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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / December 2006Is this light adequate?
I'm considering buying the Coralife HO fluorescent fixture for my tank. The tank is a 125 gallon and is 23" deep. Here's a link to the fixture. http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW//Class//T1/F38AA+0047+0906/EDP/42808/Ite mdy00.aspx It comes with two 96 watt 10,000K and two 96 watt actinic bulbs. Each is a double tube bulb. There's also a bulb on the market that is half actinic and half 10,000K. Replacing the actinics would give me 3/4 of the output in the 10,000K range and only 1/4 actinic. Would that be a good idea? The tank is currently FOWLR, but I intend to eventually add some soft corals. George Patterson Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. > I'm considering buying the Coralife HO fluorescent fixture for my tank. > The tank is a 125 gallon and is 23" deep. Here's a link to the fixture. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > George Patterson > Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. I think these are CF's, not VHO's. In fact, I don't think coralife (aka: energy savers unlimited) makes any VHO fixtures. They make decent stuff. Nothing special, but decent. (all three light setups I own that are over my nano's are theirs, BTW - one of which is the 24 inch vesrion of the one you are looking at) Decent light at a decent price. Whether or not it is "enough" depends on what you want it for. For clams such as croceas and corals like acroporas, this probably would not be enough on a 23" deep tank, unless you put the specimens right up at the top of the tank (even then, you'd be pushing it). For most soft corals, clams like derasas, most anemones, it's probably fine. If you want stuff that needs a lot of light, you may want to look at this one: http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/F38DB/Class/Aquarium+Lighting+Metal+Hali de+Fixtures+Combo/T1/F38DD+0047+0980/EDP/44706/Itemdy00.aspx > I think these are CF's, not VHO's. You're right. George Patterson Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. Yep, compact lights are HO not VHO and not NO. Wayne Sallee Wayne's Pets Wayne@WaynesPets.com George Patterson wrote on 12/22/2006 10:19 AM: >> I think these are CF's, not VHO's. > > You're right. > > George Patterson > Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. > coralife > Decent light at a decent price. <lots of snips - not meant to distort> what brand do you recommend? I'm energy conscious, so I'm hesitant to buy a 700 watt fixture. In my area, that would run me $350/year in electricity alone (not to mention air pollution). --Kurt >> coralife >> Decent light at a decent price. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > --Kurt If you can afford it, the PFO solaris lights look VERY nice. Also very expensive. But they are very cool (both meanings of the word apply - they are both "hip" and low temp) it's a big array of high output (3 watt)LEDs. Color can be varied by turning on/off various LED's, and there is a computer controller with clock that allows you to program this. Can have blue LEDS come on a few at time, then the whites, to simulate sunrise, etc. Someone did an independant test, and the 24" version (which is 150 watts) of these has output comparable to a 250 watt 20K Ushio metal halide (the Solaris actually produces more photosyntheticly usable light, but slightly less total light than the MH) I haven't seen one of these in person myself, but they LOOK to be awsome, 24" vesrion runs something like $1300 or so. They make these in sizes 14" all the way up to 72". > If you can afford it, the PFO solaris lights look VERY nice. > Also very expensive. Ouch! $2345 for a 48" hood. It would be a 5 year payback. Maybe less if I count AC costs. What brand do you recommend for MH lights? --Kurt >> If you can afford it, the PFO solaris lights look VERY nice. >> Also very expensive. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > --Kurt For lighting, it's not really the fixture manufacturer that is critical, but the bulb manufacturer (and to some extent, the ballast manufacturer) Lotta more experienced reefers (ie: not me!) don't even buy a full setup as one item - they get it all piecemeal - Buy the fixture, ballast, bulbs all seperate. Or maybe even one step further - buy a hood, reflector, light socket, ballast, and bulb all seperate. Been digging around trying to find some site that lists data on spectral output of different brands/models of bulbs, but to no avail. What one wants is stuff that puts out at the ends of the visible spectrum (ie: red/orange and blue/violet, and even slighly up into the UVA band, IIRC, and less so yellow - and of course green is largely reflected away) - these are the wavelengths that photsynthesies uses. (more or less - different organisms have different types of clorophyll that utilze different parts of the spectrum differently) Sorta flies in the face of common sense - we have a "yellow" sun, so one would assume plant life would like yellow best. But that ain't the case. One thing I am aware of, is that one can not go by the kelvin ratings alone to know what the actual spectral output of a bulb would be. These are "rough fit" type ratings. The "kelvin" ratings, if I am not mistaken, describe the spectral output of