T5-MH combo set-up retrofit

[electricbluelizzy]

Hey folks -

I have a lighting idea I'd like to run past ya, and get some feedback from some other people with different perspectives. SO PLEASE! tell me what you think.

I have a 75g. tank with 2 -250W MH's. That is more than enough light IMO, for most anything I'd like to keep, which trends more toward LPS-SPS & Clams.... I'm a pretty new reefer so it figures I would try the most difficult things....

Anyway, as you can imagine, I have some heat issues with the MH's, but manageable by fans. I love the shimmer these lamps give, and I will not give them up!

I'm thinking I could give myself some breathing room on the heat issues, get a cheaper power bill, extend the life of my MH's, do a sort of dawn-dusk thing, and run t-5's for about 2 hrs at the beginning and end of my light cycle.

I was thinking of retrofitting 2 54w t-5 HO tubes into the canopy. That is probably all I really have space for. I might could fit 4 but why would i need them? One 10000-12000K (not sure which), and one actinic. It doesn't have to be pretty - in-wall setup.

Whaddya think??

[mg]

What is the purpose, just dawn dusk? If so I would do both actinic. You can run bluer halides and shut off the t5's during the day while the halides are on to save even more. Or are you looking to have an actinic T5 and then a daylight T5 so both are on to give a balanced appearance and cut beck on the MH to use more of like a noon sun situation? In this case cutting the MH time down to like 4-5 hours and using the T5's for viewing the rest of the time.

[Wiskey]

I like that idea. I also like the idea of doing one 11K and one Atinic that way the tank doesn't look really weird for 4 hours per day.

Whiseky