Softie lighting retro- need your opinion

[Abobis]

Here's the situation:

Softie tank with some LPS in a 125 gallon tank that has been doing well under 520 watts of VHO lighting for several years.

One of my two ballasts blew out, shutting down half of my lighting. Seems to me a good time to upgrade or supplement the two working VHO bulbs.

Other info: I do have a chiller on the tank, and will be using the existing canopy. The maximum clearance between canopy and water is 7.5 inches.

T5, PC, MH ? Whats your opinion on lighting this tank?

Thanks!

:thumbsup:
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj137/doradosteve/DSCN1415.jpg
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj137/doradosteve/DSCN1416.jpg

[silverwolf72]

T5 retro would work perfectly for taking up the space that the blown VHOs used and provide more light in the process. Will bassically use the same hardware mounts you already have

[oceanparadise1]

i second t5hos i mean u could do 2-150 mh and 2 t5hos for blues

[TulsaReefer]

What are the tank dimensions? I changed my 60" long x 18" wide 110G over from 6 - 48" VHOs last summer to 2 -48" VHOs and 4 - 48" T5s and have been pretty happy with them. I like the wide variety of tubes you can get with the T5s now, and if you use quality single tube reflectors you can get nearly all the light in the tank, at about half the wattage that VHOs use.

[Abobis]

Thanks for all the input.

What do you think of this system? Is it TOO MUCH light for softies?

(3) 150 watt MH & (6) 65 watt PC's
Roughly $800 from Reef Geek

http://www.reefgeek.com/lighting/Metal_Halide/Hamilton_Technology/Retrofit_Kits_(MH_&_PC)/72_inch__Retrofit_w!_3xMH_&_6x65W_Powercompacts_(Linear_Pin)_by_Hamilton_Technology (http://)


http://www.reefgeek.com/reefgeek/4116/image.jpg

OR

This compact flourescent system
(6) 96 watt square pin for $530 at Hellolights


http://www.hellolights.com/ProductImages/retrofitsystems/72in-6x96-retro_thumb.jpg


http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=406 (http://)

[TulsaReefer]

Not too much light, but I'd stay away from the PC fixtures, the cost of tubes for them are pretty high in the end, and T5's are much easier to get good light from as they can build very efficient reflectors for them. Also the options in T5 tubes are really great if you want to tune your blue/white balance.

I'd go with either a 4 tube or 6 tube 36" retro kits and mount them in your hood. If you are only replacing a pair of VHO tubes, two pairs of 36" (running end to end) T5 using the IceCap reflectors and you'll have as much, if not more light than your old VHOs. If you want more light, you can get the 6 or 8 tube retro, and have two groups of 3 or 4 tubes, which will be a good amount of light, and even at 8 tubes only using around 400 watts of power. You can get the regular output kits, since if you were used to VHOs the regular T5s will easily replace them. The reflectors are about 2.5 inches wide, so you can fit three in 7.5 inches or 4 in 10". An 8x39watt T5 retro from reefgeek is $569 and that includes bulbs.

Softies can handle quite a lot of light, if you acclimate them slowly to it. I have leathers that are stretching toward the surface under overdriven T5 lights that have a PAR reading at that level of >500, which is pretty high. They love it, but they were acclimated to them slowly using a couple layers of window screen where I removed a layer every week or two. Now they are very happy with the same light I have for my SPS colonies. But be careful, if you run this much light you'll be fragging your colonies all the time as they will grow like weeds...