350gal light ideas?????

i am going to be setting up a 350 gal tank that is 96"L-36"w-25"T i have 4 icecap 660ballasts and 3 175wMH's i was thinking of 4t-5s in the front that would have 2 actintics and 2 white bulbs then 3 175w mh"s in the middle and then 4 more t-5s in the back or i could run 8t-5s in the front, 3 MH's in the middle and 8t-5s in the rear. what do you guys think and what do you guys use for vho reflectors? all i can seem to find is t-5 reflectors. is that what i should use? is vho better than t-5? i know im asking alot of questions but i want to do it right the first time.

 

would it be bad to run a 175mh, a 250, a 175, a 250, and a 175 length wise in the middle of the canopy and 4 110w VHO's in the front and 4 110w VHO's in the rear. thats what im kinda thinking because not all of my corals need tons of light

 

plus if it does get to hot i have an ac vent right above it that i could have it blow on it to keep it cool

 

What type of corals are you going to keep?

 

pretty much all kinds

 

I would go with 250's or maybe a combination 175's.. The 250 or 400 w would be good above your SPS corals. 175 is more than enough for areas where you may have softies or chalice on the bottoms. Each light will cover about a 2X2 area in the tank. I don't really like the watts per gallon formulas. I have 2 X 250w in my 180 gallon (72" long ) tank. Most people will say it should have 3 for that length but it really depends on how your rocks and corals are going to be placed. It works great for me although I wish the two lights were a bout 6" further apart. If I had rockwork going the full length of the tank I would go with the 3 light deal. For 96" I would get 4 lights most likely. Also the 250W is too much light for some of my corals.. I'm having a hard time finding good spots for my low light corals... chalice shrooms, ricordea.

 

4 250's would fix it up pretty well. Could also add some T5's on top of that.

 

Exactly what I was thinking. 4x54W T5 48" actinics is the minimum I would run (in addition to the MH).

 

Questions?
What type of braces are on top of the tank and how many are there? Is the tank acrylic or glass? Is the bracing plastic, acrylic or glass? I say this because you don't want to melt or crack a plastic brace or acrylic top with MH's if they are placed close to the top of the tank.

Is your reef going to be the whole length of your tank? You really only need MH's where it's needed.

How deep is your actual reef going to be? Your lights should shine on the reef. If you are going to have a 6" to 12" open front you may give that consideration. I don't have any MH's in my 72x24x29 210 gal with 6" of open front, I use 8 T5's and it works fine for me as I'm not big on SPS corals.

Your tank is an awesome size! Good luck!

 

the tank is 25" tall and i guess i wont have alot of SPS's in the tank just a few. the tank is 36" wide so im thinking like on yours marlinman about going with the 8 VHO's and just the 3 175w MH since i already have all of those. no need to through in any more money than what i have to since seeing is on how much everything is going to cost me. i picked up my tank today and i about died when i saw how big it was. i will get some pics soon. by the way the tank is acrylic and it has two openings and the lights will be about awww maybe 7-12 inches above the tank