and they only cost about $60 each. An entire system using two 250W bulbs, two ballasts and two reflectors will cost you at least $300 though, even building it yourself.

Also, if you have a decent amount of rock built up you can place the high-light inverts near the surface. PCs work great in shallow waters.

Clayton

 

[mojoreef]

Clayton I am not sure if you have seen the testing that just came out (last week) on the 15K bulbs, they came back as being a pretty lousy bulb for par.


Mike

 

[wrightme43]

here are my 250 watt MH on my tank, on the floor, and open and on, and a pictute of my tank under pc light as well. I will pm you where I got them. Steve
Edit
That picture was a few hours after swapping my tank to barebottom. My camera is broken for the third time in less than a year. Sony DSC-P93 supposed to be replaced this time. Who knows.

 

[mfinn]

Mike,
what was the par of the XM 15k bulb?
how does it compare with the XM 20k bulb, with compareable wattage? (175/250)

 

[Boomer]

You do not want to know . OK, out of about a ga-zillion bulbs is was second from the botom on PPDF My flashlight puts out more PAR :lol:

 

[mojoreef]

Finn it has less par then a radium 20k or a 20 xm on either wattages using the same ballasts



Mike

 

[mojoreef]

ROFL no kidding, I was pretty disappointed.


Mike

 

[mfinn]

I have been getting pretty slow growth with everything using mostly 20k XM and Radium bulbs, so I too am disappointed.

 

[clayswim]

Didn't see that Mike, thanks for the head's up. That is disappointing.

Clayton

 

[Skimmy]

helios is actually suppose to make a pretty decent 20k bulb if you can belive it! par roughly the same as radium, less expensive.

 

[mfinn]

After looking at Sanjays site, it looks like a brand of bulb called "Happy Reefing" gets the best PPFD using IceCap and PFO ballasts.
I've never heard of "Happy Reefing" bulb.
Where do you get them?

 

[Boomer]

I don't know. There is happyreefing.com, they sell allot of bulbs, but when you go there now it says SOLD

 

[mfinn]

Alot of good info on Sanjays site, but I wish the testing would have included 175 watt bulbs also.