Fluval Roma 200 Aquarium

[BigC]

If your only going with softies or a few LPS that don't require intense lighting then depending on your water depth I would initially go with a marine based multi tube over tank luminaire. If you feel that you will want to keep SPS at some point then don't waste money on the aforementioned and go for a full on Halide unit from the start. (I understand that money will play a part in your decision though)
I personally use Interpet T5 power compacts but they do get hot.
ATB

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

Soft corals need light, you could keep softies under 2 t8's of marine spectrum(i did for a short while) but you would be much better off and so would your soft corals(health/growth/colour) with a 4xt5 fixture,I use an arcadia one and am very happy with it, these are fine for soft and LPS corals.If you want SPS MH is the way to go although there are many who keep them under multiple t5s although growth and colour are said to not be so good.

To say most soft corals are filter feeders and don't care about light in my oppinion is rather bad advice They all contain zooanthellae which need light!!! As for feeding it is my understanding that all corals feed to some extent, the fact that corals feed doesn't mean they don't need light and vise versa.

Johnny

 

[dumla]

I have a roma 125 tank and brought a arcadia t5 overtank luminaire and completly done away with the lid. I had to make some perspex brackets though in order to overcome the angled canopy


BEFORE:

AFTER:

 

[Ed Green]

If your only going with softies or a few LPS that don't require intense lighting then depending on your water depth I would initially go with a marine based multi tube over tank luminaire. If you feel that you will want to keep SPS at some point then don't waste money on the aforementioned and go for a full on Halide unit from the start. (I understand that money will play a part in your decision though)
I personally use Interpet T5 power compacts but they do get hot.
ATB

Thanks BigC. What would the price difference be (electricity bill wise) between running a T5 luminaire with say two tubes and just not getting any SPS compared with a MH unit? Is one considerably more costly?

Your tank build diary on here has been an amazing read btw and what a tank - inspired me and scared me off in equal measures depending on the page!

 

[Ed Green]

Soft corals need light, you could keep softies under 2 t8's of marine spectrum(i did for a short while) but you would be much better off and so would your soft corals(health/growth/colour) with a 4xt5 fixture,I use an arcadia one and am very happy with it, these are fine for soft and LPS corals.If you want SPS MH is the way to go although there are many who keep them under multiple t5s although growth and colour are said to not be so good.

To say most soft corals are filter feeders and don't care about light in my oppinion is rather bad advice They all contain zooanthellae which need light!!! As for feeding it is my understanding that all corals feed to some extent, the fact that corals feed doesn't mean they don't need light and vise versa.

Johnny

Forgive me for the dumb question but if i went for the MH option how many tubes would be required for a 200L tank? thanks for your input

I have a roma 125 tank and brought a arcadia t5 overtank luminaire and completly done away with the lid. I had to make some perspex brackets though in order to overcome the angled canopy


BEFORE:

AFTER:

Those pictures are really really helpful - thanks. how much of an issue was it getting those perspex brackets made and how much did the luminaire set you back?

Thanks a lot!

 

[johnnyjtaylor]

I'm not sure how long the tank is. Maybe 2 150w MH over the tank would be good for sps. You may get away with one but you may still want actinic(blue) T5 tubes with it.

If you didn't bother with sps a 4 tube T5 as pictured by someone a few posts up would be ideal and cheaper to run. That would be fine for soft and LPS corals

 

[dumla]

I managed to get the luminaire from ebay for £80, the brackets wasn't much of an issue, £7 -£8 spent on the perspex and a couple of hours shaping/glueing. Have you thought about using the luminaire as a pendant hanging from the ceiling or from wall brackets?

 

[rabbut]

Lighting has never been something I was great with ( at the moment I have 2 planted nano's which I have some arc pods on. I had assumed that T5 was more powerful than Halide. So going from what you said I want a halide, how many tubes would a 200 ltr tank need? And are you saying that arcadia make rubbish halide hoods?

On a Roma 200, it's 3ft of length. It's right on the border of where you need two lamps. I'd likely push out for two halides myself, but you'd push along worth one and some more inventive scaping and coral placement...

I will look around - other than ebay is there anywhere you would recommend for finding a cheep second hand halide hood unit?

The Aquarist Classifieds listings are a good place to start along with the Buy Sell and Swap sections of any good forum

You asked about running costs of a 4 T5 unit compared to a Halide. I'll assume you go for one Halide and two T5 Actinics if you go that route, or just 4 T5's with the T5 route... I'll also assume 10p a killowatt hour for the electricity bill, and an 8 hour photo period I'll also assume you use the most efficient brand of ballasts available.

3ft T5 lamps burn 39 watts each. so a total use of power by the tubes will be 156W. Electronic ballasts waste about 5-15% of the lamps power, depending on brand, so a total consumption of 163.8W

So, 4 T5's on our above assumptions will use £0.13 a day

1 150W halide plus two 39W T5 Actinics will use a total before ballast waste of 228W. Again, electronic ballasts waste 5-15% of the lamps power on Halides, so that gives a total of 239.4W

So, a 150W halide with two T5 Actinics will use £0.19 a day

That's a 6p difference in daily running costs. Of course, sacrifice the Actinics and your Halide option uses less power...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[SkiFletch]

How tall is a Fluval Roma 200?

 

[rabbut]

From memory, about 18" max, not overly deep

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, IMO on an 18" deep tank you could get away with softies and 4 T8 lamps, maybe even a few hard corals. Two just won't be enough. If you started adding some T5's there, each with individual reflectors, you could keep some good hard corals too.

 

[welshlamb10]

I managed to get the luminaire from ebay for £80, the brackets wasn't much of an issue, £7 -£8 spent on the perspex and a couple of hours shaping/glueing. Have you thought about using the luminaire as a pendant hanging from the ceiling or from wall brackets?

 
Hi dumla,
 
Great job on the tank. I've go the same dilemma with my 240l Fluval Roma. Could you help me out? Where did you get the perplex? Also how did you get it to the right shape, size and how did you put it all together?
 
Thanks

 

[Donya]

Most of the common soft corals you will see are photosynthetic and will require at least halfway decent lighting.

 
This is very much correct. Some will accept particulate food in addition to lighting, which can be useful to grow them faster, but the lighting is far more critical. In fact, the obligate filter feeding soft corals are extremely hard to keep!
 
Also worth noting, just because you "can" keep a hard soft coral under lesser lighting doesn't mean the results will be great. Even if the animal remains healthy and grows, it will often lose any pretty colors it started with at the shop and just be sort of pinkish brown. Many people get frustrated at buying a beautiful coral only to have it look blah at home because they skimped on lighting. Certain colors just won't show up well with inferior lighting and also some pigments will actually be lost over time without the right peaks in the spectrum being present. I had a leather coral that I thought was just boring brown because I had it under mediocre lighting for years. I put it under higher end LED lighting recently and it's slowly developing iridescent greens.