Metal Halide

reef-nut · Oct 23, 2007

Hello,
I been in salt for over 20 years and have never used any light stronger than compact. I have a 55 reef with mainly soft, rics and zoos, and a few hard corals. I would like to try halide. I like coralife the best. Which halide would I use, that I could hand from the ceiling that also has actinic with it. This is even if you recomend halide????????

Patwa · Oct 23, 2007

definitely recommend halides......you'll find most peeps will say 250W is the minimum wattage you need these days....BUT...i've always used 175W SE on my DT.....and i've got a mixed reef...lots of zoas, softies and a few SPS

T5 lighting is also a good choice for the corals you're stocking....very bright, runs cooler, bulbs last longer...but you don't get that shimmer effect..which, on it's own, has nothing to do with growth, colour - it just looks waaay cool!

Zach

killingseed2000 · Oct 23, 2007

switching form pc to a mix or 175w MH and t5 and i dont think i will ever go back to pc unless its a fish only. lots of DIY stuff out there for HM and t5's check out hellolights.com

reef-nut · Oct 24, 2007

Is T5 lighting brighter than pc??

Azurel · Oct 24, 2007

T-5 will blow away PC lighting, in fact next to metal halide T-5 is the brightest lighting you can get really and I have seen SPS tanks with T-5 only and they look just as good over all as those with MH. T-5 are more par per watt then VHO. I just upgraded to T-5 for my actinic lighting and couldn't believe that the 54w bulbs were brighter then my old 110w VHO. I even had some stuff show a little sign of bleaching and that was just from the actinic bulbs.....I don't think you could go wrong if you went with a T-5 set up or MH set up. Me personally I prefer MH and T-5 combo that I have right now......I got my T-5 set up from Hellolights.com and couldn't be happier with the quality and service.