Lighting for 72"L X 36"W X 27"H

[Ryan009]

I have a 210G and a 250G tank now that are both lit with 250W MH and T5 suppliments.

I guess I've always been in the camp of going MH if you want SPS and/or clams.

But I'm starting to rethink that. I have a new tank coming online (see the thread title for dimensions) and was wondering about going all T5 with it.

From what I've measured on my tank and a friends T5 tank, the T5's are putting out the same if not better PAR values than my MH.

What kind of lighting (and what T5 fixture(s)) would you guys recommend for this new tank?

[The Grim Reefer]

Ying! Thats a lot of tank for T5's. ATI Powermodules would be the best fixture to use.

Using 2 6x80 watt fixtures so you have 12 rows of lamps would work if you are stocking front to back but leave the last 6" or so at each end open (80 watt lamps are 60" long)

If you leave the front open you could use 2 10 x 39 watt fixtures would allow you to stock end to end but only about 24" front to back.

[Ryan009]

Thank you for the feedback.

Would you recommend I stay with the MH? Which would be better for the corals in the long run (and provide the best PAR)?

That's also very interesting information about leaving space on the ends? Why is that?

[The Grim Reefer]

Originally posted by Ryan009
Thank you for the feedback.

Would you recommend I stay with the MH? Which would be better for the corals in the long run (and provide the best PAR)?

That's also very interesting information about leaving space on the ends? Why is that?

The 80 watt fixtures are only 60" long so the last 6" or so at each end of the tank will not get a ton of light.

You can almost never go wrong with halides. If you are using a canopy I would do a combination of T5 and halides.

A couple of 400 watt halides in Lumenarc reflectors and 6 rows of 80 watt Blue Plus T5's would work. The T5's will give you a nice blue kick, You could even go with smaller reflectors for the halide and use more T5's so you could run the halides as little as 4 hours a day and the T5's like 12 hours to save on power and extend the life of the halide lamps.

[johns]

Hey Ryan-

I second the recommendation for the ATI powermodule. Thats the fixture I'd get if I decided to give all T5 a serious try.

This past summer I tried all T5 for a while. I have a 6 bulb Teklight here, and I used that in combination with the 4 bulbs in Tek Ready kits that I currently use, so I had 10 bulbs over the tank.

I was ok with it, but some of my bulbs were old, and I didnt play around with the bulb combination too much to find the right fit I was going for. I wasnt really serious about it for long term, or I might have tried more, but I went back to MH after a couple months.