4.9 watts VS 3.7 watts per gallon

[sen5241b]

I'm looking at a lighting upgrade for my Biocube 29 from nano tuners. They have a 108 watt and a 144 watt upgrade. What does 4.9 watts per gallon give me that 3.7 per G doesn't? Anemones? What corals need more than 3.7 watts per G?

 

BTW, they also have a 150 watt HQI upgrade for close to $600 but out of range until I check my mega-million ticket.

 

108 watt

 

144 watt

 

150 watt HQI

[jason the filter freak]

Watts per gallon is not a good measure of lighting... PAR is what you want to look at increasing

[Brian Ward]

I have the 144 upgrade on mine. Personally, if you're going to go to all the trouble to upgrade the hood, I would go with the 144. You will definitely see an overall increase in light in the tank. It will be very bright by comparison to what you have right now - actually double because you're adding 2 CF bulbs. I don't think you'll be able to do any difficult SPS, but you'll probaly see a better response from your LPS. You can probably do an anemone and maybe some monti caps or digitata, but not sure on what the colors for the SPS will be like. If I were going with an HQI solution, I would take the top off completely and use a pendant or clip-on.

 

Personally, I would go with a pendant MH and skip the nanotuners upgrade if I had to do it over. Buying $80 worth of CF bulbs for that tank every 6-9 mos gets annoying.

[SeanCallan]

I don't have it up and running at the time but I've got a JBJ 12 I ran for some good while.

 

If you can't afford the 150W HQI, you might want to consider DIY. If you look at the nano-reef forums or even the nano forums on RC you're bound to find a handful of successful MH DIY projects that use the hood.

 

One mod was a 70w MH and it ran $70 bucks.

 

I personally feel that nanotuners are WAY overpriced so all the upgrades on my cube are DIY. Why would you pay $600 for a 150w HQI hood when you could get a 250w pendant setup (a nice one) for ~100 less?

Edited November 10, 2008 by SeanCallan

[sen5241b]

I don't have it up and running at the time but I've got a JBJ 12 I ran for some good while.

 

If you can't afford the 150W HQI, you might want to consider DIY. If you look at the nano-reef forums or even the nano forums on RC you're bound to find a handful of successful MH DIY projects that use the hood.

 

One mod was a 70w MH and it ran $70 bucks.

 

I personally feel that nanotuners are WAY overpriced so all the upgrades on my cube are DIY. Why would you pay $600 for a 150w HQI hood when you could get a 250w pendant setup (a nice one) for ~100 less?

 

 

Good info but my dog sends a pound of dog hair into the air per day and without a cover of some sort (custom piece of glass or screen maybe?) it floats down into my tank. We have to vacuum/sweep the house every single day. The nano tuners lighting keeps the hood.

[SeanCallan]

Good info but my dog sends a pound of dog hair into the air per day and without a cover of some sort (custom piece of glass or screen maybe?) it floats down into my tank. We have to vacuum/sweep the house every single day. The nano tuners lighting keeps the hood.

 

Actually, check nano-reef for that as well. I know there was a thread for the 12 gallons where a single user who had access to a CNC machine was cutting acrylic pieces to cover the tank so people could use their pendants and mounted lights

 

For your dog: http://www.furminator.com/