Lighting for a 125gal tank

72 in. AquaticLife T5 HO Light Fixture - 8 T5 HO lamps and 6 Lunar LEDs was thinking about this light. want to have a few fish and tons of coral. Anyone have this light. Or is this that much better .

Aquatic Life
Six-Lamp T5 HO Light Fixtures With LED Lunar Lights

 

ehhh. thats only 2.4 watts a gallon.....doesnt sound like thats enough light for tons of corals...

 

Bumpty bump

 

im looking at some led options now. seems like that would be the way to go. think about having to replace 72" bulbs down the road..

 

The 8bulb AquaticLife seems good to me..

 

You will want a 12 bulb unit if you are going SPS dominant. If it is mixed you will want to take care in your positioning but should be fine if you use top of the line bulbs which I would suggest anyway. I would change out the stock bulbs after 3 months with ones from ATI, KZ, UVL and Geisemann.

 

Watts per gallon are pretty useless when it comes to T5HO lighting.

 

Actually I think watts per gallon is effective I'm t5ho's but not in mh, or cf

 

Well I wont need a new light for two months just started a cycle and vacation coming up. Hoping led changes fast or I may build a Led light.

 

No other way around though less in MH than CF. You need much less T5HO lighting than CF for the same effect because of the reflectors and bulb design. T5HO can penetrate to 24" to 30" depending on the quality of reflectors, ballasts and bulbs. 250W MH are reccomended to 24" deep. They also only cover lighting to 24" wide meaning you need 500W to cover a 4ft tank. Yet you only need 4 54W bulbs, 216W, for similar effectiveness. Watts per gallon were calculated originally for NO T5, T8 and T12 bulbs.

You could for simplicity sake cut the rule in half for T5HO and be reasonably accurate.