Brand New 8 gallon bio cube
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JoshH
Tank Status: Wet...ish, growing things....
Lighting and a return pump are the only two things I have yet to decide upon for my build and they are kindof important ones. I keep bouncing back and forth between a set of 4 Orphek LED bars, T5 or a mix of MH and two LED bars. I need to just order something and stick with it.
sfin52
So many pedestrians so little time
Led t5 mix. Less heat. The lighting of a mh is suburb. Now got to get back into crawl for rats and possible possum.
Fin
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We have talked about old school lighting before and I do agree - as a saltwater dinosaur. I had the best luck with 250watt MH mogul base bulbs and VHO fluorescents. You can actually still find the VHO bulbs out there. That is what my LFS turned me onto when I made the jump from FO to reefing around 1990. But like all reefers, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. Had to change things up.
Fin
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A larger diameter florescent bulb. Not quite as powerful as the T5s. They also had a built in “reflector” covering half of the length of the bulb. The actinics were nice. I think Champion lighting still handles them. They ran off of the old IceCap 660 ballasts.
Fin
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dantimdad
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Technically speaking, you can overdrive NO (normal output) fluorescents to near VHO power.
They won't last as long but the actinics have stunning color when you OD them.
Plus, if you replace them every 6 mos. in the old days it was still cheaper than VHO.
I actually did a write up a long time ago on the other forum about how to do it.
They won't last as long but the actinics have stunning color when you OD them.
Plus, if you replace them every 6 mos. in the old days it was still cheaper than VHO.
I actually did a write up a long time ago on the other forum about how to do it.
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Katrina71
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You are a very bad influence.Technically speaking, you can overdrive NO (normal output) fluorescents to near VHO power.
They won't last as long but the actinics have stunning color when you OD them.
Plus, if you replace them every 6 mos. in the old days it was still cheaper than VHO.
I actually did a write up a long time ago on the other forum about how to do it.
U
User1
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SVHO actinics (ice cap ballast) was my goto mixed in with 2x175 W MH. The only thing I didn't like was replacing the bulbs. Probably why I switched over to LED's years ago. The SVHO/MH combo probably made my 100 gallon look more natural back then.
dantimdad
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I agree. The most natural looking tanks to me were actinic/MH combos. However, a VERY close second is T5/LED with the blue being handled by the T5 and the LED more of a daylight setting.
