First DUMB question: reef light

[RandyS]

Ok how the heck did you guys figure out what light you wanted to use for your tanks? we just boust a 60g tank that is sitting in the floor but how do i know what light to buy for it?? MH, LED, watts, color...????:cry: I would like to have both fish and a little bit of colorful coral in this tank but no idea where to start. can someone give me an idea of which way i need to start looking for a light and size?
Thanks
Randy

 

[redfishbluefish]

I've had them all and without a doubt I'd go LED. Save on bulb cost and electricity. You still get some shimmer and virtually no heat. I'd begin by looking at Reefbreeders. They are cost effective and controllable with their own controllers.


As far as color, I personally like a blue tank...so 15K to 20K for me.

 

[Mike J.]

I understand your frustration, you could research lights full-time for 6 months. A lot of it has to do with your budget. If you ask people for their personal opinions you will get as many answers as people.

My first advice would be to go to the sponsors section here on Reef2Reef and click on a few of them to see what's in your price range, your needs, and the size.

 

[robbrouse]

And to top it off some of us bought the wrong lights and have to start the process over again.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Randy, it's not a doub question at all. If you don't know and don't ask, that's the dumb part.
MikeJ (above reply) has it right, you need to figure out what you want before you start looking at makes and models. Take your time and look around at what other people have done. Find your local club (if there is one) and get involved, it can be a HUGE source of help.

OK, here are the basic questions I would ask:

1) What's your budget?
We don't need a number unless you want to share. You could get a used t5 4 bulb fluorescent for $75 to a top end led/t5 combo for $1500+. BTW, they will both do the job of lighting the tank and growing most corals.

2) What do you want, t5 fluorescent, MH, led or a combo?
You need to look at the alternatives, all 3 have very different advantages and disadvantages, but all 3 can do the job for you.

3) You want some colorful coral... knowing the type of corals you want may help. Do you want zoas, softies, lps, sps a mix?
Zoas and softies need less light, lps a bit more and sps the most. They have other different requirements than just light. Zoas and softies don't need a lot of flow, lps like more and sps like quite a bit. It can be difficult to keep them all in one tank. It can be done, but it takes some extra effort and knowledge/experience.

4) Will the lights be hanging over your tank exposed or in a canopy?
If they are exposed, looks and numbers of fixtures and how they will be hung makes a bigger difference than if they are out of sight in a canopy. Hanging from a 'rack', the wall or the ceiling all change the look of your system.

5) Do you want sunrise and sunset effects? Is just on/off and maybe blue to white enough for you, or do you want complete control?
Some people are fine with on/off, and the corals and fish really don't seem to mind. Some use different bulbs and turn on blues for awhile and then turn on whites to create a bit of a sunrise and sunset look. Again, the corals and fish really don't seem to care, it's more for you than the tank. And then some people have leds that do an 8 hour sunrise, an hour of midday and an 8 hour sunset. It starts off blue and gets more and more white as it gets brighter and then just the reverse for the sunset. This is really all about you (BTW, I happen to love watching the tank change all day long, but it's about me not the corals).

6) Is heat an issue in your tank or your house?
Heat in the water (and your house) can be an issue. The t5's run warm. They may heat the water a bit and don't do much to the house. MH run HOT. Some need chillers to keep their water temperatures under control, but some get by with fans and evaporation for cooling. They also add heat to your house. That may be OK in the winter (especially up north) but they can make your A/C work harder in the summer (especially down south). I have 4 tanks and live in SW Florida, MH added a lot to my A/C use.

