Need a little metal halide advice

[Johniejumbo]

I got a 40 breeder used. It came with 2 150watt hqi de 14k retrofit lights. Is this too much light for some corals? I keep some lps and I have a chalice and some hairy mushroom corals. I was just running one of the lights about 10” off the surface centered over the tank with a 24” orbit marine led bar supplementing. I just fixed the other fixture yesterday and man it seems BRIGHT now. Will the corals ajust to that light level if I start with say a couple hours a day and slowly increase to about 6 hours? Should I even worry about it? I have no access to a par meter.

 

[Crabs McJones]

If you're just doing softies and LPS, one of the metal halides should be sufficient. I'm running a 250 Watt metal halide with 4 t5's over my 40 breeder, But i'm keeping acros and monti's. I would start with the one, and see how they respond

 

[Johniejumbo]

Ok I see I left that out. I’ve been running just the one for a couple months now. Things have done ok no record breaking growth or anything but nothing has died! The shadowing tho. That little led is basically only visible when the halide is off. Your t5s I’m sure eliminate any shadowing. But mine has some definite shadows. That’s why I’m wanting to try the 2 lights. Just don’t want my poor corals to met like **** faces in an Indiana Jones movie.

 

[Crabs McJones]

Ok I see I left that out. I’ve been running just the one for a couple months now. Things have done ok no record breaking growth or anything but nothing has died! The shadowing tho. That little led is basically only visible when the halide is off. Your t5s I’m sure eliminate any shadowing. But mine has some definite shadows. That’s why I’m wanting to try the 2 lights. Just don’t want my poor corals to met like **** faces in an Indiana Jones movie.

Then I would raise the fixture up and turn on the second one. I think 10-12 inches should be good

 

[Johniejumbo]

Thanks for the input! I’ll give it a go. It does look better with both running.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I ran 2 150w mh over a 40B years back and it did great with Coralife and Odyssea 20k bulbs. I changed to Phoenix 14k and bleached the crap out of my corals, sps mixed reef. So be careful and go slow with increasing light. I ended up changing the lighting to a single 250w Phoenix 14k and it was perfect for the 40B, some T5s or RB strips would add some nice pop but was not needed for coverage.

 

[jda]

A single 150 HQI with a real m81 ballast can handle a 40 breeder if it has a larger reflector for chalice, mushrooms and some LPS. I would need to know the specs of your retro kit before I could make a judgement on if one light was enough. There were retros in the day with electronic or cheap Chinese ballasts that only had about half the output of a good setup. Some retros were great.

Reflector size matters a bunch... smaller means more shadows. Larger usually means more even spread.

Bulb will matter too. 14k Phoenix is an output monster while looking great to most folks.

 

[Johniejumbo]

This is what I’ve got. reflectors are pretty basic and not very large. Ran it for 4 hours yesterday with no ill effects. How long does it take to know if you’ve overdone it. is it like a sunburn for people where it keeps getting worse even after you’re out of the sun?

I measured they are just over 11 inches from the water surface

 

[jda]

BlueWave are great balasts. The reflectors are kinda small... but you can always replace them if you need to. That setup should put out maximum PAR, but maybe not maximum spread.

Just go slow and you will be fine. Add 1/2 hour every few days for a couple of weeks. It would probably be Ok to just turn them up to 10 hours right now, but why risk it?

 

[Johniejumbo]

Thanks for the advice!

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Your setup will work great for any coral you want to keep. The reflectors will not spread the light very well but if run them 10-12" high you will be fine.

 

[Johniejumbo]

Your setup will work great for any coral you want to keep. The reflectors will not spread the light very well but if run them 10-12" high you will be fine.

Good to know. Maybe I’ll finally get to try some higher light corals

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Here is my 40B when I ran the 2 150w MHs over it.