10,000 watt Metal Halide grow light

[dead wait]

Is this good for saltwater?

[ssrprelude]

Sure! Give it a shot.

[Totenkampf]

10,000 watts will melt your aquarium lol. 10,000K is probably good to mix in with actinic bulbs depending on what you want to grow and how deep your tank is! I am sure it would be just fine for fish only in the least.

[Darbex]

Yeah I assume you mean 10K and not watts. I personally dont like 10K on a reef. I like it bluer so I prefer 14-15K. I am currently running 2 15K and one 10K. I will probably change the 10K to a 12K to give it a bit more blue but I use the 10K for penetration and the 15K for more of the blue color. 10K will give you a better PAR at the bottom but like I said the blue is better IMO because it makes the colors pop more.

[dead wait]

Your probably right Darbex. I'll try to post up some pics soon of what i'm dealing with.

[Totenkampf]

hmmm, i was thinking that 10k was a more true 'daylight' type bulb and that the higher the heat rating, the more blue waves and thus 'penetration' of light? for instance, some people use 14k metal halide on deep (above 24") FW planted with good results. Maybe I have this backwards but the 5500k bubls that i use are very red and dont seem to light the substrate well which makes them pretty good dawn / dusk lighting?

[dead wait]

Well, I can't argue one way or the other because i'm completely clueless either way. That's why i'm here asking question's.

[eklikewhoa]

I really like the 14k Phoenix with supplement 420/460 T5HO actinics.... that's just me

[eklikewhoa]

10,000w metal halide sounds a bit more for a uhmmmuhumm grow house.

[dead wait]

I picked up two of these today. image.jpg

[Totenkampf]

darbex and EK are both very knowledgable of SW, i would let them know what kind of life you plan on (fish only, soft corals, hard corals etc) and how big your aquarium is and they can definately tell you what you can do. You can always suppliment the MH with T5HO in a different spectrum to help with your specific needs.

[dead wait]

That's why i'm here. Again, asking questions.

darbex and EK are both very knowledgable of SW, i would let them know what kind of life you plan on (fish only, soft corals, hard corals etc) and how big your aquarium is and they can definately tell you what you can do. You can always suppliment the MH with T5HO in a different spectrum to help with your specific needs.

[Darbex]

Depending on the plant/coral you are keeping the best PAR penetration is between 8 - 12K. 10K is the closest to daylight thats why it will also be called daylight instead of the Kelvin rating. 12K and higher becomes more blue and PAR begins to drop. For corals the algae that grows in them prefer the bluer side of daylight. From my research it more resembles the kelvin that they get in the ocean because the SW refracts the light waves and the blue waves reaches the corals. On the other had with FW you tend to go lower for plants because they like yellow/white light for their photosynthesis. Now if you are growing macroalgae I have noticed that it seems to do better with light similar to FW. My guess is that they generally dont grow in very deep water and there for the refraction is not that high so the light doesnt come to them in the blue spectrum so they grow better under white.

[Darbex]

Yes what kind of coral do you want to keep? How deep is your tank and what watt is the MH?

[dead wait]

All this makes perfectly good sense. My question is, would this be overkill for a Fowlr tank? I'm starting with a 40gal due to a lack of experience. I have a 75gal if I should decide to go larger. And, if I go completely nuts, I could always try my 190gal.