Building a Fuge, seeking lighting recommendations

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

AquaBear

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jun 14, 2004
Messages
155
Location
Aurora CO
Hello forum!

I've decided to take the plunge and add a fuge to my big SW tank. I'm not a fan of the HOB type, because I think that would just be too much weight hanging on glass, so I'm building my own. This will sit off to the side and slightly above the main tank. I will pump water from the main sump into the far end of the fuge, and it will overflow into a standpipe where gravity will return it to the sump.

I've ordered a custom 20H acrylic tank with a special hole drilled in the side (for the gravity return), and am now piecing together the rest of the equipment. The only thing I'm having trouble deciding on is the lighting. All I've ever used for tank lighting is standard fluorescents, so I'm deficient in this area. The fuge will be 24" long so I can find a stand and other parts without having to special-order everything. I will add LR and LS to the basic setup.

My INTENT is to have pods, snails, peppermint shrimp, and other detritivores in the fuge (for reducing nitrate and phosphates), plus I'd like to grow some Caulerpa algae, Sea Grass and other beneficial plants (to help feed the herbivores). Since I'm not going to have corals, I probably don't need VHO or MH lighting, so I was wondering if regular HO/CF was sufficient for what I'm going to use the fuge for.

There are too many types of fixtures out there to choose from, and some of it I don't understand (like "Daylight", "Super Daylight", "50/50", "Dual-Actinic", "Aquarium spectrum", etc.). I know "actinic" is the blue-shaded bulbs, but what about the rest of it? Is all this really that important if I don't have coral in the tank? HO/CF should be good for the plants, but will that much light make it hard on the inverts I'm choosing? Anybody care to recommend a specific manufacturer or model?

TIA,
--Aquabear
 
For a fuge, you don't want regular SW lights. There's a home depot floodlight which I've heard is PERFECT.

you'll have to search around to find it, but there is a thread here or on reefcentral about it with pics of the packaging.
 
From what Ive read sea grass needs alot of light to grow so Id say thats out of the picture. But maybe a flood light would give enough but I dought it. For any other macro algea a flood light would be more then enough light
 
If your fuge is going to be above you main tank I would have the fuge drain into the main tank. This is the preferred method, there is no chance of pods getting killed in the return pump if drained into the tank.
In a 20H I would go with a 55 or 65 watt PC light. I had a 65 watt PC light on my 15H for over a year with great caluerpa growth then about 4 months ago it died so I put on a 20 watt NO light. It has kept the caluerpa alive but it has slowed its growing and the lower layer is dying off. I am in the process of ordering a new PC light.
I would go with a blade caluerpa or fern, mexicana or cheato stay away from grape.
I would not go crazy with a DSB either in a small tank it will not do much.
I had the Lights of america from HD and it sucked.... Spend a few bucks for a decent light it will pay off in the end.
I found this place on the net with $30 65 watt PC light that Im going to try out.
 
Don't go for the flood light. Sumphead and i both did that and it is not worth the trouble you are going to have with cyano. I know it sounds funny but both of us experienced large cyano blooms after installing the flood light for a fuge light.
 
That is kind of funny. I used a grow bulb like sumphead did on his 72 and I had a bad cyano problem. I ended up switching to a 6500k mogul socket PC lamp. My cyano went away but I associated it with the DI filter change.

Could be related though ....
 
I think it is realted to the incandecent light of the flood. The color was fine, but the light spectrum was bad. Definately no flood lights.

R
 
Cool...I went with a brand name I recognized...Coralife. It comes with a 65W 5050 bulb, but that should be plenty strong enough for my purposes.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll get a picture out here after it's up and running.

--Aquabear
 
So the consensus was NOT to use the floodlight or does it work? By what I read at reefcentral it did work? Also wheres the best place to buy a cheap PC setup for a fuge? I need one as well as I have a 40 gallon long sump/fuge...
Thanks
 
Hey Fishman...the one I got was a Coralife dual actinic/10000K daylight reflector, single bulb, and I ordered it from BigAlsOnline for around $40. A dam site better than what my LFS was asking for the same thing.

Mine is finally set up. I just need to dump the LS in, add some LR and then splice it into the main tank once it has completely cycled.

--K
 
You'll love the fuge! It's well worth the trouble. My nitrates are 0 and it's been that way for months (since I started it). Good luck, sounds like a nice fuge your setting up.

Jim
 
Hey, thanks! Well, I read about them in Aquarium Fish Mag a couple months back and of course I had to have one! Like I said, I didn't want a HOB kind, so I dreamed up my own. I'm getting real excited about how it might benefit the big tank. Nitrates and phosphates are the areas I'm having (minor) issues with, so I'm hoping this will complete the "perfect" environment.

--Aquabear
 
Back
Top Bottom