Coral Lighting Help Needed

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Pazzoman

Piranha
MFK Member
Apr 5, 2009
3,005
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81
New York
Hey Everybody,

Well my aunt who has been in the hobby for a year now has been undergoing problems with lighting for her corals (mainly because the indefinte shape of her tank). She has been doing everything right, she is trying to mimic what other reef keepers have in thier systems.

First of all the tank is a 75 gallon corner tank from glasscages.com

-Height of the tank is 30 inches
-The biggest light possible can only be 36 inch by 12 inch
-She wants to avoid metal halides because thier is no room for a chiller...trust me thier isn't.
-She wants to basically upgrade to a final fixture...as she currently has 2 different fixtures that arent cutting it.
-She wants has numerous corals like mushrooms, birds nest, polyps, leather, cauliflower...and so on

Any ideas what fixture can properly give enough light penetration to cover the whole tank other then a metal halide?

..any other info anyone needs let me know I'll ask

Thanks A Million
 
make her a custom led light set up. you should find plenty of info on here
 
At 30 inches, you need 6-8 T5s to get good light penetration on the sand bed. LEDS would be a good choice as well, but pricey depending on what route you go.
 
I think the point Flake was making is a T5 fixture could do the job and the initial cost vs. LED's is MUCH less. The flip side of that is the maintenance cost of the LED's is next to nothing.
 
Ok thanks for the ideas...electric and diy doesn't work for us lol...personally she'd rather buy a model of a light fixture and feel better about the lighting situation.

Do you guys/gals know of any light fixtures that would work properly for this set up? By this I basically mean what's a good brand and if need be what kinds of bulbs.

Thanks A Million
 
AI Sol. Nuff said. Aquailluminations.com. In my opinion the best light out there. And at $400 a piece u really can't bear it. Each one lights a 2x2 area. And they can grow anything. I have one myself and it's quite a bit better than the t5s MH I had before.
 
I have an Aquaticlife T5HO fixture. My fixture is a 4 bulb combo and does a great job for my tank, but it's only 18 inches deep. For that tank you'd want the 36 inch fixture 6 bulb combo. Each bulb is 39 watts (3 10,000K, 3 Actinic) and there are 4 blue LED's for moon lights. There is a digital timer so you can set each type of light for a different time if you want and only one power cord. A 6x39w fixture is going to be what you want for that tank. Anything bigger and it probably won't fit. The dimensions of this particular fixture is 36 inches x 13.75... If you can't make that work, you probably will be looking at LED's IMO.
 
a couple these should work tho

-http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+13822+16770&pcatid=16770

-http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+9654+21440&pcatid=21440

-http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+10704+23687&pcatid=23687
 
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