Integral9

55G Display - Reef 25G sump 30G Display - Reef 3G sump 9G Display - Soon to be Mantis home (gotta catch him out of my 55 first)

Potomac Falls, VA. Finally succumbed to the pressure and joined WAMAS.

Along with making sure you have a fan to cool the bulbs a bit, You need to determine the focal point within the parabola of the reflectors and place the center of the bulb there (or as close to it as you can get) to achieve maximum results. All you need to determine this is the width and height of the reflectors. If they are not a perfect curve, don't worry, you can assume a perfect parabola and still achieve similar results. My Tek II reflectors (not perfect parabolas) which are 2 1/4 " wide and tall, I believe had a focal length of 1.75" which meant I had to raise up the reflectors a 1/2" to get the focal point near the center of the bulb. My end caps had raised the bulb up too far. You can find the formula for determining this on Wikipedia. I can't remember off the top of my head. Just upgraded from PCs to T5,s whoa what a difference. Added my first SPS a couple weeks ago and so far everything looks good. Tortusa even kept it's tri color. :-)

Get a 12v DC to 120AC adapter for you cig lighter plug and plug in powerhead and heater for your fish and corals. You may need to use two of them depending on how much current your power heads and heater draw. Check the power adapter for the max current (Amps) ratings. Put plastic bags under corals to prevent them from moving too much, like you're shipping them. Seperate them from the fish. Pack the fish and corals in individual large black plastic tub with lids. locate a few fish stores on your way there and plan on doing a water change en-route.