Wattage per gallon rule???

[mikeguerrero]

Incysor,

In another post I read that you disagree with the wattage rule that reefers give; wattage x gallons = success.

I have the 72 gallon bowfront with only 300 watts of HQI 20,000K bulbs. My corals so far seem okay, and I've been tempted to purchase a DIY extra 150 HQI for the center.

How I will mount it is besides me, but I want to learn more on how you or many others benchmark their reefs to maintain optimal life with nice rare corals.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[skipm]

The watts per gallon rule is oudated, as time has passed we have learned that the wattage over a tank is not comparable when you are talking about different kinds of lighting. One example would be that (I am going a bit extreme but the point should be easy to see) you cannot compare my 440 watts of VHO lights to the amount of light given off by a 400 watt MH, with the watts per gallon rule the MHs would be inferior to the VHOs light but we know that this is not the case.
The best measure of lighting for a reef that is currently available to us is PAR, if I remember correctly PAR stands for Photosynthetically Available Radiation. In other words the light available to be converted as food by our corals.
Dr. Sanjay Joshi has done our hobby a very great service by testing different light-ballast-reflector combinations so that we have something to compare avaible to us to make an informed decision as to whether our lighting is where we want it to be. Here is a link to his website (the lighting site, he also has some aquarium sites): http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/
I hope that you find this helpful and that I didn't make things even more confusing. Skip

PS I don't know if Sanjay ever makes it out to the west coast but if you ever get a chance to hear his presentation it is well worth the time. I have been fortunate enough to hear him last year at IMAC and again this year at MACNA and I plan on seeing him again this weekend at a joint club meeting in my area. He gives alot of great information without injecting his opinion as to which lighting set-up is the best.

 

[drty811]

mike ,

http://www.esuweb.com/cardfile.asp?Item ... onship=313
this fixture is what my buddy has over his 75g. so far its doing an amazing job. we have it set up for full lunar display. IMO i think what you have will do just fine. we have it aquascaped so the high light corals can be placed towards the top and so forth. the only difference is that he has actinic lighting.

 

[mikeguerrero]

Thanks,

I appreciate your feedback on my question. I just got off the phone with coralife because I let them know that Aquamedics has launched a better version of the light I bought.

Apparently the Sexy light series by aqumedics comes in the same dimension and can be placed on tank mounts like mine.

Only that they give you the option of 2 x 250 watts and a 1 150 watt in the center or 2 x 150 watts and a 70 watt in the center.

With the greater version you gain a width of 10.5 vs 9.5 with what I already have. I cannot accomodate 15 inchs in width because of my bowfront, so I had to rule out Coralifes Professional series, it just will not fit in the canopy.

But with Aquamedics the tables have been turned in there favor for those that want more power.

Well, Coralife told me not to worry that in time they will upgrade my system to two 250 watts of power; and it will be as easy as purchasing two new ballast and just the bulbs.

All I do then is pull off the quick/disconnect and the two bulbs, place the new ones on and turn on, simple as that.

They told me that that is what they did on the Elite series which went from 175 watts to 250 watts.

So all I have to do is use up my lights and get some fun out of 300 watts. We will see what coralife does to compete....

Mike

 

[skipm]

When I read the previous response it made me think about you considering adding another MH, each MH is good to light up a 2 sq. ft. area. If you want more light then you should look at either going with a bulb that has a higher PAR rating than you are currently using or upgrading to bigger lights. I personally think that the 150 HQIs that you already have are quite sufficient for most corals that you may want to keep. Skip

 

[incysor]

Mike,

You've got plenty of light over your tank.

skipm laid it out very well. I'll try to make it even more starkly apparent that watts-per-gallon means nothing, and everyone knows that it's useless, if they stop to think about it for a second.

I could hang two 250w MH kits in my hood over my 75g. That would be 500w or 6.6w per gallon total. Of course I'll need to install fans, and possibly a chiller because I have an enclosed hood, and the lights will heat things up. Everyone would agree that I could keep quite a bit of corals under this setup though, and in fact lots of people have setups like this. They're expensive, but it's likely a very good choice if you want to keep lots of SPS, clams, anemones, etc...

Why wouldn't I just just hang ten 100w softwhite standard light bulbs in there. That's 1000w or 13.3w per gallon. It sure would be cheaper than the metal halide setup, and I wouldn't need to worry about them heating the water up much, so I don't need to worry about a chiller either.

Everyone knows that won't work, even the most green newbie. So you know that there's something special about the 'aquarium' lights. Well mostly it comes down to par value.

The only reliable way to tell if you're gonna have the 'correct' light setup, is by researching the light needs of the corals/critters you want to keep. Find out what other people in the hobby are using to keep these corals happy for the long term. It's pretty easy to figure out by looking in the lighting forums on RC, and asking questions.

As far as I'm concerned the watts-per-gallon rule is worse than useless, because it doesn't take into account tank depths, the needs of the livestock, or even the different types of light that are available. A tank that's 30" tall has very different light requirements if you want to keep SPS near the bottom of it, than a 20" tall tank does. Likewise a 30" deep tank thats fish-only wouldn't need as strong a light system as the 20" with corals. Watts-per-gallon is a very simple rule, and it simply doesn't address the complexities of a saltwater tank.

B

 

[mikeguerrero]

Brian,

Thanks, I clearly got the point. Is Aqua medic the same as Aqua medics I'm a little confused because there are two websites.

Here is the one with the lights that I talked about, they say they are in Houston Texas since 2000. Can anyone confirm or deny that?

Here is the website:

http://www.aqua-medic.com/aboutus.php

Here is the other site:

http://www.aqua-medic.de/index0.html

 

[incysor]

The second link is the German parent company. The first link is the Houston location.

If you hit the about us pages on each site it becomes a bit clearer.

I had no idea they were local.

B

 

[mikeguerrero]

B,

I'm jealous that you live so close to them, after taking the time to read about them and there products, I'm really impressed.

If I ever redo a tank, it will be with them. I'll have to keep on eye on this company, Brian, if you ever get feedback on their products, shoot them down to me.

Thanks...

M

 

[Anonymous]

mike, just another thought, I do concure with what you and the others are talking about but as a science teacher I like to experiment. I see three easy (maybe spendy but all lighting options are) things you could try to satisfy your personal curiosity.
1) try a 10K bulb on one end - it will be sufficiently "brighter" to the eye and have a better par value - you could put your light lovers on that end and the flourescing LPS and others on the 20K end. Then just for fun I would buy a SPS frag it and put each half on a dif end to see what happens as far as growth and color.
2) you could switch out both 20K for 10K and add VHO actinics for a dust dawn effect. The daytime color will be similar to the 20K but maybe a bit more intence and you get the dust dawn effect. And Vho's would be an easy mod
3) you could swap out 1 of the 150W for a 250W ballast (the socket should work for both) and then you will have something similar to my tank with a bright end and a less bright end for greater diversity of coral selection/habitat and then you could keep the 20K color you like.
and remember more isn't neccesarily better - I have to laugh when I here people over at RC bragging about their 400W bulbs that they can only run 4 hours a day or it kills all their corals, I've keep shrooms under NO flour lights for years and fraged way more then I can count!!!!
just some ideas you know?????