[treblig442]

After Talking to friends, the LFS people, and doing other research I think I finally might have settled on what to do for lighting. I need your help to confirm if this will work before I spend any money. I'm at a point where I can stop and go another route if need be w/o loosing time & money.

I am currently (over the next 2 months) setting up a 30g long reef tank. Im going to use a 10g as a sump for it.

I need to keep my budget on the low low low side. So Im thinking about building a VHO flourescent fixture.

Im going to buy the ballast, wiring harness and end caps in a kit from 2 Lamp Electronic VHO ARO AS220 Ballast Kit

I want to run 2 VHO actinic blue bulbs on the VHO ballast, and run 1 40w (non VHO) 10,000k bright white light on a seperate ballast. I have a really old and very durable fixture that is capable of mounting all three of these bulbs, and I will remote mount the ballasts. Ive even painted the the fixture with industrial enamel, but still need to get reflective material for the bulb side.

Will this lighting setup be sufficient to grow my live rock, support coral, anenome and other biological goodness? I heard to keep the lights close to the top of the tank. Im hoping that this might work well, bc the tank is wider than tall and the light wouldn't need to penetrate as far as a deeper tank, but wanted to hear from you all.

Thanks in advance for any attention you give this post!

[glampka]

You might want to check Aquatraders. They have a 36" 192 W CF set up for $79.90 that includes the LEDs. I'm running a similar set up on my 30 gal & have had very good results. By the time you get the ballast, reflective material & bulbs you'll probably be well over that price.
IMO you'd be running too much blue with 2 blues & 1 daylight.

[treblig442]

Thanks for that bit of info!!! I do like that CF lighting that you mention, and yes the price is right. I now need to reconsider, which is a good thing. I want good lighting for a good price with breaking the bank. Thanks again for your bit of insight!

[treblig442]

Do you think I can get by with using 3 NO bulbs, or should i stick to 2 vho bulbs?

[glampka]

You could run 3 but I wouldn't go with 2 blues.

[treblig442]

Well, I think that with the way my overflow setup is going to sit on the tank I cant clip on cf lighting as easily as I hoped. Which leads me back to the VHO lighting in the nice hood that i made up. So Im thinking about getting this vho ballast kit
2 Lamp Electronic VHO ARO AS220 Ballast Kit

and then getting one 10000k white, and one actinc blue..

Does anybody know how the ARO AS220 ballast is in the reliability factor. Im sure its not as good as the more expensive models and the ICECAP models, but it Does fit my budget.

Any Comments?

THanks