Lighting 30" Tall Tank

[BigTankGuy]

Hello Everyone,

I am running in to a bit of a concern that my LFS is slightly resistant to my requests for lighting and related equipment.

The tank: 150g-tall (Perfecto) with 4" of sand, effectively 26" of depth

The debate: I am looking at a pair of 250W metal halide lights supplimented by 260W of PC to give me the ability to simulate sun rise and sun set. This seems to be a good flexible system that will give me a good range of light levels. The LFS is suggesting a pure VHO system as being more than enough. A while back on another forum 400W metal halide was strongly recommended to me but further research has suggested that this is a bit much for moderate to lower light corals.

The target: While I am well in favor of softies I would like some flexibility. I would like to try a few SPS and my wife has shown some interest in a blue maxima at the LFS . There will be some anemones at some point in the tank. I am already pulling quite the feat of keeping one alive (and growing!) under a 15w NO 10k bulb for about three years now. I want to set up something that will give anemones from this planet a chance at a long life.

It seems to me that a VHO system will be very marginal and will make the bottom portion of the tank just good enough to keep low-light corals from fading away. The LFS has more experience than I do but I can't say this sounds right.

[SDguy]

I would go with 250W halides (I have them on my 31" tall tank) with VHO actinic supplements, not PC's.

[2crazyreefers]

I have the same set-up of SD guy and second his opinion.

[KaniRyde]

I'm starting a 115g reef tank that is 48x18x30 and two 250 watt MH work just fine for SPS and the middlt to bottom half of my tank is perfect for LPS.