lighting a 10 gallon
- Thread starter TRe
- Start date
Yeah you can do the zenia in your ten without a doubt. I have a small one in my tank that is growing like crazy.
BTW if you get that light (Odyssea) for your 55 dont bother with getting the moon lights with it, they suck. They only project a beam straight down into the tank, no real coverage to speek of.
BTW if you get that light (Odyssea) for your 55 dont bother with getting the moon lights with it, they suck. They only project a beam straight down into the tank, no real coverage to speek of.
I really advise anyone who's going to buy the aquatraders stuff to do some legwork and research this company before you slap down your money. There are reviews on reefcentral.com plus other places. I would be 'ok' with their pc setups (tho' expect no custmer servie) but would not touch the mh with a bargepole as I don't want my house to catch fire.
As far as lighting these tanks goes, I would bear in mind that 5 times volume just does not work in such small spaces. It is not even a very good rule for anything. Either the light intensity is enough , or it isn't. So you might need the same lighting for a 10 as for a 20, as frankly the dimension in any direction (except depth, distance form the bulb) is NOT going to make much of a difference to the overall light output versus the bulb strengh. Having said that the shallow water depth can really work in your favour here - I ran a 20 as a frag tank with about 50 watts of T5 with gullwings, and had crazy growth in SPS just as I kept the water 8 inches deep.
If you have a deep tank,then you will need stronger lighting than for a shallow tank. You should be able to work out how much more by knowing that light intensity decreases as the square of depth.
Another way to keep your lighting wattage down is to have really clear water, which effectively means carbon 100% of the time. That's also a good idea anyway as it will help remove some of the alleopathic compounds, as well as general gelvin (organic water yellowing compounds in german). If you don't know what alleopathy is, I advise you to google it.
As far as lighting these tanks goes, I would bear in mind that 5 times volume just does not work in such small spaces. It is not even a very good rule for anything. Either the light intensity is enough , or it isn't. So you might need the same lighting for a 10 as for a 20, as frankly the dimension in any direction (except depth, distance form the bulb) is NOT going to make much of a difference to the overall light output versus the bulb strengh. Having said that the shallow water depth can really work in your favour here - I ran a 20 as a frag tank with about 50 watts of T5 with gullwings, and had crazy growth in SPS just as I kept the water 8 inches deep.
If you have a deep tank,then you will need stronger lighting than for a shallow tank. You should be able to work out how much more by knowing that light intensity decreases as the square of depth.
Another way to keep your lighting wattage down is to have really clear water, which effectively means carbon 100% of the time. That's also a good idea anyway as it will help remove some of the alleopathic compounds, as well as general gelvin (organic water yellowing compounds in german). If you don't know what alleopathy is, I advise you to google it.
I have a 10 gallon tank that I ran for a couple of years that had about 80 watts of ODNO lighting (OverDrive Normal Output) Flourescent lighting. I did FW plants and they grew like mad. If you're not afraid to do a little of your own wiring, then you can get about 80 watts for the price of 3 four-foor shop lights and three 18-inch bulbs. Bingo! Lotsa light! Cost: 3x(8+6)=$42
They're really not difficult to find - www.reefcentral.com, vendor experiences forum. I'm surprised you haven't seen this.
Overdriven NO is actually quite a decent option but I have two provisos. One is that you need an electronic ballast , which shouldn't be a problem - if you use a magnetic one (old style) simply nothing will happen. A slightly more tiresome problem is that you will go thro bulbs quite quickly - overdriving is a bit harder on bulb use/aging than not doing so, and the fluorescent tubes used over salt age somewhat faster than those used over fresh, especially the high K factors like 18K, 20K and actinics. So expect to change your bulbs at least every 6 months. Now if you shoehorn in 4 tubes over a 10 or 20 you'll get great light, but it will be a mess of wiring in the hood, and you'll be changing a bunch of bulbs very often, so the long term costs run up. This is one of the reasons I prefer MH to fluorescents - I don't like changing bulbs (ecologically tough to dispose of).
