Lighting help

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
L

latshki

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 1, 2007
1,113
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prince edward island, canada
I saw a good deal on craiglist for a 110 drilled and 120lbs of very nice LR and am thinking i may pick it up and setup another salty tank

now I have a question about lighting
would I be able to light this with two 150w MH pendants or do I need to use a combo of T5 and MH
or should I go with a 4 bulb T5 HO light

I plant on getting softies, zoas, and an anemone for some clowns

one more thing, will 50 snails and 10 hermits be enough of a clean up crew for a 110? snails would be a mix of astrea, cerith, nassarius, and nerite

thanks a ton!
 
2 X 150 halides will certainly light the tank , and likely be enough for softies, but I really think you will regret not having the actinic supplementation. It will also be too little light for coral growth, as it wont evenly light the entire length of the tank. I would suggest you look at a 6 tube T5 fixture. Especially, if you plan on keeping LPS or SPS which need more light, you will need more light.

I would suggest you stay away from hermits. They are worthless, in my opinion. While they do perform a beneficial job, they end up killing all snails 1 by 1. A mix of snails is good, but nerite snails crawl out of the tank and onto the floor. I had a huge flood from a couple of nerites that crawled out of the tank and found their way into my overflow / drain pipe.
 
thanks a ton
I want to keep it as low cost as I can and plan on ordering from fishneedit
do you think their MH T5 combo be good, it's two 150w MH and four T5's
or what about two 250w pendants?

and thanks about the snails
are there any other clean up crew members that are good other than snails like stars or urchins?

again thanks
 
Stars and urchins are bad I would say.

Snails, dwarf (blue leg) hermits are what I use. Specifically astrea snails.

I would do the 2x 250w. You are going to want the penetration. If you could supplement two 150w'ers with some VHO, it might be different, but T5 dont do much in my mind.
 
sweet thanks
how long does it take for base rock to be seeded as I found a good deal on nice dry rock that is cut, Im thinking of copying heath's design

thanks
 
Depends on what else you have in your tank to seed it with, and how well those things are established. Its all a waiting game it seems in SW.

Slow fish growth rates, slow coral growth, slow LR seeding growth.

It shouldnt be too bad if you have LR in your tank somewhere with some stuff on it.
 
Only thing you have to be wary about with CL rock is that yo dont know what is in it...plus they could have medicated their tank etc...just be careful if it is "used"
 
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