Lights for a 6 gal hex?

[GordoB]

We're trying to set up a 6 gal hex tank here at the office to be a reef tank, but the light that is in the existing hood is only a regular 12" fluorescent. My question is, does anyone have or no of a light that we could retrofit for cheap or is there a pc light that we could put on top of the tank? The tank is 11" tall, 16" long, and 9" from front to back. There are angled panels on the front, to make it a hexagon. How much light would we need to house SPS? Should we scratch that idea and go with softies and leathers only for this tank? It's an acrylic tank. The useable space within the hood for the light is 2.75" x 13.75".

Thanks,
Brad

[Jessezm]

Could you go without a hood and put a clip on 70watt hqi (they also make a 150Watt) on there? if you pack any lights strong enough for photosynthetic corals in a hood like that you are probably going to battle heat and evaporation issues with a tank that small. Here are some unsolicited thoughts:

Personally, I'm not sure about nano that small at the office with SPS. Here are a few primary questions/concerns: Will someone be there EVERY day? If you aren't in on the weekends there are a few potential problems. first, does the office run the AC after hours? mine doesn't, which is one of the reasons I opted out... Also, with such a small volume of water, evaporation can alter salinity very quickly. If you don't have an auto topoff, this might be a problem with SPS corals (or any corals/fish...). If you do have one--a highly recommended practice for such small tanks--better make sure it can't overflow while you're not there! Finally, in general it is very hard to maintain consistent enough water chemistry to keep many SPS happy in a tank that small (though it can certainly be done--I know from experience!)

I'm not trying to shoot down your idea at all; to the contrary, I think it would be great if you can do it successfully! I just wanted to give you some food for thought based on my own experiences so you can hopefully avoid those issues. Good luck!
--Jesse

[GordoB]

That's great info!!! Thanks Jesse! I think we'll scratch the SPS idea. They don't run the AC on weekends, but we're in the basement of a large building, and it stays pretty cool in here. I would definitely not be opposed to getting rid of the hood, but how much do those lights run? If I'm not keeping SPS, PCs should be o.k., shouldn't they? I've thought about the auto top-off, but haven't figured out the solution yet. With softies and such, and if we don't run halides, should I really have to worry about evaporation that much? I'd like to possibly keep an LPS or two, but if I can't, that's not a problem.

Thanks again.

[Jessezm]

I would start out with mushrooms, zooanthids, and xenia, and see how they all do before adding any LPS. I actually had a harder time with LPS in my tank than I did with SPS, but I think that was becuase the lighting was too intense (70watt hqi + 2X32watt PC). You can actually have a very beautiful tank with just variations of those corals I mentioned. I would pack as much live rock as you can in there without giving up aesthetics so you get good bio filtration, too. What are you planning to use for filtration/water movement, by the way?

As for the lighting, those halides are not too cheap, and I would definitely go with a PC light of some kind. Does the tank have two opposing sides with a 16" stretch between them (It sounds like a pentagon, not a hex, from your description...)? If so, you could go with an open top and get a sattelite fixture or something similar. I have a 2X40W sattelite over my ten gallon that I just set up, and I love it. The legs move in and out so something like that would work. But there is also a coralife 1x32watt pc fixture that would be cheaper, and I think they have legs for those, too, so you could mount it on the open top.

[Jessezm]

Check this out, for example:
http://cgi.ebay.com/16-inch-power-co...QQcmdZViewItem

(They also have a 1X32Watt version--I would look for something like this made by a company other than Catalina, however...)

[GordoB]

I'm planning on running my extra Prizm skimmer on it, and maybe one powerhead. I think we'll probably go with the PC lights. Does anyone have any used? It does have the opposing sides with the 16" stretch, but it has 6 sides, so that would make it a hexagon. It's pretty old, I think.

[Jessezm]

Oh, you're right! I was thinking of an equalateral hex, which didn't make sense... So the 16" lenth makes it a perfect candidate for a one or two bulb fixture with 28w or 32w bulbs. Make sure to measure the length of the two sides to make sure the two legs on each side of the light wont be too far apart for both to sit on the rim of the tank. They are probably going to be wider apart than the fixture itself...