Growing Coral With PCs ??

[KING]

I got a stellar deal on a 6' PC light off of a fellow that is 6 x 96w bulbs, says he used to keep a reef with it. I was wondering even though the high wattage how efficient PC lights actually are? I am familiar with the capabilities of T5 at what wattage, blah blah, but ive never really messed with PCs. I know alot of you grow with T5s, if you have used PCs, how does it compare? Ive got like 8 bulbs for this thing. I think its 4 10k whites, 2 420/10k, and 2 460s. Has a ballast for every bulb and some really shiny reflectors, fans in both ends, seems nice. Needs a couple 460 LED strips in it though :nerd:
I have a 75g frag tank now and have a new spare 125/stand just sitting in the basement begging to be used, figured if this light would grow some stuff i might slowly move into the 125 with the PC. I wonder if i ran 2 whites, 2 purp/white, and 2 blue if it would be enough to grow sps? 576w total. I still havent bit the bullet and bought a PAR meter yet, that would def let me know..

 

[chort55]

i have kept sps alive under pc... didnt grow much but if you keep it in the top 1/4 of the tank it should atleast stay alive w/ good water quality. But I would stick to lower light stuff, z/ps, softies, lower light lps, maybe even some chalices (atleast the ones that dont like light) but hard to say.

 

[Young Frankenstein]

PC's are just fine, but you will need to supplement some MH

 

[KING]

i didnt figure they would put out enough to grow much hard stuff. i know they would be perfect for about anything else. ive got another 6ft light but its in use. 3 x 250w 20k mh with independent ballasts, 4 x T5s, 4 x 36" 460 Led strips

 

[Pumbooris]

i have 4 65w pc's over my 55 amd i have a little bit of everything it, the sps doesnt get very good color but im not sure if that has to do with the color of the bulbs or not(all 4 are 10k/actinic cheapo C.A. bulbs) my lava chalice loves them alot, i started out with a peice the size of a quarter last July and now its over 9 inchs across and has been on the sand bed since day one

 

[Steelerfan747]

Ive used them before but don't find them worth it. If you must use them I would just do it as supplemental light but certainly not as main lighting

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

Ive used them before but don't find them worth it. If you must use them I would just do it as supplemental light but certainly not as main lighting

I totally agree with this statement. I would incorporate more LED's and reduce the amount of PC's.

 

[KING]

honestly i got the light with all 6 bulbs for $100, i figured it would be T5 equivalent or a little less but like i said ive never really used PC before and it is pretty high wattage. figured it might work for a mixed frag tank. obviously some of the really high light demanding corals wouldnt grow but alot of stuff would. i am in the midst of swapping over to LED for alot of my tanks (i have 20 total lol) but theres still no supplement for MH to grow with..

 

[707 Reefer]

yes, supplemental light only, but if you're just growing softies then no problems using pc

 

[KING]

wow they suck that much? haha..... i might just leave 2 460s in there as day bulbs bc they are actually nice and bright, then just put 460 leds in the other slots in place of the pc bulbs and just use it for fowlr.. i have 4 125s so i will end up using it eventually lol..

 

[Tabasco1]

I have pc's. I am planning to upgrade. But I don't find them to be horrible. I am getting pretty good growth on z&ps, acans (3 to 8 heads in about 5 months is about avg), blastos, echinata. I have a couple montis that are growing but not like weeds. I also have chalice, but haven't had that long enough to comment on growth. I have pretty good color on everything. Which is what is more important to me than growth.

There are better options out there, but if that is what you have, you can grow stuff.

 

[Pumbooris]

i would also say that a good rule of thumb would be to replace bulbs every 6 to maybe 9 months

 

[kingfisherfleshy]

Beating a dead horse here, but I grew stuff with PC way back when I started. I even had some sps...but dont think of anything past montipora and stuff like that. Growth rates were not great either. Great light for softies, macros, and probably even LPS.

 

[Pappy]

I grew tons of softies and lps np with pcs. Never did sps other than montis but they did well also. I was running 4 65watt on 40 gallon. Hope this helps.


Mike D "like the beastie boys" Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk