250w Halide

[fish_master]

Ok so is a 250W metal halide to much light for a 3 foot 100 litre tank? i want to go full reef adventualy so i am buying it in advince for when i need hi light levels
thanks clay

 

[SkiFletch]

Other than 3' long what are the other dimensions of the tank and are there any center braces on the top? 3' tanks can be a little tricky to light depnding on their dimensions.

 

[fish_master]

erhhhh im not fully sure on other dimensions but its about a foot and half high and yes it has a center brass

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, the center brace makes using a single halide over the center of the tank difficult. you'll have a VERY noticeable shadow if you try it. Your options are to either replace the brace with glass or acrylic and use a single 250 watt halide, or use dual 150s

 

[fish_master]

the brace is glass so thats nice and easy i was told somewhere else that i could probably use 2 on each side and even the light out abit?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah well on my 65g tank (36x18x24") I use 2 175watt electronic metal halides to light it. Its pretty high when you consider light, but works very well for me.

 

[Musho3210]

thats not that much light ski, you can put that much light in a smaller tank and it will still be 175 watts no matter what. If you put corals 15" below the light in a 1000000000 gallon tank it will be the same if you put the corals 15" below the light in a 20 gallon tank.

 

[SkiFletch]

True, I'm more alluding to the fact that I have lights suitable for a 4' tank over a 3' tank creating a pretty high-ligt area in the middle due to the overlap

 

[Musho3210]

ah i see. Well im sure sps wouldnt mind that....

 

[fish_master]

ok i got the details of my tank now its 15H x 36L x 12W so its only 15 inches to the bottom is this still sutibal?

 

[Matthew5664]

Thats what I had on mine was fine. the evap went up a bit but apart from that the corals loved it.

Moved over to two what the tank got bigger.