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- Aug 24, 2016
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I have been thinking hard about how to best light a tank I'm building. It will be 6'x3'x2'. There are two primary constraints: (1) I'm pretty cheap and (2) ok... there's no 2. Regardless, right now MH are pretty cheap and arguably the best lighting for corals. They do have some drawbacks though, mostly heat. So the conventional thing would be to put maybe 3 250W fixtures over the tank and some T5 or LED strips for support? That will definitely generate a lot of heat and require me to buy 3x fixtures and 3x bulbs every year. Not a huge problem. I think typical wisdom would say I should keep those fixtures on for 6ish hours a day and they'll cover, on their own, roughly a 24" to 30" square, with the correct reflector.
However, what I started wondering is if I could have 1 fixture that slowly moves across the length of the tank over the course of 12ish hours. The idea is that every spot on the tank will have a dedicated MH hanging directly overhead for a good number of hours each day. This would basically mean in a 6 foot tank moving 48 inches in 12 hours or 4 inches/hour. It seems like this would have so many nice benefits: (1) The heat is almost inconsequential now. You are turning it on longer but at a much lower intensity so it is easier to dissipate. (2) You get a very natural "sunrise/set" type effect as the light moves around during the day. The corals will experience light from all directions at some point each day and would hopefully help eliminate shading issues. (3) Your aquarium is lit for more hours of the day so you can enjoy it more. (4) It would (probably) be cheaper, depending on how to build the track that moves the light (I have no idea about this part). Also there are some things to consider, obviously if you run 1 fixture twice as much, you have to replace the bulk twice as often. I think there are certain fundamental things like that which you can not escape.
So I'm curious to hear opinions on this idea or if anyone has seen it done or has ideas on how to accomplish it.
However, what I started wondering is if I could have 1 fixture that slowly moves across the length of the tank over the course of 12ish hours. The idea is that every spot on the tank will have a dedicated MH hanging directly overhead for a good number of hours each day. This would basically mean in a 6 foot tank moving 48 inches in 12 hours or 4 inches/hour. It seems like this would have so many nice benefits: (1) The heat is almost inconsequential now. You are turning it on longer but at a much lower intensity so it is easier to dissipate. (2) You get a very natural "sunrise/set" type effect as the light moves around during the day. The corals will experience light from all directions at some point each day and would hopefully help eliminate shading issues. (3) Your aquarium is lit for more hours of the day so you can enjoy it more. (4) It would (probably) be cheaper, depending on how to build the track that moves the light (I have no idea about this part). Also there are some things to consider, obviously if you run 1 fixture twice as much, you have to replace the bulk twice as often. I think there are certain fundamental things like that which you can not escape.
So I'm curious to hear opinions on this idea or if anyone has seen it done or has ideas on how to accomplish it.