watt Per hight

[Fierro Nights]

alright, here's the situation, ive been searching the net trying to get the correct lighting for my 20 gallon tall for sps coral.

all i have come accross is wattage per gallon which does not mean squat, it think its a very stupid way of measuring light. the appropriate amount of light, i can have a tank thats a 5 inch square but but high enough to hold 20 gallons of water, if the light doesnt reach the bottom then the light is no good, i know this is an extreme exaduration but geeze, all i want to know is how far does light wattage per lumin penetrate water for pc lighting and what lumenus is required to penitrate roughly 8 inches of water for sps coral?

is there a chart that i missed somewhere? the perfict chart would be a chart that had differnt lights, MH, PC, VHO, HO and LED, showing the lumins per watt, Kelvin rating differences and HOW DEEP kelvin, and lumins penetrate water !!!!!!!

there must be a professor out there who has spent time making this chart, please tell me that this chart is out there somewhere.

you see, i tried to compare my tank to larger tanks, you have 55 gallon long tanks, then you have small tall tanks, now WPG seems to only refer to if you place corals all along the base of the tank and not just right smack in the center, i understand that larger tanks have light which utilize longer bulbs ( VHO, HO ) and that MH only cover a particular area, i just want to know how many watts are needed to penetrate X amount of depth with PC lighting using acatinics only.

i currently have a 65 watt 50/50 pc over a 20gallon tall, im interested in adding just an acatinic pc.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

In a nutshell, if you're serious about SPS then you should probably focus on VHO or MH. I feel your pain, but I doubt there is such a chart that is really useful because there are just too many variables. I would hazard to guess that even the brand of the bulb will make a difference.

i just want to know how many watts are needed to penetrate X amount of depth with PC lighting using acatinics only.

The problem is, as far as I understand it, regardless of how many watts you have above the tank, a PC light will only penetrate so deep. If you could put a billion Watts of PC lighting above your tank, it wouldn't penetrate any farther than 100W. That's why you need to think about a different type of bulb.

Regarding using actinics only... not sure if you're going to like the look of that, and not sure the corals will really like that. It's going to be really blue and will make the fluorescent greens and reds of the corals really pop, but the corals really need the "daylight" color of light (10K, 20K) for health.

On the flip side though, you can grow *some* SPS coral under PC. The turbinarias, stylophoras, and a few other of the lower light SPS corals will survive if put very high in a tank under PCs. Don't expect them to grow like weeds, but they will survive just fine.

 

[melosu58]

I just dont think PC`s have the intensity that VHO`s, T5`s or MH`s have. When it comes to your higher light corals light intensity is needed.

 

[Fierro Nights]

i thought pc's provided more luminous then VHO.

i read an article about it on a site that is frequently used as a reference on this site, ill find it again and post, im not attempting to correct anyone here, im just broadening resources as to come to a conclusion to reduce unnecessary costs when purchasing a light.

 

[Ziggy953]

I can tell you from experience having used MH, VHO, PC and T5HO for coral growth that PCs just do not cut it for SPS corals.

I found that my SPS corals lost their color and pretty much browned out when under PC lighting.

I currently have a mixture of MH VHO and T5HO on my reef. PC lights do not have the intensity that MH, T5 and VHO have. If you want a simple solution to your problem and like the "tube" type light go with T5HO you will do just fine with them and SPS corals.