[noob] Help with what lighting to get

[splix]

I'm brand new to the hobby. I've currently got a lot coming from BRS which should make for a busy weekend.

155 gallon reef and fish with live rock. I'm a bit new still and I dont have a good go to resource yet for reef 101.
I believe I have most things figured out except for lighting. I'm sure some other things depend on my question, but what type of lighting is best for reef and fish? I've been watching videos and things and everyone is all over the place with what they're setting up.
One of the best one's (I believe) I watched was a guy would have different cycles of different lights (10k, 20k) throughout the day.
What frequency do I need for best growth with coral and fish? I dont want to accidentally bleach out my corals, nor do I want to deprive them of what light they need.
My tank is 6' long by 2' wide and 2' deep.
Edit: nothing at all is setup yet, just the empty tank. I'm about to aqua scape and plumb everything this weekend.

[heathlindner25]

Great question.....following this one.

[Bent]

I'm brand new to the hobby. I've currently got a lot coming from BRS which should make for a busy weekend.

155 gallon reef and fish with live rock. I'm a bit new still and I dont have a good go to resource yet for reef 101.
I believe I have most things figured out except for lighting. I'm sure some other things depend on my question, but what type of lighting is best for reef and fish? I've been watching videos and things and everyone is all over the place with what they're setting up.
One of the best one's (I believe) I watched was a guy would have different cycles of different lights (10k, 20k) throughout the day.
What frequency do I need for best growth with coral and fish? I dont want to accidentally bleach out my corals, nor do I want to deprive them of what light they need.
My tank is 6' long by 2' wide and 2' deep.
Edit: nothing at all is setup yet, just the empty tank. I'm about to aqua scape and plumb everything this weekend.

What corals are u wanting? That will directly affect the answer.

[Reef Frog]

That's a wide open question. What kind of reef will you be keeping and what is your budget? Fish don't care about lighting. Stoney corals are the most demanding. Have you settled on a technology yet?

If going LED, I would stick to the latest generation models of the top brands personally. You'll have an almost unlimited choice of color temperatures and intensity settings. But it won't be inexpensive and you'll probably need 3 fixtures on your 6 foot tank. Many of these new generation fixtures have controllers with different lighting profiles built in for different situations. This extreme level of flexibility is fantastic can work against some folks. It's easy to deliver too much or not enough light, and some just fiddle with them too much. Especially for someone new to the hobby that is unfamiliar with the needs of individual coral species.

T5 is a solid time tested option but in most cases you don't have control of intensity except by changing fixture height and your color temperature is set by the bulbs you purchase. Same with metal halide.

For me, the ultimate choice is a hybrid system with T5 & LED fixtures like the new Ecotec Radions 3Gen. Good luck and enjoy the adventure.

[NS Mike D]

That's a wide open question. What kind of reef will you be keeping and what is your budget? Fish don't care about lighting. Stoney corals are the most demanding. Have you settled on a technology yet?

If going LED, I would stick to the latest generation models of the top brands personally. You'll have an almost unlimited choice of color temperatures and intensity settings. But it won't be inexpensive and you'll probably need 3 fixtures on your 6 foot tank. Many of these new generation fixtures have controllers with different lighting profiles built in for different situations. This extreme level of flexibility is fantastic can work against some folks. It's easy to deliver too much or not enough light, and some just fiddle with them too much. Especially for someone new to the hobby that is unfamiliar with the needs of individual coral species.

T5 is a solid time tested option but in most cases you don't have control of intensity except by changing fixture height and your color temperature is set by the bulbs you purchase. Same with metal halide.

For me, the ultimate choice is a hybrid system with T5 & LED fixtures like the new Ecotec Radions 3Gen. Good luck and enjoy the adventure.

as a newbie with LEDs, I concur. There just isn't enough information out there with LEDs like there is with T5 and the metal halides to get it close to right the first time.

What I have read, which matches what I have experienced (I'll let the more experienced reefers confirm or deny), the actinic (blue) are what make the colors pop but are also what can burn out your corals. The white lights will encourage growth but also tend to encourage the brown hues and not the fluorescent you loved when they attracted you at the LFS. So flexibility to find the right balance is very very important. Simple on off dim without being able to control blue v whites independently not do.

If I had to do it all over again, I would go with Reef Frogs suggesting of the Hybrid T5 & LED mix.

[splix]

I'd like to go LED for the power saving if possible. It sounds like th best is still T5 and LED mixing.

Any specific fixtures out there that wont cost me $1500 to light my tank?

[Bogue Chitto]

Kessils are good.

