lighting for a 135 gallon reef tank?
I have a 135 gallon saltwater tank, and I wanted to convert it to a reef tank, but the lighting is really expensive. The manager at a local pet store said I need 7-10 watts for every gallon of water in my tank, but I keep seeing fluorescent lights with like 200 watts saying they are appropriate for reef tanks. The only lights I could find with even close to 7-10 watts per gallon are very expensive metal halides, which I am worried about because I have heard of them starting fires, and overheating tanks, plus, I don’t like the way their light looks(I think its too blue). I’ve been shopping around, and the only reasonably priced lighting I could find was a VHO fluorescent fixture that’s on sale at DFS for about $200, but it can only handle 2 160 watt bulbs, which isn’t even close to 7 watts per gallon. Would this be enough, or is there anything else I should do? Thanks for your ideas.
the most important thing u need to ask yourself is what kind of corals are you getting.
Soft corals are fine under PC lighting.
MH is one of the best, i dont count LED out but they are a few thousands of dollars. MH will get very hot so you will need to get a chiller to keep the water temperature in the correct range.
with MH you can keep SPS corals, and everything but is it worth it to you.
So what you have to ask yourself is what type of corals do you want to keep.
1000 watt Metal Halide bulb Start-up
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