7) Is cost of use an issue, use of electricity and replacement bulbs?
Fluorescent bulbs are fairly efficient, MH use quite a bit of power and leds are fairly low consumers of power. The t5 bulbs aren't cheap. Four foot bulbs run from $12-$25 each and should be changed every 6 months (absolute minimum) to every 18 months (absolute max) due to loss of intensity and color shift that may have unwanted affects in the tank. MH bulbs can cost $30 to $80 and the cheaper ones tend to be just that, cheap. They need to be replaced every 12 months (minimum) to every 24 months (maximum) as they lose intensity. Spectrum shift is much less an issue with MH. The leds almost never need replacement. They lose about 1%-2% of intensity per year. At 10 years you are probably looking at a new fixture. But the reality is, leds are newer and are evolving much more than t5 or MH. So very few people in the hobby are still using an led fixture they bought 3 or 4 years ago. The light from today's leds can grow anything. At the minimum you'll want a mix of 420nm-460nm blues and some whites in a ratio of 2:1 blue to white. There are lots of other colors that can be added and different ratios of blue to white available, but the minimum stated here will do the job.

I've used t5, MH and leds over the years and they all work, so don't fret about which one to use. But get enough light for what you want to do with the tank. I have 4 tanks and a year ago I switched from 3 tanks of MH and 1 with t5 to doing all 4 tanks with leds. I have 6 fixtures, 3 different models, 2 different brands spread over the 4 tanks. I paid just under $1400 for all 6 put together. At 1 year in my electric bill has gone down about $350-$400/year (less electricity to the lights, the 2 chillers and the house A/C) and I save about $200 in MH bulb cost (I replaced 6 bulbs every 18 months) and $200 in t5 bulbs (10 bulbs every year). So my leds will pay for themselves in about 2 years. I love them and my corals are growing just as well now as they were before I switched. But with 4 tanks, I'm a bit outside the norm.:wink:

 

[glb]

There is no dumb question! You're asking a very good one and getting some great advice! Good luck!

 

[goodtimes]

Ron gave you a great starting point. I was swaying between t5 and led. I went t5 because that's what I could afford at the the time. Later on I plan to diy some leds into my t5 fixture. Our tank is in the dining room adjacent to our kitchen. My wife insisted it look speak and clean so a stainless ati fixture fit in perfectly.
There's plenty to research on here.

 

[Mike J.]

Randy, it's not a doub question at all. If you don't know and don't ask, that's the dumb part.
MikeJ (above reply) has it right, you need to figure out what you want before you start looking at makes and models. Take your time and look around at what other people have done. Find your local club (if there is one) and get involved, it can be a HUGE source of help.

OK, here are the basic questions I would ask:

1) What's your budget?
We don't need a number unless you want to share. You could get a used t5 4 bulb fluorescent for $75 to a top end led/t5 combo for $1500+. BTW, they will both do the job of lighting the tank and growing most corals.

2) What do you want, t5 fluorescent, MH, led or a combo?
You need to look at the alternatives, all 3 have very different advantages and disadvantages, but all 3 can do the job for you.

3) You want some colorful coral... knowing the type of corals you want may help. Do you want zoas, softies, lps, sps a mix?
Zoas and softies need less light, lps a bit more and sps the most. They have other different requirements than just light. Zoas and softies don't need a lot of flow, lps like more and sps like quite a bit. It can be difficult to keep them all in one tank. It can be done, but it takes some extra effort and knowledge/experience.

4) Will the lights be hanging over your tank exposed or in a canopy?
If they are exposed, looks and numbers of fixtures and how they will be hung makes a bigger difference than if they are out of sight in a canopy. Hanging from a 'rack', the wall or the ceiling all change the look of your system.

5) Do you want sunrise and sunset effects? Is just on/off and maybe blue to white enough for you, or do you want complete control?
Some people are fine with on/off, and the corals and fish really don't seem to mind. Some use different bulbs and turn on blues for awhile and then turn on whites to create a bit of a sunrise and sunset look. Again, the corals and fish really don't seem to care, it's more for you than the tank. And then some people have leds that do an 8 hour sunrise, an hour of midday and an 8 hour sunset. It starts off blue and gets more and more white as it gets brighter and then just the reverse for the sunset. This is really all about you (BTW, I happen to love watching the tank change all day long, but it's about me not the corals).

