Lighting penetration

I have costed this all already Simmo, and i know i am in for a lot of loot, but everything good in life costs money.
 
Yip it may be alot but just ask for a quote it cost nothing.... I found that will all the added cost of DIY - wire, end caps, ballasts and so on his unit's did not come in at that much more maybe 25%... but I'm not sure on the size you looking for.

Who is gonna build your tank? How many mm and have you got a quote yet?
 
Man this tank sounds like it's gonna be awesome, your sump will probably be bigger than my system :lol:
 
Tank will be concrete with a 15mm viewing panel looking into the new lounge we are building.

Will beginn construction of the new rooms in 3 weeks, and the tank soon after.
 
Sump will be two 1000 litre flow bins. Will take a while to build this baby though, will only be able to do it on weekends.
 
nice ej.this gonna be a lekker tank.gonna love to check it out.what fish you planning on keeping?sorry a bit off topic
 
My livestock is still a bit of a secret, you guys will just have to wait.

For now, answer my bloody lighting question....:razz:
 
Personally I would go with 8 x 150W Venture 10 000K+.

Costs Lamps 8 x approx R300 equals R2400. 8 fittings @ R120 equals R960. 8 150 ballasts @ approx R300 is another R2400. Total cost R5760-00.

Ok Venture lamps may be a bit more than R300 these days.

Prices were from the last prices I obtained from my electrical wholesaler.
 
Dober man, the only help I can offer is this TOTM article on David Saxby's tank:

http://www.ultimatereef.com/TOTM/2007_jan/

The tank is 1.2m deep and has 16 T5's in 2 wattages (although the article does not mention it, I figure there are 12 x 80W T5's and 4 x 39W T5's, based purely on the tank dimensions).

Of interest in this article is this:
"To be honest we were amazed and somewhat surprised when the Metal Halides were switched off to see the T5's holding their own at 48'' deep. Colours remained vibrant and had the halides been off when we arrived, I doubt we would have noticed."

As for your question regarding the spectrum, bear in mind that although tubes with a bluer spectrum will technically penetrate deeper, blue light appears rather dull to the human eye. In other words, while the bluer spectrum will be more useful to light-loving corals at depth, it may not appear as bright as you would like for sheer viewing purposes.
 
Hill, its not the initial cost of the halides that deters me, but rather the running costs, and the heat generation. i will not be running all 20 tubes all the time, but rather have them all on only at times when i will be viewing the tank.

But above all, heat generation is the issue.

Craig, the blue light is just to give a slightly more natural hue to the white.
 
Difficult question to answer, there not too many tanks that deep to draw any conclusions from. I think the par ratings on the ATI are better than the AM and therefore would give you better penetration.
 
It will unfortunately be rather expensive to conduct my own experiments on this, i think i will just spend the cash and get the ATI's from the start.
 
Also good tubes. I'll speak to sean at NP and see what he can do on a quantity price.
 
I think The Waterboy also sold Geismann tubes at one stage, not sure if he still does.
 
I'll stick to ATI, i think NP gives better service than Julies.
 
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