75 gallon dual 175 or dual 250 watt mh which one

i am ready to purchase metal halide lighting and am undecided on lighting. I need some opinions. should i go with 175 watters or 250? i like my mushrooms and frogspawn and i don't want to burn them out. also for actinics i am running two 110 vho bulbs. i am leaning towards the 175 but i may want to keep a clam on down the road and want to make sure my lighting would be adequate.

 

Your shrooms and frogspawn should be fine under the 250's. I would go with the higher wattage to leave more options open down the road.

 

+1 on this

 

i ran dual 250's on my 72 so i say go dual 250

as for type hard to say until we know if you have a canopy or not

 

if you have the means (money) i don't know why you wouldn't go big or go home. frog and shrooms should be fine but may need to be repositioned. the only real would be heat output. you don't want to close the door for anything down the road and have to buy again...

 

+1 , I run two 175w MH on a 55, which is also 4 ft and my frogspawn, shrooms and other softies seem to do well but If I could afford to go to 250 ballasts and bulbs all, I would do it. Probably spend a bit more on electricity per month though. Also, like sean said its hard to tell until we know if you have a canopy or not. If you do then the 175 w/ some fans built in will be enough IMO and save on power. If you have to hang em from the ceiling like me then i would go 250

 

it will a canapy with the bulbs maybe 6 inches off the bottom. was thinking put a fan in each end and have one pushing the other pulling out the other end. as far as the ballact goes the 250 watts ballast is maybe 5 to 10 dollars more. on foster and smith sometimes the 250 is actually cheaper. just wanted to make sure the 250s with the vhos wouldn't be overdoing it or unnecessary.

 

2x250.

no need to skimp. get pendants and do it cheap.

you wont' be overdoing it, and if you are then you can cut out the VHO's... i dont see the need for supplemental fluorescent lighting, IMO it worsens the overall quality of light.