List of EVERYTHING for a 75 gallon reef tank.

[Bifferwine]

A watt is a watt. 100 watts of T5 will use the same power of 100 watts of MH. So you really need to compare two fixtures side by side and compare the wattage of the two of them.

 

[Sir Alex]

Well then, the metal halides use almost twice as much power. I'll do as you suggested and compare the different tanks when I go up to see all of those fish stores. My mothers probably going to start charging me for the tank's electricity if it gets to high...:grumble:

 

[Bifferwine]

My lights use something like $3 a month.

 

[Sir Alex]

So it's $3 a month versus $6 a month? It's also going make the air conditioning run more if it produces a lot of heat.

 

[little_fish]

Actually a clip of fan is usually more than enough to take care of any additional heating from the metal halides.

But i cant say for sure how that would effect your AC. Depends how how hot/cold you want your house to be

 

[Bifferwine]

Ask your mom how much a kilowatt hour costs on your electric bill.

Then take the number of watts for your light (example, 400 watts)
Multiply that by how many hours per day you will run it (example, 10 hours)
That's 4000 watts.
Divide that by 1000 to get kilowatt hours
That's 4 kilowatt hours per day to run the light

A kilowatt hour on my electric bill costs about 9 cents. That means it costs me 36 cents a day to run a 400 watt light.

You can do the same calculations for all the equipment you are planning on buying.

 

[Sir Alex]

I think I'll stick with the T5s.

 

[Sir Alex]

Metal halides = $19.70 a month

T5 = $10.50 a month

 

[coolhandgoose]

This one is 110 bucks
T5 HO LIGHT FIXTURE 6X54W 1.2M

 

[little_fish]

This one is 110 bucks
T5 HO LIGHT FIXTURE 6X54W 1.2M

It doesnt have individual reflectors and therefore not worth it :( sorry

 

[Sir Alex]

What about the goby?

 

[little_fish]

If you want a pair go for it! I think they are cool too

 

[coolhandgoose]

It doesnt have individual reflectors and therefore not worth it :( sorry

Not worth it??
He's looking at aquatraders for lighting. So money is obviously more important. So for 10 bucks more than the best aquatraders one that only has 4 bulbs, he can get a 6 bulb one. I for one am very happy with mine since it was definitely in my budget.

 

[coolhandgoose]

And aquatraders doesn't have individual reflectors either.

 

[little_fish]

Yes, what im saying is that the individual reflectors are extremely important. The amount of light you lose by not having the individual reflectors is tremendous. I would estimate you would have to double the amount of light out put to get what you would get with the individual reflectors. So by the time you double the light fixture, its not worth it.

 

[Bifferwine]

I would say for a 6 bulb fixture over a 75, individual reflectors shouldn't make or break it. That's still a lot of light.

 

[little_fish]

I stand corrected then

 

[BL1]

And aquatraders doesn't have individual reflectors either.

The aquatraders doesn't have individual reflectors but, the majority of your light is coming from the MH, the T5s are mostly supplemental.

 

[coolhandgoose]

Ya but he said on the last page that he was going t5 now instead of MH.

 

[BL1]

Ahh I guess I should have read all the posts lol. I missed the last few posts on that page.