6) Is heat an issue in your tank or your house?
Heat in the water (and your house) can be an issue. The t5's run warm. They may heat the water a bit and don't do much to the house. MH run HOT. Some need chillers to keep their water temperatures under control, but some get by with fans and evaporation for cooling. They also add heat to your house. That may be OK in the winter (especially up north) but they can make your A/C work harder in the summer (especially down south). I have 4 tanks and live in SW Florida, MH added a lot to my A/C use.

7) Is cost of use an issue, use of electricity and replacement bulbs?
Fluorescent bulbs are fairly efficient, MH use quite a bit of power and leds are fairly low consumers of power. The t5 bulbs aren't cheap. Four foot bulbs run from $12-$25 each and should be changed every 6 months (absolute minimum) to every 18 months (absolute max) due to loss of intensity and color shift that may have unwanted affects in the tank. MH bulbs can cost $30 to $80 and the cheaper ones tend to be just that, cheap. They need to be replaced every 12 months (minimum) to every 24 months (maximum) as they lose intensity. Spectrum shift is much less an issue with MH. The leds almost never need replacement. They lose about 1%-2% of intensity per year. At 10 years you are probably looking at a new fixture. But the reality is, leds are newer and are evolving much more than t5 or MH. So very few people in the hobby are still using an led fixture they bought 3 or 4 years ago. The light from today's leds can grow anything. At the minimum you'll want a mix of 420nm-460nm blues and some whites in a ratio of 2:1 blue to white. There are lots of other colors that can be added and different ratios of blue to white available, but the minimum stated here will do the job.

I've used t5, MH and leds over the years and they all work, so don't fret about which one to use. But get enough light for what you want to do with the tank. I have 4 tanks and a year ago I switched from 3 tanks of MH and 1 with t5 to doing all 4 tanks with leds. I have 6 fixtures, 3 different models, 2 different brands spread over the 4 tanks. I paid just under $1400 for all 6 put together. At 1 year in my electric bill has gone down about $350-$400/year (less electricity to the lights, the 2 chillers and the house A/C) and I save about $200 in MH bulb cost (I replaced 6 bulbs every 18 months) and $200 in t5 bulbs (10 bulbs every year). So my leds will pay for themselves in about 2 years. I love them and my corals are growing just as well now as they were before I switched. But with 4 tanks, I'm a bit outside the norm.:wink:

Very good answer to the question!

 

[aslmx]

You are lucky that their are good lights now for really cheap prices. Led all the way.

 

[TJ's Reef]

I to, second the great response from Ron ^above^ and after 30+ years of Reefkeeping using everything but Plasma have happily settled on running LED's. I would look into our sponsor here Reef Radiance, quite impressive lights for the $'s.

Cheers, Todd

 

[RandyS]

Thanks guys.. Great answers I'm the one that always goes to of the line the wife is always budget minded(thank goodness) so we kinda meet in the middle.
The tank we bought came with fluorescent is that ok for now to start the cycle for fish & live rock?

 

[Mike J.]

Yes, it's actually better to not have a lot of light while cycling.

 

[goodtimes]

You can buy top of the line used equipment for a good price.

 

[RandyS]

Perfect so now I can ask my second (or 3rd)..lol Sand what's the general consensus for beginner sand? Is this a new thread guys?

 

[RandyS]

Or do I just change the name of this thread?

 

[goodtimes]

Perfect so now I can ask my second (or 3rd)..lol Sand what's the general consensus for beginner sand? Is this a new thread guys?

Carib Sea Seaflor Special Grade Reef Sand is my favorite.

 

[Ron Reefman]

I only have 2 citeria for sand. Don't get the really coarse broken shell/gravel kind of stuff. It hold detritus and it gives critter that like real sand fits because it's too coarse and heavy. And if you are going to have much flow in the tank, don't get the sugar fine sand as it can be an issue blowing around.