Also you have to make sure that you don't change them all at the same time as that will likely lightshock your livestock. Also I would advise running carbon fulltime to get max value for your lumens output
Overdriven NO is actually quite a decent option but I have two provisos. One is that you need an electronic ballast , which shouldn't be a problem - if you use a magnetic one (old style) simply nothing will happen. A slightly more tiresome problem is that you will go thro bulbs quite quickly - overdriving is a bit harder on bulb use/aging than not doing so, and the fluorescent tubes used over salt age somewhat faster than those used over fresh, especially the high K factors like 18K, 20K and actinics. So expect to change your bulbs at least every 6 months. Now if you shoehorn in 4 tubes over a 10 or 20 you'll get great light, but it will be a mess of wiring in the hood, and you'll be changing a bunch of bulbs very often, so the long term costs run up. This is one of the reasons I prefer MH to fluorescents - I don't like changing bulbs (ecologically tough to dispose of).
Also you have to make sure that you don't change them all at the same time as that will likely lightshock your livestock. Also I would advise running carbon fulltime to get max value for your lumens output
Well typically I tend to modify my lights to fit my needs anyway after I get them so the warranty is null and void for me so I wasnt worried about that or customer service from Aquatraders, I only bought it basically for the housing and some of the wiring components. I changed my ballasts and bulbs, added another power cord and switch, and changed the fans to higher output ones for better cooling of the unit. The next thing I'm going to do to it is build me some electronic timers into the unit.
Brak I'm curious what the main component on those Oddysea that needs to be changed is. I would love that 20" MH PC combo and wouldnt mind changing the Ballast, but if to make it safe I need to revamp the whole thing it might not be worth it. Sorry for HiJacking this thread but I would love to know what to do
Thanks...joshua
Thanks...joshua
What the ballast should be depends on wht bulb you decide to go with. It's patently obvious no-one on here ever looks at any of the posted links for information, but as ever if you use google to look for Sanjay Yoshis webpages you will find LOTS of spectral output graphs from the various bulb/ballast combos. If you want optimal lighting this is absolutely indispensible info.
If you're going to do that much work to one of these things surely it makes more sense to build a hood from scratch. that way you can get an optimal combo of bulb and ballast, and you can fit a better reflector than that fixed in those units, which really is a compromise.
Joshua - the main component that needs to be worked in the MH units is the construction. In some of the reviews people have disassembled these units and looked at the actual quality of contruction - it is , at best, variable.
These things only look cheap if you want lots of gizmos. If all you want is a stock MH light, no actinics, digital timers et al. then a basic box from AquaMedic is a decent option, there are plenty of others.
If you're going to do that much work to one of these things surely it makes more sense to build a hood from scratch. that way you can get an optimal combo of bulb and ballast, and you can fit a better reflector than that fixed in those units, which really is a compromise.
Joshua - the main component that needs to be worked in the MH units is the construction. In some of the reviews people have disassembled these units and looked at the actual quality of contruction - it is , at best, variable.
These things only look cheap if you want lots of gizmos. If all you want is a stock MH light, no actinics, digital timers et al. then a basic box from AquaMedic is a decent option, there are plenty of others.
Wayne thanks for the response, My brother is a master electriction so I feel pretty safe getting the MH/actinic combo since its mainly the assembly thats the issue. I actually really like this unit http://www.aquatraders.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=276&HS=1 but have read so many bad reviews on these (w/o any specific reasons as to why they were so bad) that I was very torn between the good deal and negative reports out there. I wish when people have issues with products they would be specific in the particular problem.
Thank you
Joshua
Thank you
Joshua
Where have you looked at reviews?- the ones on ebay are hopeless but the ones on Reefcentral are pretty detailed, and even include photos of bad wiring et al.
If your brother is a master electrician then I would really advise building your own from pieces as you will get a far superior light for less money. The only faff is making a hood, which is not that tricky.
Bear in mind that if your brother says this sucks, it will burn the house down you will need to return it, and that seems to cause a lot of issues. Elsewise are you going to rewire the whole unit ?- ridiculous.
Also note that running actinics so closely to the MH bulb will cause the PC bulbs to run a bit hotter than is optimal (less output, short lifespan)
It's up to you - they are VERY cheap, but they are very nonoptmial. I'm amazed MH seems a very expensive option in the US
If your brother is a master electrician then I would really advise building your own from pieces as you will get a far superior light for less money. The only faff is making a hood, which is not that tricky.
Bear in mind that if your brother says this sucks, it will burn the house down you will need to return it, and that seems to cause a lot of issues. Elsewise are you going to rewire the whole unit ?- ridiculous.
Also note that running actinics so closely to the MH bulb will cause the PC bulbs to run a bit hotter than is optimal (less output, short lifespan)
It's up to you - they are VERY cheap, but they are very nonoptmial. I'm amazed MH seems a very expensive option in the US