Lighting for a 7" sps tank, 5x400w or 3x1000w?

[pomme]

Lighting for a 7" sps tank, 5x400w or 3x1000w?

What would you suggest, i am thinking of either 5 400w low bay units:

with say 3x 20k and then two 10k bulbs.

Or have three 1000w units, with the Diamond Lumenarc 3 reflector, which did so well in Sanjays test:
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/mar2003/feature.htm

with say 3 20k bulbs. The light units will be arpund 15" from the water surface and the water depth around 20".

Andrew

 

[fishfreek]

Do you mean 7"(inch) or 7'(foot)? Im guessing by your numbers your talkinga bout a 7foot long tank.

 

[pomme]

oooh sorry meant 7 foot, by 30" wide by 24" deep, with 20"water depth.

 

[mfrei64]

btw....if you're doing this in your home, make sure you can handle all those watts....just had a similar situation, and I'm running 4 x 400w. Along with pumps etc, I couldn't run everything without tripping the circuit breakers.....had to have an extra line put in with 2 20w breakers (more than enough). If you haven't done this, do it before you set up the tank to save a lot of headaches.

 

[mhaynes01]

1 word for all reefers

"three fase, power lines"

 

[pomme]

humm hadnt thought of that one mfrei64, ill look into it. But will probably do something along those lines as im going to have alot of my stuff connected up to a board with a load of wall light switches, for the skimmer, pumps etc and will mention it to him.

 

[mfrei64]

a normal room (or pair) of rooms in a house run on a 15 amp breaker....no where near enough, nor safe (my normal breaker wire had started to turn black from the heat). Not cheap either, depending on how far from the breaker panel you are....$500 to 1000. Good luck!!!!