Lighting for a 180 gallon

[Saltlife757]

I'm in the process of setting up my 180 gallon marineland tank and I need some help when it comes to the lighting. As I finish up hard plumbing my system, I've been looking at all the different options and have gotten a headache.

MY GOAL is to have a beautiful reef tank (like everyone else). I would like to put easy corals like zoas, mushrooms, etc. starting out, but a few months down the road I'd like to add hammers, torches, frogspawns and maybe a few others.

Id like to stick with leds, but I'm concerned what is the best for my situations. Are watts as important as par? How many watts per gallon do I need? Etc.

I have a the Current Orbit that I used for a FOWLR, but I'm thinking it may not be enough to grow the hard corals.

[LukeGI]

Most of the manufacturers, and many resellers, can give you recommendations on what their customers have found success with when it comes to their led's and the qty of fixtures etc.
Personal opinion, is that you need to evaluate your budget, and then within that budget pick 1-2 different brands you would like to pursue. Then you can determine the best model within that subset.

I myself went with Reef Radiance (3 fixtures), and I am very happy with the look in my tank, and the success growing everything from anemone's, hammers, zoa's and helping pocillopora recover from near death.

[Saltlife757]

Originally Posted by LukeGI

Most of the manufacturers, and many resellers, can give you recommendations on what their customers have found success with when it comes to their led's and the qty of fixtures etc.
Personal opinion, is that you need to evaluate your budget, and then within that budget pick 1-2 different brands you would like to pursue. Then you can determine the best model within that subset.

I myself went with Reef Radiance (3 fixtures), and I am very happy with the look in my tank, and the success growing everything from anemone's, hammers, zoa's and helping pocillopora recover from near death.

Thanks for the reply. Which fixture did you go with? I was looking at the prostar and it seemed pretty good. If you do have the prostar, is it difficult to set up the timer for sunrise/sunset affect? Basically so I never have to worry about turning the lights on and off.

[LukeGI]

I have an older version of their Starfire (DM-165P+). It is controlled via an app on my iphone. My version cannot sync multiple fixtures together, however I upload the exact same schedule to each, so that isn't the end of the world.

I cannot speak to the effort required to setup sunrise/sunset on their other fixtures...with the iphone app it is very simple. The only time I ever mess with my lights is to resync their internal timers as they get off by 30seconds or so every 8-10 weeks. Only an issue when the lights go to all nighttime settings and back to daylight ramp.