90 gallon lighting

Greetings,

I am moving a 55 gallon to a 90 and am going to need more lighting. I was thinking about 2 250 watt MH pendants. Is this enough for most corals and possibly a clam? Two 400 watt pendants seems like over kill and there is not much in between. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

 

i would think thats plenty of light for corals and clams. ive got 6x54 t5's and my corals and clam are doin very well.

 

yeah you should be fine with that. I would think so anyway.

 

That is fine. You will do well with the combo. The 90g has the brace in the middle so one on each side will suffice. I run an 8x54W Tek over my 90g.

 

2 250s would work great, but you will most likely want some sort of supplemental blue/actinic T5 not only to offset the white MH lamps but to create a dawn/dusk mode...

You could do two 14,000k/20,000k MH but then you still run into the dawn/dusk thing.
2MH with 2 actinic T5 or blue+ lamps would be great for just about anything under the sun, well ocean...

Conversly you could go with as little as 6 54w T5s or do as John does and do 8. On a 90 I can tell you with pretty good certainty that 6 would cut it, but the 8 offers you the ability to add a couple actinics or blues without fear of losing too much intensity.

Good luck!

 

on my 90 i have two 250w mh's phoenix 14k's supplemented with 2 96 cf's for my dawn/dusk effect as dr fragenstein had mentioned.

My tank is sps dominated. with some lps. and currently have 2 clams. All corals and clams are doing great. You will be able to keep all corals with 250 w halides on your 90.

Your gonna wanna place your corals appropriately according to lighting demands. For example i keep all sps starting at midlevel and up in my tank. And i keep all lps lower portion. And they all do well. My lights are 8 inches from water surface.

Hope this helps you out.

Are you stuck on getting pendants? What about fixtures? or even canopy with retrofits?

 

(2) 250w MH and (2) 96w PC here too and life is good;D


Luna