advice please - lighting and deep sand beds

[Andrew Pejta]

Hi,

A couple of years ago I set up a reef tank which just wasn't successful.
Fish did well, but corals only limped along at best.

Finally I tore it down and turned it into a fresh-water set up that's
thriving.

I want to try the reef thing again, after discovering my MH set-up was
woefully inadequate. I went on the solely on the advice of the LFS. In
hindsight I should have done a whole lot more research.

Anyways, I'm stuck with quite an attractive lighting fixture that I plan
to use as a chassis for up-rated lights. It will be difficult for me to
fit actinics, but 20'000 K MH will compensate won't they? I have space
for three bulbs, over a distance of 80 cm (a little over 2.5 feet).

So what would you guys recommend for 700 litre tank (approx 170 gallons).

As a legacy of the freshwater setup, I have some substrate heater coils.
I was also wondering if there would be benefit of having them installed
in a DSB. My thinking is that I want an anoxic zone, rather than
anaerobic, and that the heater coils may be a useful until substrate
fauna colonize the sand bed.

Again, any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance
Andrew

[Richard Reynolds]

> I want to try the reef thing again, after discovering my MH set-up was
> woefully inadequate. I went on the solely on the advice of the LFS. In
> hindsight I should have done a whole lot more research.

typical LFS

> Anyways, I'm stuck with quite an attractive lighting fixture that I plan
> to use as a chassis for up-rated lights. It will be difficult for me to
> fit actinics, but 20'000 K MH will compensate won't they? I have space
> for three bulbs, over a distance of 80 cm (a little over 2.5 feet).

not everyones 20,000K bulbs are the same, however more likely yes, you might even play
with a combination of 10,000 12,000 and 20,000, however depending on the wattage 3 bulbs
might be overkill for such a small space.

> So what would you guys recommend for 700 litre tank (approx 170 gallons).
what layout??? different dimentions make for different lighting.

> As a legacy of the freshwater setup, I have some substrate heater coils.
> I was also wondering if there would be benefit of having them installed
> in a DSB. My thinking is that I want an anoxic zone, rather than
> anaerobic, and that the heater coils may be a useful until substrate
> fauna colonize the sand bed.

dont put those in your DSB, they wont do what you want them to do.




--
Richard Reynolds

[Andrew Pejta]

Thanks for the advice regarding the DSB.

Doh! Of course I should have posted the dimensions of the tank:

In cm: 60 wide x 160 long x 70 high.
In inches (approx) 23 wide x 60 long x 27 high

Ideally I would have liked the bulbs to be spread apart a bit more, but
I'm trying to make use of what I've got.

cheers


Richard Reynolds wrote:
<snip>

> not everyones 20,000K bulbs are the same, however more likely yes, you might even play
> with a combination of 10,000 12,000 and 20,000, however depending on the wattage 3 bulbs
> might be overkill for such a small space.
>
>
>>So what would you guys recommend for 700 litre tank (approx 170 gallons).
>
> what layout??? different dimentions make for different lighting.
>
>
<snip>