Lighting my Reef

[Wombat1672]

I have just purchased a 46.5" 4 Lamp VHO Retro Kit (w/ ARO Model 4LX ballast) to add to my 90 gallon tank that has 2 t5 54 watt ho bulbs currently(i have a 18k Ho white and a Ho super act already). I am interested in having anenomes and soft corals. What is the best 4 bulb combo

[Hop]

Go with a lower K on the t5s and then run 2 actinic and 2 dayglow on the vho. The problem with that combo is that you won;t be able to run dawn/dusk effect unless you move the t5s to actinic and run dayglows on the vho which insn't the most efficient use of the t5s.

[Wombat1672]

Can i interchange the bulbs from the t5 to the new system

[Wombat1672]

there are
50/50
75/25
daylight
super act

[Seaweed88]

I have 2 ati blueplus, 1 ati aquablue and one uvl actinicwhite. I am still playing around with them. I was going to add a uvl 454 but I am not sure what I would remove.

[Loverotties]

I like 2 days and. 2 super actinic.

[Big D]

Originally Posted by Wombat1672

Can i interchange the bulbs from the t5 to the new system

No, you can't interchange T5's with VHO's.

As far as bulb selection, I agree with Hop for the most part. I'd run your daylight bulbs off of the T5's and actinics on VHO's. Seeing as how you're looking at keeping lower light demanding corals (depending on the type nem), then you should be fine with that setup. If you step up to keeping SPS, you should really consider adding at least 2 more T5's to your mix. This would most likely mean you would have to drop to 2 VHO's.

Here's the way I would set it up:


Front of Tank

VHO Actinic
VHO Actinic
12K Actinic WhiteT5
ATI Pro Color T5
VHO Actinic
VHO Actinic






D