sfsuphysics
Supporting Member
Read an interesting thread over at RC in the sps forum where someone made the claim that 4-6 hours of MH lighting is all that you need for "growth" and the rest of the lighting just heats the tank and pays for pensions of PG&E execs, most will suppliment with T5s/PCs etc.
Now at first I wanted to say .. yeah right but in the wild... then I caught myself
and though, well in the wild the sun won't be high in the sky for 8 hours a day, sure the reefs get illuminated but not with as much direct light. So that got me to thinking about my setup, however I ran into a snag... What if you don't have room for supplemental lighting?? My 100g truvu (I think) is 6' long, but only 18" x 18" in other directions so I'm really stuck for what I can do, not to mention the bracing on the top leaves very little in the way of area to poke light through.
So here's some conclusions I've had,
1- if you don't have at least a 24" wide tank a lumenarc is a waste, they span 19.5"(??) and the light is going to cone out slightly as a result you're not getting all the light in the tank
2- If you have an 18" wide tank (fairly common for "smaller" ones) a lumenarc mini can help a bunch, BUT that eats up most of the room for supplemental lighting as well (say a couple T5s with reflectors).
3- Bracing on the top of a tank is a BITCH! Even if I did put couple pendants over it (which trust me I'm seriously thinking about) the supplemental lighting that would be outside would get blocked by some of the bracing, I see the why Eurobracing is so popular (or rimless!), half the time I think most tanks that are out there are made for freshwater/fish only systems where you don't need terribly much in the way of light.
So does anyone else have any ideas on the subject? Replacing my lighting won't be terribly costly, decent pendents can be gotten for under $50 a piece, and I have an electronic dual-250w ballast so I can fire up DE bulbs no problem. While I won't be able to sell my lumikearcs I probably could recoup some money on my lumenarc mini pendant with black covering, or just keep it because we reefers always have a project down the line .
Ideally I'd simply like a wider tank, but that isn't happening in the short term
Now at first I wanted to say .. yeah right but in the wild... then I caught myself
and though, well in the wild the sun won't be high in the sky for 8 hours a day, sure the reefs get illuminated but not with as much direct light. So that got me to thinking about my setup, however I ran into a snag... What if you don't have room for supplemental lighting?? My 100g truvu (I think) is 6' long, but only 18" x 18" in other directions so I'm really stuck for what I can do, not to mention the bracing on the top leaves very little in the way of area to poke light through. So here's some conclusions I've had,
1- if you don't have at least a 24" wide tank a lumenarc is a waste, they span 19.5"(??) and the light is going to cone out slightly as a result you're not getting all the light in the tank
2- If you have an 18" wide tank (fairly common for "smaller" ones) a lumenarc mini can help a bunch, BUT that eats up most of the room for supplemental lighting as well (say a couple T5s with reflectors).
3- Bracing on the top of a tank is a BITCH! Even if I did put couple pendants over it (which trust me I'm seriously thinking about) the supplemental lighting that would be outside would get blocked by some of the bracing, I see the why Eurobracing is so popular (or rimless!), half the time I think most tanks that are out there are made for freshwater/fish only systems where you don't need terribly much in the way of light.
So does anyone else have any ideas on the subject? Replacing my lighting won't be terribly costly, decent pendents can be gotten for under $50 a piece, and I have an electronic dual-250w ballast so I can fire up DE bulbs no problem. While I won't be able to sell my lumikearcs
I probably could recoup some money on my lumenarc mini pendant with black covering, or just keep it because we reefers always have a project down the line .Ideally I'd simply like a wider tank, but that isn't happening in the short term
