Lighting

[Joeyt66]

Lights
Just wondering if they would work for corals . they are 250 watt and quite cheap


Heres another link with a bit more information Lights2

 

[superman]

Things like PAR and color temperatur (measured in Kelvin) would be much to low, there are specific requirements for reef lighting, generally speaking you need to try and mimmic the sun in as many ways as possible. The Kelvin rating of the sun is around 6,000k, the light you linked to is proabably in the neighborhood of 3,000k. Par in the 80+ is ok for reef lighting, the light you linked to proabably has PAR in the high 60s-70s.

 

[Joeyt66]

sorry i should have made this a little more clear. I was wondering if just the light fixture was good and i could by the bulbs at an aquarium store with the right kelvin rating. Do you think the fixtures are ok to run over top of a tank. Mine has a glass top. Can you buy 78 mm bulbs for the aquarium?

I have my tank in built in the wall and a room on the back side for access so looks don't matter. Any other cheaper ways for the lighting?

 

[superman]

In most cases the bulb type is different. Though you can get different sockets to put in the housings, you'll have to do a lot of homework to find out what fixutres will accomodate that type of bulbs you want to use. I have seen cases where people have done it, I guess I never payed much attention to what brands they used and what types of bulbs they used since I didn't really find it worth the time to do the "tweaking" needed. Good luck on finding an answer.

 

[Aquascaper]

Take care with the type of ballast that the halogen uses. If it's a mercury ballast it will produce a lot of UV radiation and will fry corals.
I remeber someone else asking this and I think the gerenral thinking was it wouldn't work.........if it did we'd all be doing it wouldn't we

 

[superman]

Take care with the type of ballast that the halogen uses. If it's a mercury ballast it will produce a lot of UV radiation and will fry corals.
I remeber someone else asking this and I think the gerenral thinking was it wouldn't work.........if it did we'd all be doing it wouldn't we

The ballast has no bearing on the UV output of the bulb (maybe on some small level depending on what wattage it is pushing the bulb at) Do you mean mercury vapor bulbs? I am unaware of mercury ballasts. Halogen is halogen, But the different ratings of the bulbs is what you have to pay attention to. Magnetic or Electric are types of the ballasts that I am commonly aware of and are availabel almost anywhere that carries lighting.