Question on lighting for Cheato.

[vonjankmon]

Re-designing my sump a bit and I plan on turning an area of it into a grow area for cheato to eat up extra nutrients. I have been considering two options and I am curious as to peoples impressions of them.

First option I am thinking about is getting one of the cheap Oydssea Metal Halide pendants. It is a 150W Metal Halide and is about the right size for the area in my sump I want to use as a grow area. Heat is a concern as I have seahorses and keep the tank at 73-74 degrees but it sites fairly easily at that temperature and even requires that my heaters run on occasion because the tank is in the basement where it is cool. Having said that though I have never had a halide fixture before and do not know how much heat they give off.

My second option is to get a 24 inch or so 4 bulb T5 fixture. Problem with this is that I really only want to light *maybe* about 15 inches of sump, the rest of the fixture will be wasted light so even with 4 bulbs and figuring about a third of the fixture is wasted about 60-70 watts of light on the cheato.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Would be especially curious to know how much light the halide fixture would give off.

 

[Bifferwine]

You don't need anything near that strong.

I use a simple 23 watt CFL bulb (one of the squiggly ones) from the hardware store. It's screwed into a simple metal clamp on light from the hardware store.

 

[reeffreak]

I use a 48w T5 fixture over a 24g. refugium.You won't need anything that strong for a fuge.You can go to a hardware store for something like what Biff use or use something like this.Not quite the 15'' incher you need but close.

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