stars at certain temperatures. Man made light bulbs are most often NOT going to match these 100%. Light may look the same, but put it through a prism, and see waht the output is in different bands, and you are going to see differences. So, is that 20,000K blue white light mostly blue with some yellow and a touch of red? Or is it even more blue, with less yellow and a bit more of green and a bit more of of red? Overall color may look exactly the same, but there would be a big difference between the two for xooanthellae. I'm hardly an expert in this area - I have only owned 1 metal halide myself, and have only had that for 4 months! FWIW, it's a coralife double ended HQI 14K "hang on tank" I have no idea of the actual spectral output. So, in a nutshell, I can't give you an simple brand recommendation and keep a clear concience. > So, in a nutshell, I can't give you an simple brand recommendation and > keep a clear concience. Fair enough. I don't think I'm ready to assemble such a unit. I'll probably end up with a CoralLife myself. --Kurt >> So, in a nutshell, I can't give you an simple brand recommendation and >> keep a clear concience. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > --Kurt I'm happy enough with mine. Decent stuff. You can always contact the manufacture to get the spectrograph of the bulb. It's often on the manufactures web sites. Wayne Sallee Wayne's Pets Wayne@WaynesPets.com Add Homonym wrote on 12/22/2006 12:25 PM: >>> If you can afford it, the PFO solaris lights look VERY nice. >>> Also very expensive. [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > So, in a nutshell, I can't give you an simple brand recommendation and > keep a clear concience. > If you can afford it, the PFO solaris lights look VERY nice. At $3,539.00 for my tank, they *should* look very nice! George Patterson Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. I'm waiting to see the long term results of a reef tank lit with those lights. Wayne Sallee Wayne's Pets Wayne@WaynesPets.com Add Homonym wrote on 12/22/2006 10:51 AM: >>> coralife >>> Decent light at a decent price. [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > 24" vesrion runs something like $1300 or so. They make these in sizes > 14" all the way up to 72". That's 4x96=384/125gallons=3.07 watts per gallon. That's only enough light to grow low light stuff. It would be better to get around 6 or over in watts per gallon so that you can grow anything. Wayne Sallee Wayne's Pets Wayne@WaynesPets.com George Patterson wrote on 12/21/2006 5:26 PM: > I'm considering buying the Coralife HO fluorescent fixture for my tank. > The tank is a 125 gallon and is 23" deep. Here's a link to the fixture. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > George Patterson > Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. > That's 4x96=384/125gallons=3.07 watts per gallon. That's only enough > light to grow low light stuff. It would be better to get around 6 or > over in watts per gallon so that you can grow anything. I never understood the logic behind the straight "watts per gallon" rule of thumb. It's good for general ballpark, but not much else. Consider that 1watt of PC lighting has more lumens than 1 watt of standard flourescent. 1 watt of metal halide light has more lumens than 1 watt of PC lighting. And of course the lumens per watt vary greatly by bulb model and manufacturer as well. Watts by themselves don't give you the full story of how much light will be produced. It's true that it's not perfect, but it's the best rule of thumb around. Naturally you need to use quality lighting, and yes MH light rules :-) Lumens, however is a measurement of light intensity to the human eye. Because we see yellow the best, high pressure sodium lights have a very high lumens per watt, but are not what you want over your reef tank. So the best thing is to get good quality lighting that you can trust, and get your watts per gallon up to where they should be. Wayne Sallee Wayne's Pets Wayne@WaynesPets.com Add Homonym wrote on 12/22/2006 10:17 AM: >> That's 4x96=384/125gallons=3.07 watts per gallon. That's only enough >> light to grow low light stuff. It would be better to get around 6 or [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Watts by themselves don't give you the full story of how much light will > be produced. > It would be better to get around 6 or > over in watts per gallon so that you can grow anything. In that case, I'll have to put it off for the foreseeable future. That sort of lighting puts me into the $900 plus range. George Patterson Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. >> It would be better to get around 6 or over in watts per gallon so that >> you can grow anything. > > In that case, I'll have to put it off for the foreseeable future. That > sort of lighting puts me into the $900 plus range. Check ebay. Seems like some interesting pricing, but these are mostly 150 watt MH. > Check ebay. Seems like some interesting pricing, but these are mostly > 150 watt MH. I'll do that. I spent the morning going over what's available, and I'm leaning towards the Outer Orbit model 1044 or 1074. Coralife also has an 834 watt system for $899.99 mail order, but I didn't note down the model number. George Patterson Forgive your enemies. But always remember who they are. |
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