MH HQI Questions

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Enygma_0

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
32
Location
Texas
All,

I was pondering buying a MH HQI retro kit for my 30g tank and wanted to know or find out any reccomendations. I was thinking of buying an icecap kit. What bulb wattage should I use to keep the most variety of corals in my tank? AS well if I buy a 250W ballast and put it on a 150W bulb that is not going to hurt anything would it? I would ideally like to plan for future growth and that is why I was thinking of going higher wattage....
 
A 175 is plenty IMO for a 30. 250 is for deeper tanks (20"+) and is overkill for you, not to mention the potential heat issues. You can not mix wattages for bulbs and ballasts.
 
I have a 150HQI over a 29G and its quite bright. Its actually too bright for some soft corals and polyps. From experience I would say that anything more than 150 would be far too bright and cause heat issues.

GL!
 
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