[LuciDog]

The reason everyone is all over the place with lighting is because different corals depend on different things. And for each different fixture available (LED, T5HO, etc) there are choices beyond, to suit specifically what you put in your tank. This is what reef frog is telling you.

What exactly are you putting in your tank? SPS, LPS, Softies, mixes of any?

I'm partial to LED. I have had awesome results with LED in a mixed reef.

[splix]

haha now I'm understanding more just from this convo.

I want to go LPS corals. Can you mix LPS and SPS?

[Ron Reefman]

You can mix LPS and SPS, just don't be surprised if an LPS reaches out and stings an SPS along the way. Corals are like people, some get along just fine and some want to fight all the time.

I started with Power Compact and then t5 fluorescents, then on to MH and t5, and now I'm 100% led. Adding some t5 to leds isn't a bad idea, but it's really not necessary.

BTW, if your tank is 6' x 2' x 2' it's 180 gallons not 155. And at 6' long you can do 3 or 4 (I'd go with 4) Chinese dimmer fixtures like OceanRevive, ReefBreeders or EverGrow. They are all well made and are sponsors here at RC so they are easy to talk to and ask question. If you want to upgrade, look at the leds with built-in controllers for sunrise/midday/sunset/moonlight control. The corals and fish don't care, but it makes the tank a lot more interesting to watch.

I have a 180g mixed reef. Mostly SPS with some LPS and softies as well. I have two 32" led fixtures (OceanRevive IT2081 or ReefBreeders Photon32... almost the exact same fixture and made by EverGrow). They have run 24/7 since Dec 2012 without a single issue. The run cool, they have a wide spectrum variety and they grow corals just fine. I switched from 1000 watts on MH and 160W of t5 to these leds and after a couple of months to acclimate, my corals are growing just as good as the did before and without the heat issues or bulb replacement issues. I do a 5 hour sunrise, 3 hour midday and 6 hour sunset with the midday peak power set at 90% blue and 40% white.

This is my tank now, after I just went through and did a huge amount of fragging to keep corals from growing into each other!

http://i395.photobucket.com/albums/pp37/RonReefman/P8160104%20R3_zpslkvzpaju.jpg (http://s395.photobucket.com/user/RonReefman/media/P8160104%20R3_zpslkvzpaju.jpg.html)

[kmbyrnes]

I just started using the Chinese LED'S over my FOWLR. I have Radions on my reef.
The Radions can be overwhelming with the possibilities, but I still like them more than the Chinese boxes.
That said, the Chinese boxes can be had very cheaply and from all accounts seem to work very well for corals. As stated above, there are some sponsors here that have dedicated forums to help their customers.
I have 3 on my 6' 125. You would probably want 4 fixtures due to tank depth. I can tell you that my fish colors pop and the variability of the light spectrum is good.
I opted not to go with the controllered versions because my fish don't care, but I would go for the extra control on a reef.

[splix]

It's a bow front tank so it's not 2' all the way across. It averages around 2'. It's 18" at the sides and bows out to 2' in the middle.

Ron,
Can you go into a little more detail about the different light settings through your day? What colors and K are you running, or are those even changing? Are you just changing intensities?

[Taahirs]

I run T5HO on my tank. My tank is similar to yours. 6' x 3' x 3'

If I could afford it I'd go for radions. Probably the xr30w G3 Pro model.

[CStrickland]

I really like my black box leds. They are $80 per unit which covers a 2' square. You can manually dim them to the desired strengths separately of whites (includes red and green) and blues (incl. violet) and use a regular lamp timer ($6) at the wall plug to automatically turn them on and off. Setting the blues to run an hour longer gives a gradual effect that's nice. They are easy to install, without bulky ballasts etc.

I'm not sure there's much difference between decent lights as far as growing coral, but there is a big diff in how your tank looks. Some people like the really blue look, but I prefer a sunny yellowish style so to me fish and coral look nicest under mh lights. Yellows fish especially can wash out under leds, but the blacklight-effect on their blue parts is very cool. My firefish have electric racing stripes under the blue leds :)
If there's any way you can see the choices in action, like at a lfs or frag swap, you might find you really prefer the look of one type of light.

[Reef Frog]

If a reefer wants to go T5/LED hybrid, you can buy a ready to go unit from Gliessmann or ATI (I think). The units look excellent and users seem to really like them. Like most German made products, the price is breathtaking as well.

Or better yet, you could combine fixtures from Ecotec, Kessil etc with some retrofit T5 fixtures sold by BRS and others. You'll get the more sophisticated LED controller options and the ability to control each T5 tube independently as well. This approach seems to be easiest to mount into a hood - you may need to be creative with DIY if mounting all this in the open over a rimless tank for example.