Lighting my tank?

Hey everyone, We're new to this hobby and wanted to know other peoples opinions on lighting? We haven't gotten our light yet and we're not really sure on what to get? We have a 75 gal, with a 25 gal sump. We are wanting to have mostly soft corals but some hard as well. Right now all we have in our tank is the live sand, live rock and our clean up crew. We are wanting to get lighting that has the three settings but also helps our tank plus we would like to have that shimmery look on our walls from the reflection of the lights. So please help if you can. Thanks for your time.

 

Welcome to 3 reef Tank stud

you have options IMO

In a tank with mostly softies you could consider a 4 lamp T5 fixture
and that would be fine with majority of soft corals and some of the harder corals in upper 3rd of the tank

a 6 lamp would be even better IMO as that would increase the scope on colour combinations you could chose from and also throw out more PAR and increase the number of hard corals you could keep in terms of lighting

you dont get the shimmer with T5
so for the shimmer effect you could look at using a LED strip in conjuction with a 4 x T5 fixture - the LEDs are focused so you get spots of light and when the water ripples thats how the shimmer is created

alternatively you could look at a 2 x 250 watt metal Halide fixture or 2 pendants
and these would give the tank the shimmer effect you want, plus provide the lighting needs for any of the hard corals you want

with the MH option - you may want to consider supplemental T5 lighting , for running actinics ( not always required, if you run higher Kelvin MH lamps - but do give the early morning/ later evening option of just running blue lamps for an hour that many including myself enjoy)


MH - will give you all you need -- disadvantages are - extra heat and costs of lamps etc

T5 with LED supplement for shimmer will also achieve your aims - its cheaper to run
but for many people MH is considered hard to better in terms of growth and colouration of hard corals

Steve

 

Well, there isn't too much of anything else to add. Steve basically covered the basics.

Once you decide which direction you want to go, 4bulb, 6bulb, or Metal Halides then let us know an we can give you our opinions on which company/fixture is the best. I think everyone here would agree that lighting is very important and thus you shouldn't cut corners when purchasing a lighting fixture and bulbs. Good luck. Oh, and welcome. Sounds like your not rushing anything, which is a good way to go. May I suggest once you have your lighting to invest in a good skimmer.

 

I have T5s one white one actinic on my 29g. I'm considering adding leds. The kind that have only 5 bulbs. Mini spot lights they look like. I'm considering getting one of these all five bulbs blue to have some type of moon lights at a relatively low cost. What does everyone think? Also, moonlight-these do run all night correct? Dusk to dawn.