Lighting for 200gal tank

[octofasciatus]

How many lumens are needed for succesful plant growth in a 6ft long 200 gal tank?

What is best way to achieve this?

Am thinking of going for LED - any advice on this?

 

[FLESHY]

I will assume that the cost of an LED system for a tank that big will be about $4000...probably more. You are most likely going to want to go with metal halides.

Lighting really depends on a couple of different things. The big ones are:

How deep is your tank?

What do you want to grow?

How much are you fertilizing, and do you have co2.

A tank this big unless you are going very low budget is going to need a pressurized co2 system in my opinion...and maybe...2x 400w MH @ 10k.
I would suggest you go to www.theplantedtank.net to talk to people who have experience planting tanks this large if no one else speaks up on here. Sorry...my planted experience is limited to my small tanks at home. Good luck, post pictures when you get this best up.

 

[jcardona1]

this will be very helpful. forget about watts per gallon, this is the most accurate way of determining your light needs

http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=331913&highlight=par+meter

 

[FLESHY]

Good for a pure light aspect...but doesnt take photoperiod, ferts, or co2 into the picture. Which are all things you need to consider when lighting a planted tank.

 

[jcardona1]

yeah, but thats why its broken out into low, medium, and high light categories. if you want to grow demanding plants, then you know you need to be in the high light category with lots of co2 and a full blown fert routine.

first step is to decide what type of setup you want and what type of plants you want to grow. then you add the amount of lighting that will suit your needs

 

[octofasciatus]

Looks like it will cost a bit for a good LED setup but I really fell in love with the storm feature where you can recreate lightening etc. So will probablly settle for MH setup. ho-hum.

 

[JDS]

How many lumens are needed for succesful plant growth in a 6ft long 200 gal tank?

What is best way to achieve this?

Am thinking of going for LED - any advice on this?

I will be trying 3 of the 36w par38 bulb on my 210.http://www.ledliquidatorsinc.com/PAR_38_12_LED_Cree_light_bulb.php

 

[MyGiants]

If this was my tank I would go for 4 or 6 T5HO across the length of the tank. I may go with 36" double fixtures end to end. So that be four 36" double T5HO fixtures. I wouldn't get a single 4 bulb fixture I get doubles so you can spread the bulbs wider apart. I would run 6500 or 6700K mixed with couple 3000K.

 

[octofasciatus]

I ended up with twin 150w metal halides suplemented with 2 twin 58w T5HO - man that's a lot of plug sockets needed.

 

[FLESHY]

Post some pictures! I would love to see this, especially the spread you get from the 150's. What kind of light did you use? Bulbs...fixtures...reflectors...ballasts..ect!