How much is too much?

[jonah]

I'm planning out a 29g reef. The only things I'm certain of so far is that I want to use a second 29g for a sump and I want to reuse part of my old light kit. The lights were a 440w VHO set that was used on my old 75g reef. I can drive up to 4 bulbs over the 29g. If I use 24" bulbs, that's 4 x 75w for 300w VHO total. Will that be too much? I could also run 1 or 2 of the bulbs over the sump if I want (instead of all 4 over the main tank) to light the macroalgae I'll be keeping in there. What bulb combination would be best for hard corals? Most of the corals in my old tank were softies.

I want to keep a tridacna clam too if the light will work for them. I plan on using 45-50lbs of liverock and the only fish I'm planning on keeping right now are my red saddleback clowns.

I'd appreciate any and all suggestions. I still keep a little 10g macro tank, but I haven't done a serious reef tank in several years.

I'm spending my tax return before I get it. :lol:

 

[DiverDave]

Hi,

I used to have a 90gal tank with a similar light set up. 4x110w vho's on an ICECAP BALLAST. Pretty much just softies and a few LPS. I 've also had a 29g tank using 2 75w vho actinics and a 175 10,000 german halide. I had pretty good success with SPS frags on that one. My current tank is a 20g using 4 vho 24" 75w bulbs. 2 50/50 and 2 actinic. All softies are doing great and multiplying. My SPS in this tank were captive raised from GARF and all have grown...some more than others. It's definetly a heavy-on-the-blue side. The SPS that have grown have grown out to the side, I believe to recieve more light. I have a plating Montipora that, because of it's very nature to spread horizontaly has EASILY grown by more than 500%. The acroporas/seriotoporas/hydnoporas/ (sorry about the spelling) I think would do better in my tank with either 4 bulbs of 50/50, or a 2x2 of full daylight and actinics. In the interest of trying new things, I've picked up a 250w Aquamedic pendant halide (10K) and I'm slowly adding the additional light to the tank. I literally have it about 4 inches above the vho bulbs supported by eggcrate on the top of my hood. The light that the tank receives from the halide is the light that squeezes through the bulbs and the light that reflects back down into the tank from the eggcrate. This setup is very new and it will be several weeks before I can really determine the effect this will have on the tank.

To get back to your question...my suggestion for the 29g, if you intend to keep SPS's and use your current lighting system is to go with 3x75w 24" vho 50/50 bulbs and one actinic. I believe the actinic bulb has a great affect in growing coraline algae. Or you could try 2x75w 24" vho daylight bulbs and two actinics. I've always used bulbs from URI. Best wishes.

[email protected]

 

[jonah]

THANKS.

Thanks for your reply. I think I'm going to go with 2 daylights and 2 actinics. URI are the only vho bulbs I've ever used. I was able to keep and grow some sps in my old 75g reef with vho lighting. A friend of mine gave me a frag and I tripled it's size in the time I had it, so it must have been doing alright before I crashed the tank (disaster while I was on vacation).

I'll run a seperate light for the macros in the sump.