Lighting question

I am restarting a reef tank that I had going a few years ago and I am looking to step up from a 230 watt PC fixture to a combination metal halide/PC fixture. My question is what wattage should I make the MH lights. I have a choice between 150 or 250 watts. The tank is about 25 inches tall and I am not concerned about the upper portion of the tank not getting enough light but I am slightly worried about the bottom half. Most stuff that I had tried was pretty beginner stuff when I had my first reef set up and stuff grew well but this time the tank is about 6 inches taller and I would like to go with some SPS and the more "difficult" corals and don't want to screw myself by only buying the fixture with the 150 watt bulbs. It might not even matter but I have to think that an extra 200 watts between the MH bulbs alone would be a fairly substantial difference, but if not I wouldn't mind not having to worry about cooking my fish and I would only use the 150's.

just get a 150watt 20,000k bulb. those are very bright. the higher the k the brighter they will be.
im not a sw guy but there are other who can help you out alot more about this question.

btw

ok well with your tank depth you could go with a 4 bulb T5HO setup which would be cheaper than MH. ok basically though if you want MH (i assume it is for the shimmer effect more than anything) i would suggest not going with the MH PC combo and instead go with a MH T5HO combo, the reason i suggest this is T5HO bulbs can last up to 18 months whereas MH bulbs and pc bulbs should be replaced yearly, another biggy to consider is bulb cost. a 150 watt MH bulb runs 50 to 65.00 for each bulb, PC bulbs run about 65.00 each in LFS's, and T5 HO bulbs run 17.00 to 38.00 each depending on what type they are. i can replace all 4 of my geisman bulbs in teh LFS for no more than 169.00 tax included whereas with MH you are looking 100 to 130.00 just for 2 bulbs. one last thing on MH lighting, they are not as energy efficent as T5's so you might see a little more electricty usage, if you want the shimmer effect with T5 HO's you could make a small DIY LED setup of 4 to 8 bulbs depending on tank length of super bright led's and they will provide a shimmer shimmer effect, the more super bright leds you use withthe T5's the more pronounced the shimmer will be.


ok wiht the above out of the way, if you have your mind made up on MH lighting i would suggest the 250 watters, that way you have more than enough light.

im personally getting t5s (when money is more pleasant)

T5's

With a 2 foot deep tank, I say go with a 175watt MH magnetic ballast with a 14k bulb. With 2-75watt VHO bulbs on each side.

VHO bulbs are better in my opinion than HO's.

Here's the set-up I got: 175watt metal halide(mogul) and 2x 75watt VHO
It's on a 55gallon. I lose about a gallon of water a week. It was four fans so the canopy doesn't get too hot either.

Mh is for people who have $$ T'5s reach the bottom of the tank so itll be good for poor people like us :(

Dag dude, you making me feel bad. If you like to get this set-up, I'll share the wealth and give it to you dirt cheap. I'm going with a smaller retro kit soon.

Big John said he wants SPS coral.
SPS grow at it's best under MH lights.

If its 48" ill buy it. I was going to buy a t5 kit off ebay for $150.

i use a 4 bulb T5HO setup on my oceanic 90 and the purple tip digi i got from terry is doing great even the frags that broke off are doing well and some of them are sitting on my sand bed LOL.

Thanks for the responses you guys are interesting to say the least.