Lighting for Larger scale Frag tank

sloogan · Apr 9, 2020

Hello, i plan on setting up two 115 Gal. Botanicare Reservoir plumbed into a 100/200 Gal Rubbermaid Stock tank. With that being said i have mostly everything figured out and am kinda stumped on lighting. I want the most cost effective, even spread, and good par to $ ratio. Like with most things I'm trying to save some money it'll be much easier to convince the wife. I was personally thinking some used Radion G4's and just purchase them over time as i plan to stock the frag tanks over time anyways. Or would something like a cheap "300W" black box be much more cost effective. Thank you!

Hemmdog · Apr 9, 2020

Metal halides 100%. Most bang for your buck and coral will grow super fast for resale

sloogan · Apr 9, 2020

Hemmdog said:
Metal halides 100%. Most bang for your buck and coral will grow super fast for resale

Any suggestions my friend

Hemmdog · Apr 9, 2020

sloogan said:
Any suggestions my friend

I’m not the best resource for that. @jda is a MH expert though!

jda · Apr 9, 2020

I would use 3x 400w MH in larger reflectors like the 20" Hamiltons or Lumenbrite Large. These will be hard to find used, but you might be able to. These can cover 36x36 with lower light on the outsides for acclimation, softies and lower light things - you will be a super bright center section for high light clams or acropora. You can likely easily find used ballasts for cheap - search hydroponics and aquarium. Look at 14k bulbs like the Hamilton which mix great color and growth. With that kind of surface area, a fan across the top will keep everything plenty cool - a real fan like a Box Fan or Vornado, not a computer fan. If you are smart, you will concentrate what you have in the tank and use as few lights as possible - sometimes, I can fit all of my frags under a single light and let the others take a rest... other times, not so much.

With the tank being so large, you can keep a bit of room for some places with some RB LEDs if you need to take some photos of corals under them... the Halides will not need any help growing or coloring the coral.

It would take probably 8x Radions to do this same thing and cover 83x36 as well. This area is not easy to cover without multiple rows of LEDs, multiple 10 bulb T5s or large MH reflectors. 8x of the Chinese Black boxes would cover it OK too, but if you really want LED help, that is not me...

EMeyer · Apr 9, 2020

For anything but Acros I would (and do, on my frag tanks) go with black boxes. I dont see needing more than 4-6 of them for this setup.

For Acros, MH is hard to beat on either price or quality.

One thing I can't imagine doing for a frag tank is spending thousands on fancy sunrise simulators

sloogan · Apr 9, 2020

jda said:
I would use 3x 400w MH in larger reflectors like the 20" Hamiltons or Lumenbrite Large. These will be hard to find used, but you might be able to. These can cover 36x36 with lower light on the outsides for acclimation, softies and lower light things - you will be a super bright center section for high light clams or acropora. You can likely easily find used ballasts for cheap - search hydroponics and aquarium. Look at 14k bulbs like the Hamilton which mix great color and growth. With that kind of surface area, a fan across the top will keep everything plenty cool - a real fan like a Box Fan or Vornado, not a computer fan. If you are smart, you will concentrate what you have in the tank and use as few lights as possible - sometimes, I can fit all of my frags under a single light and let the others take a rest... other times, not so much.

With the tank being so large, you can keep a bit of room for some places with some RB LEDs if you need to take some photos of corals under them... the Halides will not need any help growing or coloring the coral.

It would take probably 8x Radions to do this same thing and cover 83x36 as well. This area is not easy to cover without multiple rows of LEDs, multiple 10 bulb T5s or large MH reflectors. 8x of the Chinese Black boxes would cover it OK too, but if you really want LED help, that is not me...

How effective would one 400W on one of These? I feel this would completely eliminate the possibility of hotspots that may develop. I could get 2 of these and mount them parallel but i would be very worried about overlapping light spread.

jda · Apr 9, 2020

Movers can be OK, but you need a lot of wattage and you need to run them for longer, like 12 hours. I used one once over a 16' tank that I helped maintain - we had 250w halides along the whole distance and used a 1000w on a light mover to help punch down deeper.

A lot of this will depend on what you are going to farm. If just acropora, then I would sick with static MH... or use 1000w on a mover. If a mixed bag, then a 400w mover would probably be fine. Again, you don't need to light the whole thing unless you have it filled with frags... you will get good at keeping the stuff bunched up to light as little area as possible.

There can be benefits to movers like a single bulb to change and less fixtures to buy. You also get less shadowing than you would with LED, but MH does not really shadow that much anyway.