Lighting

[Anonymous]

Hallolights:
1x96Watt Ballast 79.95
1 quad Bulb 10,000K / Actinic 03 bulb 35.00
1 Reflector 17.00
Ya I think I can keep it under 150.
I will make a removeable canopy and the fan and timers should be under 20 or thirty bucks.

 

[Anonymous]

After spending some time looking around I am worried about too much light. I only want some mushrooms, xenia, my anemone and maybe 1 or two fish. And being new to this I still can spend hours looking at the coraline. and I heard that too much light will be to much for that to grow. OR do you all think that 96 watts is not to much for a 30 gal tank.

 

[Anonymous]

Well in reefy stuff the wattage per gallon rule seems to be more of a loose guideline (as opposed to FW stuff where it seems more apt).

Still, I would say that your lighting is good that way. I might even want to put more. I had um ... 275 or so over my 30g. LOL.

 

[down&dirty]

As a side note about the heat due to PC lighting. I recently adjusted my lighting to help reduce the heat that leaches into my tank during the day. The fix was easy and cheap. I took a piece of 2 inch pvc and cutout a long streched out oval on one side. This allows me to replace the bulbs and the light to get out. I then epoxied some reflector material that I cut from an existing reflector to the inside of the pvc. Then I heated up some plexi in the oven and bent it around the pvc. Cut it to shape and drill some screw holes to hold it to the pvc and your done. To further reduce the heat I adapted an old pc fan to fit inside one end of the pvc and it blows through the pvc and removes the heat from the hood before it can heat up the water. All parts and everything cost me $4 and now my tank doesn't heat up in the day. I am going to redo the system for my 75 gallon and probably use some glass to remove the heat from the metal halides. The PVC is also a great way to make a PC pendant style light since the size of the hole you cut makes a difference on where the light gets cast. I built the original for my sump and couldn't believe the improvements over common OTC lighting.

 

[Anonymous]

That sounds sweet. Pix?

 

[Anonymous]

was running 130W PC two 24W and two 36W ..ok thats really 128W i rounded up..anyways i ended up uprgrading to MH...Doods..I love it....

 

[down&dirty]

I will have some pics soon of the pvc lighting fixtures. I finish school in a couple of weeks and then hopefully I can afford a digital camera. Until then I am stuck with these darn disposables and I have a few pics left before I develop the roll with the lights on it. Luckly those few pics are being well used to document my robot that will run my magna-float cleaner so I don't have to anymore. Not a bad use for those old unused walkman tape players.