You should come to our local club website and read Saltwater Aquarium 101. It's starts with basics and ends up covering most everything. Here is an excerpt from chapter 8:

Now, just because I’m not going to walk you through the build process, doesn’t mean I don’t have a few tips and pointers to offer:

1. Try to have an ‘emergency’ drain line from the DT to the sump that isn’t used unless the main drain line gets blocked up by something which will raise the water level in your tank (and behind the weir or overflow). The unused drain should sit just above the water level under ‘normal’ situations and then run when the water level goes up.

2. Use unions or union valves if you are doing PVC pipe for plumbing. Unions allow you to remove sections of plumbing or pieces of equipment to clean, do maintenance or repair/replace broken items. Pumps especially should be removable as they will inevitably need cleaning.

3. Consider gate valves instead of ball valves in areas where the control of flow is important. Gate valves have much finer adjustment ability than ball valves and are less likely to get ‘sticky’ as they age and ‘stuff’ starts to stick to or grow on the moving parts. They do the same thing on gate valves, but the gearing in a gate valve gives you much more force to break free and continue to work.

4. If you are doing flexible hoses, don’t use clear hose. If light can get at it, algae or slimy bacteria will grow in it.

5. If you are going to run a ‘manifold’ off your return pump, leave room for future expansion of the system.

6. Think about water movement when you are planning and building your plumbing. Every 45 or 90 degree bend and every splice, valve and union will reduce the flow thru that pipe because they create turbulence.

7. Also remember to take ‘head pressure’ into account. The water in the pipe that goes from your pump (down low) to the outflow (up high) has weight. And your pump has to constantly be pushing water up against that weight. That is way a pump that can flow water at 1000gph will only be able to flow something like 6-700gph with a 5 or 6 foot head (as most tanks have).

8. CL (Closed Loop) systems will have very little to no head pressure. This is because the water pushing down into the pump is the same as the water in the return and they balance. If you turn off a CL pump, water should stay in almost all of the pipes. Try that with your sump pump, which is an open system rather than a closed loop, and all the water in all the pipes will flow down into the sump, which is why you want some extra space in the sump for just such an issue. Sump pumps go off for a variety of reasons, like when you do water changes, or a circuit breaker trips, or a power outage in a storm.

9. Don’t use ‘back flow preventers’ or ‘check valves’ in your aquarium plumbing. These units have parts that need to mate up well in order to stop the reverse flow back down to the sump. However, over just a few months, ‘stuff’ will start to grow inside the check valve and the flap that is supposed to close tight to prevent backflow, won’t be able to as tiny animal skeletons and shells will get in the way and let water get past. If you use one, make it very accessible and soak it in vinegar for an hour or two every couple of months. The more mature your system is, the more frequently you will need to clean it. That’s why almost nobody with a marine aquarium use them!

10. If you don’t know about anti-siphon holes in your return lines from the sump to the tank, take the time to learn. They will keep most of your water in your tank when the power goes off and the pump quits pumping. Without these holes you may (read as: probably will) siphon a lot more water from your DT into your sump thru the return line from the sump pump. Water will backflow and suck as much water as it can out of the DT until air leaks into the line and breaks the siphon. Here’s a good source for info:http://reefkeeping.c...ewbie/index.php

11. While on the subject of anti-siphon holes, here is how I deal with them. I drill the hole in the pipe pretty close to the water surface (dah). Be careful there on the pipe you drill. Remember, when water is being pumped out thru these pipes by the sump pump, you will be pushing water out the anti siphon holes as well. If you drikk the hole in the top of the pipe, you could end up spraying water straight up into the air out of the water! I drill my holes so the water will flow out of the hole parallel to the water surface. I drill the hole big enough so that I can take a small John Guest 90 elbow with threaded ends and ‘thread’ one end into the hole in the pipe. Now I can swivel the elbow up or down and direct the flow out the anti-siphon hole more or less where I want it. I tend to aim it up as much as I dare so the water flowing out is disturbing the water surface in the tank. By making any kind of waves, or disturbing the smooth water surface, you greatly increase the exchange of gases between the water and the air. That is, CO2 and nitrogen are released from the water into the air and oxygen is taken in by the water from the air. This is then most important place for your water to become oxygenated (even more than your skimmer blasting all those bubbles into the water passing thru the skimmer chamber).

