Hello (long post),

I have 2 150 watt metal halides and 2 36 watt power compacts and 2 normal fluorescents (1 actinic and 1 daylight bulb).

My question is two part, first when the 2 fluorescents are on the tank looks very nice white / bluish.  However once I turn on the MH/PC combination the tank go's very bright however quite yellow.  Is this due to a need of replacement bulbs?  What bulbs should I get?

Right now I don't have any coral just around 180#'s of live rock on a 4" sand bed.  I would like corals however have somewhat limited myself by adding non-reef fish.  At this point I would just like to get the lighting right so my rock will take off growing and convince me to add pretty stuff not mean stuff.

Tank specs are:

90Gallon, Sump (micron sock), Protein Skimmer, Magnum 350 canister with micron filter.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and I appreciate any and all suggestions to my setup.

Dan

Dan,

I'm no lighting expert!  The first thing I would say is there may be nothing wrong with your lights..... a lot of it is personal preference.  But to me, this is good lighting, but I would add another pair of compacts if possible.  Even if you have to remove the standard fluorescents.  Then make these two new compacts actinics.

If you can't add more compacts, then I would make the two compacts you have actinics.  You post doesn't say what spectrum they are, but I'm assuming they are whites. 

Once again, I'm no expert.

Adam

Get a halide in the higher Kelvin range.  10,000K - 12,000K - 15,000K and 20,000 K all look nice.  Usually the higher the Kelvin rating the bluer the light looks.

I too had yellow fever as people might have noticed on the tour - do you by chance also have the Iwasaki 6700k bulbs? Any bulbs from HomeDepot would create the same yellow effect or worse

I just got the Aqualine Bushke 10.000k bulbs from http://www.oceanencounter.com">www.oceanencounter.com They were on sale! These bulbs are very very white which helps my actinics to blue up the aquarium. I have also heard good things about the color of Ushio bulbs which you can get locally.

Quote: Originally posted by dmanshep on 14 October 2002

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 "At this point I would just like to get the lighting right so my rock will take off growing and convince me to add pretty stuff not mean stuff."

If you are talking about getting the coraline algae spreadding, the more actintic lighting you use the better.  It will actually spread faster if you run actintics by them self without using the halides.  The best place I have found for any type of lighting is http://www.hellolights.com">www.hellolights.com and http://www.championlighting.com">www.championlighting.com.