Concerns about lighting for a 210

[angnak]

I am looking for suggestions in lighting for my 210. The tank will be reef and fish. I currently have a powder blue, mimic tang, blue spotted naso, two cardinals, two percs, and a coral beauty. In the way of inverts I have 5 anenomes(sp?), two colonies of button polyps, frogspawn, and a star polyp. I will eventually get some SPS and more coral. I only have about 400 watts on it now (came from my 90 that use to house everything). My LFS, which they told me to go to a hydroponics store and get everything so I know it is not because they want my money, said they would get 4 400 watt MH and a couple of smaller fixtures with actinics in them. From reading an earlier post I started to think this might be to much light for the fish. Could I get away with something else? Also, what is the best kind of MH to get?

 

[ReefLady]

You're definitely going to want MH lighting for the sps.

As far as the MH bulbs go, there are several different types. Anything in the color temperature range of 6500k (green-yellow to human eye) to 20,000k (blue-ish) is acceptable for reef tanks.

A hydroponics store can be a good option, but beware the color temp. Many of these bulbs are sub 6,000k - which produces an extremely yellow-green tint (and also promotes algae growth).

I personally like 6500k bulbs with a lot of actinic (VHO) supplementation. If you don't want to provide considerable actinic supplementation, go with a higher color temperature.

Depending on what you want for corals, 250w bulbs may be sufficient, but depending on the depth of the tank, this might limit you to placing sps's in the upper half of the tank.

I'm not aware of too many fish that are bothered by bright lights (unless they are typically deep water/cave dwelling fish) - assuming that you are offering them adequate LR shelter if they want to hide.

HTH!