whit all the lighting out there, there are alot of options....

the new thing i see alot of people switching to is high power t5 but with this there is alot of up front expense so i thought i would post some thing to explain why i went this way...

well as some of you know i went with a tek 6 bulb t5 system and i love it. It is lower cost than MH and and got the same shimmer effect that some people want with MH with 3 led light that i use a night lights too... but if you are looking for a cheeper alt then i have come up with some ideas.

First step figure out how many bulbs you want to run.
IMO over say a 120 - 2 ATINIC, 2 MIDDAY, AND 2 FUL DAY

now ice cap makes great balests and great reflectors so does tek
most of these reflectors increase light eff by 300% so it throws the very old wpg standard out of the water.

i am running 324 w of t5 which is only 2.7 wpg but with great reflectors and balests im am running around 8.1 wpg and that is way more than enough to grow any coral.

you can even upgrade current t5 fixtures with better reflectors to increase out put...

but dont get me wrong if you are running over a 2 foot tall tank mh is the way to go for intensity but i still have to hide my lower light corals in the shade so they dont get burt out

....more to come...

current usa powerbrites is the best way to create the shimmer of metal halides