Light recommendations

[mhart032]

I have a 40g oceanic hex stretch tank and im looking for light recommendations. im going to be starting a SW reef with a couple fish. although the fish and corals will come sometime down the road.. im starting to piece things togeather right now to start a cycle..
thanks in advance for the recos.
Matt

 

[melosu58]

I would suggest T5`s. They have pretty high intensity and are good for just about any high light coral.

 

[mhart032]

great to hear I was thinking about making my own hood with lights can I buy t5s at loses or home depot. I was going to make a 2 balast 4 bulb setup is that to much light?
Matt

 

[melosu58]

You`ll need to get high output lights if it was me.

 

[ccCapt]

great to hear I was thinking about making my own hood with lights can I buy t5s at loses or home depot. I was going to make a 2 balast 4 bulb setup is that to much light?
Matt

HD or Lowes does sell T5 bulbs and ballasts, but they are not what you want. You want T5HO (High Output) and last I checked neither place carried HO ballasts or bulbs.
4 T5HO bulbs is not too much light.

 

[mhart032]

ok good to know, their is a place called Austin lighting I used to do business with I will give them a call they have pretty much everything and I get a 40% discount with them.. : )

 

[pat8you]

I would even go with 6 bulbs if you can fit it in the hood. It would be tuff to get to much light with T-5's. You would probably run out of room in the hood before you had to much light. Most hex tanks are a little on the deep side anyway so you will want more light to compensate. Depending on what kind of coral you want to keep one of the lower wattage MH bulbs would even work for you.

 

[mhart032]

I could do MH fixtures and bulbs it would save me some space if I went with MH how many watts of light should I be looking for, I don't want to be restricted to what I can have due to lighting if I'm gonna do I want to do it right. And do it once and not have to redo or buy more or differnt later to get the end results I'm looking for..
Matt

 

[mhart032]

i was looking on craigslist and i found 2 1000w grow lights for hydroponics would this be to much light?
Matt