12. Test your system out with no sand or LR and use freshwater not saltwater. If it has a problem the water is cleaner (on the floor) and when you are done with it you can use it to water your garden by the bucket full. Besides, saltwater costs more and if you have to drain the system to fix something, where are you going to put it all?

13. When you are ready to fill it with saltwater, do it in this order. Add your sand, set your base or bottom LR in place. Put a dinner plate on the sand and add your water onto the plate so it doesn’t stir up the sediment in the sand any more than necessary. When the water has covered the rocks you already have in place, add the rest of your rocks or LR and fill the tank. The sediment stirred up from your sand will settle in a day or so. You can speed up the process by running the water from your DT into the sump thru a filter of some kind. Many reefers use filter socks as a regular part of their system.

14. I recommend you have about 2-3†of sand in the DT. This allows for a wide variety of critters to make your aquarium their home. In order to increase the amount of ‘open sand’ in the bottom of my tank, I made a couple of platforms with egg crate and PVC pipe. The pipe is cut in lengths so they will stick up out of the sand and the egg crate is attached to the pipe by drilling a small hole at one end of the pipe and putting a small cable tie thru the hole and thru the egg crate. Now, base rock and LR can be placed on the egg crate and it doesn’t sit in the sand. Some people like this because it also keeps the rocks off the bottom glass as well, personally I’m not at all concerned about the rocks sitting on the bottom glass. Now along the edge of the egg crate I took smaller rocks and put them on the sand to hide the edge of the egg crate. I also used some flat rocks to sit on the egg crate and hang out over the edge which does an OK job of hiding the egg crate, but more importantly, it creates caves thru the edge of the rock wall that lead to the space under the egg crate. Many critters are big fans of the light and will spend the day hiding in the rocks and caves until the lights go out.

15. Try to use flexible hose from the output of your pump as this can dampen vibrations and noise that can be transmitted from the pump thru the plumbing.

16. I recommend the bulkheads you use thru the glass of the tank behind the overflow wall or weir, be threaded on the underside and slip on the inside. That way plumbing can be unthreaded from the bulkhead if you ever decide to change it, rather than cutting the PVC and having to glue in a splice. By using a slip pipe fitting inside the tank you can just push fit the inside pipes as they don’t need to be glued and leak proof. And when (not if) some critter gets over the weir and into the overflow, you can just pull out the pipes and get a net into the overflow to catch whatever has tried to escape. Trying to net a fish in an overflow with 2 or 3 pipes in the way makes it nearly impossible.

17. If you DT is acrylic or glass with no plastic rim at the base, then you should put some kind of foam cushion between the tank and the stand to absorb any small imperfections in the stand from putting stress on the tank after it is filled with water at 8 pounds per gallon! Glass tanks with plastic rims at the base don’t need a cushion as they were designed to sit on the rim with the glass held above the stand by a fraction of an inch.

 

[dib]

I'm going to chime in here. Lots of great info, thanks.
About the lighting, I'm in kinda the same boat....hmmm what do I get? My tank has a 2bulb t5 fixture. Tank size: 56 column, 30wX24hX18 I've been checking out LEDs. Also just checked out reef radiance site. I think I found what I want. Their DM 132e good price.
My question now is, would one of these lights be enough for my size tank. The light fixture size is 13.78"x8.43" also would that make my light strong enough for SPS and LPS corals
Any other input would be appreciated.

 

[dib]

Oops just realized I was on the link posted from an LEDs post

 

[RandyS]

Thanks guys looks like I'll I'm headed to to my LFS for live sand & rock. Hope they have enough. If they have to order more for me how long will my other last(survive)? Want to have everything here before I start .