Another lighting change

Decided its time to give MH a shot. I've never had much experience with them, but I haven't really been 100% satisfied with all the LEDs i've tried so far. I've seen first hand a lot of beautiful tanks lit with MH, and more and more people are going back to them after not being satisfied with LEDs.


Reflectors I believe are lumenarc III. 20" square and should get me good coverage with 2 reflectors over my 250 deep dimension. Easily installed in my aluminum light rack. I do have some tempered glass shields coming for them. I have a naughty fish that is a splasher, and I really don't feel like spending $70 on bulbs only to have them blow up the first time they are splashed. $18 for a sheet of glass is a little better option IMO.


Ballasts are 400w galaxy.


Bulbs are en route and will be 20k radiums.


I've got plenty of room in the light rack to install my 4 AI hydras if I want. I haven't decided if I'm going to do that or not. I probably will just to get some dawn/dusk effect with the blue channels and really make things pop. I think the hydras would allow me to run the MH for less hours as well. Saving on energy as well as heat if it becomes an issue. With the large water volume and being in the basement I'm hoping heat won't be an issue. In fact during the winter the added heat may offset some of extra heaters I have to throw in there. During the summer the basement is usually in the mid 70s and with the LEDs the heater still does kick on from time to time.


I'll try and post my thoughts on these lights as I get my tank back to the state it should be.