Adding a light

recliner

recliner

Reefing newb
I have a 150 gal tall tank. It is 48 long, 24 wide, and 30 deep. Because of the way it is built into the wall I could not use a 48 inch light system so I went with a 36 that has a 250 watt MH, 4 39 watt t5s and some led moon lights. Because my tank has a center brace I move the light off to one side so the brace isn't right under th MH. About halfway through the day (if I'm home) I scoot the system so the MH is on the other side of the brace. I have a fairly full tank of coral and this seems to be working so far.
I want to add a light though so I don't have to do the moving the light thing. The space I have for it is 12" by 10" and I found some led lights that might work and wanted opinions on them or if I should just put another MH there. The led options are either a 20w 10k (says suitable to replace a 150w MH) or a 30w 12k (says suitable to replace a 250w MH)

What would be the best light for me?
 
I'm worried about doing that cause I have coral all the way down to the bottom and it is already a deep tank. If I could have fit a 48 light it would have had 2 MH anyway. I guess I'm asking is if the led lights I found could work with the spectrum that they are.
 
I don't see 20 watts of LED replacing a 150 watt Metal Halide, my guess is that's marketing hype. Do you have a link to the products?
 
Can you link to the lights you are looking at? This would help us give you an idea on how the particular fixture might work for you
 
I would also question the quality of the construction and the electronic parts in it.

IMO, you will need to spend more than 200 on lighting for your tank. Since you have light already, I would just save up for a quality fixture that you know would work. You will end up spending less money than having to buy several fixtures before finally throwing in the towel and buying one that will work.

Have you looked into DIY LED setups? If you are handy at all, you can save some money doing it that way.
 
Thats kind of the vibe i was getting from them.
Is there an LED light option that would work for me and that would fit in my 12" by 10" space and my $200 or less budget?
Or would I be best off going with another MH?
 
You could try a couple of Par38 bulbs, but I'm not sure how they will do with the depth of your tank. The ones from RapidLED run around $89 each and have a decent mix of colors. My larger concern is that I'm not sure how your tank is going to look to your eyes if you have LED over half and MH over the other half. Corals respond differently under different types of lights, and I suspect you will see the corals under the LEDs shift in terms of color over time.
 
Both of those look like they could work. Seems like if I go with an led it should be 120 watt. Should they give me as good of light penetration to the bottom of the tank as a MH?
 
FishyReef said:
You could try a couple of Par38 bulbs, but I'm not sure how they will do with the depth of your tank. The ones from RapidLED run around $89 each and have a decent mix of colors. My larger concern is that I'm not sure how your tank is going to look to your eyes if you have LED over half and MH over the other half. Corals respond differently under different types of lights, and I suspect you will see the corals under the LEDs shift in terms of color over time.
Click to expand...

You will definitely see differences when looking at the tank. The side using LED's will appear to be 'darker' or 'dimmer' to the human eye than the side lit by metal halides. As stated, corals will also look different on the different sides of the tank. You're probably better off sticking with a single lighting type, or coming up with some sort of setup that would blend the light
 
yeah, I agree, about $175 to $250 for enough LED's... those cheap e-bay ones are only white and you need about half of them to be blue. There are several opinions about adding in some other colors. I have a few red, purple, green, and UV to cover my axx.

I'd add the LED's from AquaticLife or another name brand IF you want LED's.
 
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OK, so I am VERY new to all of this, so please take this question as for how it's meant, which is for me to be able to learn something. I don't even have my tank set up yet.


1. When you say you have a center brace on your tank is it a solid brace which will not let any light through or a glass brace that will let some light through but it cuts down on the light? I ask because the tank I just bought is just about the exact same measurements as your tank but it is an inch shorter. (48" X 24" X 29") The top is almost covered in glass with a couple openings in it. (I just texted my wife and had her measure it. :D The top has a 3" border of glass all the way around it and in the middle is a center brace that is 11 5/8" wide, which makes the two openings 18" X 15" each. ) I am currently researching the lighting needed for my tank so I would love to hear what you end up with, and even see a couple pictures of it.

2. Since you already have a fixture over the tank, would you not be able to hang it in the middle and then use two LED fixtures at the ends of the tank as supplemental lighting? Since it would also be a smaller fixture for the LEDs you might even be able to get them closer to the water to make sure they have a better depth.

3. Is your goal to obtain the correct color spectrum or just light reaching the bottom of the tank? (Or both)


Tim

P.S. Oh yeah, don't forget about having to replace the MH bulbs about once a year. :-) :-)
 
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Rocket:
That sounds like a well built tank. Is it drilled?
Normally, as far as I know, the braces are glass or at least clear.

Some LED chatter:
Traditionally specific color MH lights have been the ones that most nearly match the sun. If you can stand the heat and the power consumption, MH is most likely still king for accuracy, but be sure to buy MH lamps with the correct reef tank bulbs. Currently, as technology evolves, LED's are taking over in that realm. Many hours of conversation, research, and studies have been done to provide LED frequencies best suited for reef tanks. This is because LED's are so frequency selective, unlike most other lighting systems which tend to produce light waves on a wider band width. If fact it takes special coatings and filament technologies to cause most other lights to produce nearer to the frequencies that are desired for special needs. With LED's it is the exact opposite. The charts and graphs of tests I have researched, as I best recall, show that the newer LED setups being sold by a few specific manufactures specifically for reef tanks are providing excellent quality and quantity of the required frequencies. Also of note: because of the digital waves it has been shown that LED's tend to reach deeper. Light decays by the square of distance. However, it seems that LED produced light waves (digital) put higher PAR percentage light through water ripples deeper into the tank. Currently we have many reef tankers who have had outstanding results for a few years using LED's. Be aware, there are LED light fixture manufactures out there who have done little if any of that research and simply toss together a fixture which will fit over an aquarium with LED's in it and place advertisments as reef safe or aquarium LED lighting. I'd stay away from those cheap rip-offs. You will find plenty of opinions of various systems but can search out and ask who uses what with what results here on this forum.. that cuts to the chase.

I use three 36" strings of RapidLED sets I wired, .....and one 36" - 54 watt string of AquaticLife expandables and am happy, but my tank is way too new to be of quality information value. My tank is 41" long and 24" deep. I have no PAR meter but it appears am getting plenty of light to the bottom. A PAR meter is on my Santa list.. so I can compare light at a LFS before I purchase future coral. I estimate that I am putting out 120 ish watts of LED over my water.

I plan to buy a PAR probe and connect it to my DVM then multiply the reading X 5 to get PAR.
 
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