My new lights... I think...

[h8z2luze]

Sweet thats probably the one i am going to get. I like coralife and the atinic light along with the LED's. But is Compact Florecent enough? Shouldnt it be metal halide or T5? I still dont really understand the diffrence sorry....

[fijiwigi]

Take a look at Kurt Nelson's gallery he has the same lighting fixture on his 46g and some nice looking corals. With your tank being only 37 gallon you would have stronger lighting than him and I with that fixture. Your tank is not as tall And if you put enough rock in it and place a coral high enough you may have some good options on what you can purchase later on down the road. Just remember it will be some time before you can add a coral my tank is about 3months mature and it will probably be another 3months before I purchase my first coral.

[h8z2luze]

Ya i am aware of the fact you have to wait for the tank to mature before adding coral for sure.

[ccCapt]

T5 HO's are more intense than CF. Wattage isn't a good way to guage the difference in them. Compare a 175w mh to 2 100w light bulbs. MH is less wattage, but drastically more intense

[fijiwigi]

So how do you gauge light saturation more effectively?? And is it possible to have too much lighting? Brighter is better correct, as long as it is not producing excessive heat.

which would be the better choice for h8z2luze's situation the T5 HO fixture or the Coralife CF. Is a 156W of HO more saturation than a 198W of CF??? Or are they the same

[ccCapt]

Light saturation is generally based on water clarity and par value of the bulb...among other things (reflectors, dist from water, etc). T5's have a much higher PAR value than CF.
You can have too much light for certain corals, but never too much light for others. I have 2 175w MH and 4 NO 40w floursecents on my 75. I have a small frag of some kind a leather a local reefer gave me a few years ago. It has not grown at all, while my SPS grow very nicely.
Which light to use is user preference. What do you want to keep? There are many people who keep SPS coral with lots of T5's, while I don't know of anyone using CF only and having success with SPS. Comes down to what you want to keep.

[cmor1701d]

I recall a lot of discussions around T5's when they first becoming popular a couple of years ago. The reflector made a huge difference in the amount of light output. As I recall the better reflectors were highly polished and W shaped with each bulb in the center of its own W.

Coralife also makes a nice MH fixture that is 1x150W 10000K HQI MH with 2x65W Actinic 03 PC. It runs around $500.00

[h8z2luze]

Ya like i said I only want to spend around 200 or so. Thanks for all the input though. I am still confused. I would like to get hard corals down the road but i am just not willing to put up 500 for lights.

[ccCapt]

The reflector made a huge difference in the amount of light output.

That is true of of any lighting system, however it does not affect output, it affects how much of the output is directed down into the tank where we want it.

The light you picked at the top of this thread will work nice for you. Here's a huge thread on T5's and hard corals.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...readid=1230776

[h8z2luze]

Ok made my decision thanks to a lot of help from you guys especially CC here is my decision... The 36" pro model but i am going to replace one of the actinics with a 10k bulb so I will have 156W of 10K and 78 of actinic T5 HO lighting Notice the PRO MODEL picture below the other ones. (yes i went a little over my goal budget but we all do!

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...0&pcatid=16770