Lighting Suggestions

[camaroracer214]

I've poked around local forums for info, but no one has a good enough answer for me I guess.

I am upgrading to a 180 starphire, eurobraced tank and I want to go with halides. I use T5HO on my 90 and get good growth and color, but I want to tinker and play around with different options.

I wanted to know your opinions on bulb/ballast/pendant combos.

I've been looking hard at PFO ballasts with PFO HQI mini pendants, or IceCap ballasts on various pendants, and even CoralVue ballasts on various pendants. Any thoughts or experiences with lights? Thanks.

[Hop]

I'm running 400 watt PFO hqi ballasts over driving ac 20k bulbs, which makes a nice crisp 14K temp. I really like the combo, but I really only run the halides for 5 hours. I'm thinking about downgrading to PFO 250 hqi and overdriving a similar bulb so I can run them longer.

But yes, I really like the PFO ballasts.

[Wiskey]

I guess the biggest questions I have right now are:

What kind of corals do you plan on keeping?

What spectrum of light would you like to run?

I have over my 180G SPS tank 3*250W XM10K On Spyder reflectors (But if I ever get the money will have Lumenarcs) driven by ARO electronic ballasts, plus I use 3*55W PC atinics. This setup works perfect for me, but if you don't like the look of 10K's you may prefer using a higher power draw ballast to get the PAR out of the higher K bulbs.

Whiskey

[crvz]

I still say T5. BUT... I really like the phoenix 14000K bulb I've got over the sump. I like the color that gives, much more than the XM 10000K I originally had.