75 gal build lighting question

[thunderjohnsonx]

Hey I'm gonna be building a 75 gal with a 30 gal sump/refugium and I wanna know if I would need a 4 or 6 bulb fixture? I would like to be able to keep lps, sps, and anemone. How many watts of light should I put over the refugium? Any help is appreciated. I'm fully addicted to this hobby. Just added button polyps, xenia, and some feather duster to my biocube.

[hollister]

Though lighting plays a roll in stony coral water conditions play more. The smaller the light the more amount and placement are critical.

[shifty51008]

when I had T5's over my 75 gal. with sps and anemones I ran a 6 bulb Icecap retro and it worked great.

as for over the fuge I was using a one of the spiral bulbs from walmart that was 6500k.

[freetareef]

they have decent mh t5 combo lights on ebay for like $350. thats what i would do, that way you can have sps on your rockwork and lps on your sand. hth

[DeLucs414]

i would go with 6 bulbs with individual reflectors. assuming ur tank is a standard 75g being 48" lots of ppl use and highly recommend the Current Nova Extreme Pro.

drsfosterandsmith have it for $359.99. id say its a pretty good deal. might be able to find it somewhere else cheaper

[zeeter]

Originally Posted by shifty51008

when I had T5's over my 75 gal. with sps and anemones I ran a 6 bulb Icecap retro and it worked great.

as for over the fuge I was using a one of the spiral bulbs from walmart that was 6500k.

This is what I have for my 75, though a different brand of light. The fuge doesn't need anything special - and the spiral bulbs tend to use less electricity. The six bulb fixtures allow you to mix and match bulbs as generally the out of the box bulbs that come with some fixtures suck (Aquatic Life, for example).

Rule of thumb is that while PAR is important, light temperature is what really feeds the corals. This is why having multiple bulb options is important.