125g Lighting

[kingfisherfleshy]

Hey guys just picked up a 125g (six foot variety)...and it only came with one 150w MH. I am looking to upgrade to two, 250w metal halide pendants. Will this be enough for my hard corals that are growing in my 75g under two 150w MH's? I have acros, and would be getting more stuff like that...but generally speaking its a mixed reef, and will continue to be. Thanks

 

[hwntunda]

i have a 150 and im running 3 250w & actinics with good growth and color... 2 could probablly work.

 

[kingfisherfleshy]

Common. I know there are a ton of people who have 125's...and Im going to assume that most of you have lights. Tell me what you got?

Thanks tunda...we will see. The tank has one cross bar as opposed to the "normal" two...so it makes it a little hard to get a 125 standard lighting setup. So...now I just need to know what pendants to go for. Unfortunately the pendants Im looking at dont come with pc or ho bulbs...so it would just be running on 10k 250w ushios most likely when it was fully set up.

 

[hwntunda]

ya i understand, i actually have a "plastic welder" i bought from snap-on and ended up welding in two new braces from a friends shattered tank like a 220 and then cut out the center brace... worked out great!

 

[luke33]

I've had three diff lighting setups that worked great on my 125g. I ran a 6x60" t5 setup, 3 250w mh's and three led pendents. All work well and will grow anything you want. If i were to do all mh again i'd pry get a 3x250w setup with m80 ballasts using lumen max elite pendent's. The lumenbrights are nice pendents as well.

 

[Airplanes]

You could for sure get away with just two, I just help set one of these up and it looked great, three is nice to if you have the funds, you can find some great buys

 

[kingfisherfleshy]

ya i understand, i actually have a "plastic welder" i bought from snap-on and ended up welding in two new braces from a friends shattered tank like a 220 and then cut out the center brace... worked out great!

This would work...but I got the system as a "running" system. (Corals, rock sand...whatever) So Its not really an option to remove the brace...unless I welded the two other ones first I guess...still seems a little sketch to me. Not so sure the fam would agree on gambling with 125g of water in the basement.

I really want to keep the success I was having before with the 2x 150w HQI MH that I had on my 75...So is t5 the way to go now? Im going to miss my shimmer lines. :squigglemouth:

 

[kingfisherfleshy]

Alright guys...still have this tank floating around as a "running" system. The idea now is to make it into a softy/macro algae tank.

I want to grow macros as fast as possible, BUT...what is the lowest lighting you think I could get away with. Thanks