Lighting Canundrum?

[flyingarmy]

Ok...questions for ARC:

I have a 29GAL Cube as a display and a 37GAL Frag tank. Both are being plumber together, so including the sump there will be approx. 77GAL. I currently have a 150W MH (14K) & 2 65W Actnic PC over the display. I have a 250 MH 10K Fixture and 2x75W VHO Actnic that I was going to put on the frag tank. My question is would it be better to have the higher wattage lights on the display or on the fraq tank? Everything is growing nicely in my display already; I have SOFT, SPS & LPS corals. Would the higher wattage aid in the healing process of the frags or would it be more benificial to have the higher wattage on the display and the lower wattage on the frag tank? Another issue is that the fixture on the display is a Current Orbit and wouldn't fit the frag tank correctly but can be hung easily over the tank with some bleed off of the lights in the middle of the frag tank. Thanks for reading and looking forward to hearing some opinions! Here is a picture of what hopefully the final set up will look like.
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[wbholwell]

Well, I have two thoughts. You might want to be able to adjust the height of the light above your frag tank to fine tune the amount of light (or change it for another reason), and that will be easiest to do with a suspended fixture. Also if the display is doing well, why change it?

I think that because your frag tank is deeper, you'll want the brighter fixture over it for better light penetration. I'm not sure what you'll be fragging at the bottom, though.

 

[george]

wbholwell;49678 wrote: I think that because your frag tank is deeper, you'll want the brighter fixture over it for better light penetration. I'm not sure what you'll be fragging at the bottom, though.

+1 to this. 37 is a deep tank and with that light you'll be able to do SPS at any level.

 

[flyingarmy]

I thought about making the eggcrate stands higher..might have to adjust the schematics! I was going to build a shallow frag tank but don't really have the time right now. Hopefully this will do the trick at least for SOFTies and some SPS & LPS.

 

[george]

Both lights are really plenty intense for either setup. The more powerful light on the frag tank will give you the freedom to put anything anywhere.

One thing I did think of as an additional argument for this is that if you're display is doing well, you won't shock/bleach/disturb the status quo there by introducing a change. There's a lot to be said for leaving well enough alone in this hobby!