reef lighting question

[rob_mango]

i was woundering would 4 250 watt 6500 kelvin m/h lights with a mixed of 2 48'' vho fluorescents that have 2 10000k lights and 2 640 actinic bulbs on my 240 mixed reef tank be enough light

[AMDPhenomX4]

Depends on what you want to keep. It should be though.

[melosu58]

I agree that we need to know what you plan on keeping. That`s a 8 ft tank right? You should be good to go. I just have VHO`s. Also moving this to the General Hardware and equipment discussion.

[Ziggy953]

Any particular reason you are going with 6500K bulbs? You may find them to be a bit yellow and could lend to algae growth. If you are planning on keeping corals you may want to bump the K rating up to 10,000 on those MHs.

[rob_mango]

i did some resurch and i found that 6500 will alow the right groth light for all corales and as for the yellow color that is y i was going to also run the 2 640 actinic and the 2 10,000 k fluorescents as well.

[Ziggy953]

I've, for the most part, always run 10,000K bulbs and get amazing growth. I recently upgraded to 250w bulbs and ballasts and the 10,000K were too yellow for me with 220w of VHO actinic and 2x54w T5 actinic. Keep in mind that this is on a 120g 4' tank. I think you are going to find those 6500K bulbs really yellow and the amount of actinics you are using isn't going to compensate for that yellow look. Also with that color temp you are going to be more prone to algae growth as well. I would strongly suggest rethinking that color temp bulb. 10,000K is pretty much the lowest most reef keepers go.