Too much light? Such thing?

[bonsai411]

I am considering a big time upgrade to my lighting system. I have a 90 gal, 48”L X 19” W X 24”H.

I am custom building a hood for this tank to include 2x250 watts MH (10,000 K), 1x110 watt VHO (true actinic blue), and 2x55 watts of PCFs (10,000k Ice White)= 720 watts (8 watts per gal).

Therefore, is the above too much light? Is there such thing as too much light? I want the flexiblity to add anything in the tank in the future (including SPS corals and clams).

Thanks!

Mike

 

[wayne]

Yes and no. It is possible to have so much light that you can shock a lot of corals you can buy, but what you list there isn't excessive. If you want to keep acropora or other shallow water/reef crest corals it might even be considered low average. Remember high light corals are usually also demanding of high water flow rates.
I would recommend you to research carefully what you want to put in the tank. If you put in a load of say euphyllia later you're going to have to pull them out later if you want in other stuff. Research, and don't mix enviroments too much

 

[dbacksrat]

u might get algae coming out your wazoo--as wayne was saying, some corals dont do best in intense lighting....also some fish might hide for good

 

[allthingsanimal]

My friend has a 30 gallon with 12.8 watts per gallon. He does not have a big problem with algae, and his sps is kicking like never before. Just make sure you dont throw the light on all at once you can risk the bleaching of your corals.

 

[gbolton]

As long as you maintain the nutrient lvels in the tank you wil not have an excesive alea growth. you will have to clean the glass a little more often but other than that you should be ok. If you do need to introduce a coral that is not use to the light i.e. kept in poor holding conditions at the LFS you can use egg crate as a diffuser and slowly remove peices over the course of a few days until the coral becomes accustom to the new light.

As for to much light if you construct the reef properly you will have areas that are high light and low light. In reality though it is near impossible to generate more light than the sun puts out in nature.