Lighting

The lights above the aquarium are only visible from inside the equipment room. Normally the lights are closer to the aquarium surface, but I raised them up a bit here for a better picture.

Background

The lighting in my original 75 gallon tank started out as 2 Metal Halide lamps (175 watt) and 2 normal output four-foot actinic flourescents. I used 5500K and 6500K bulbs (this was a long time ago!). From this I learned that MH bulbs are hot, the ballasts are hot, and they use a lot of power. I later upgraded to VHO flourescents, then tried the IceCap electronic metal halide ballasts to reduce heat and power use. The IceCap ballasts for Flourescent lights are AWESOME. I use the 660. Unfortunately, the IceCap metal halide ballasts were GARBAGE! The lights flickered, so they told me to try new bulbs. They still flickered - I set the ballasts back, and they "re-tuned" them. They still flickered. Finally, I ditched them because they totally suck! What a waste of money! I can't believe Champion Lighting even sold them to me! (Yes, I'm still unhappy about the wasted money).

Current Lighting Summary

Qty	Bulb	Ballast
4 (2x2)	Six-foot VHO actinic flourescent	Two IceCap 660
6	400 Watt MH (Iwasaki 6500K)	BlueLine Electronic Ballast

Cycle

Actinics: 12 hours/day (3 hours before and 1 hour after MH)
Metal Halide: 8 hours/day

Setup

For my new tank, I needed the power of MH bulbs to penetrate to 30 inches of water depth. I did some research, and decided I wanted six 400-watt MH bulbs, and four six-foot VHO flourescent actinic tubes to provide an evening/morning phase. I chose the Iwasaki 6500 K bulbs because of the low cost (about $60 per bulb) and an article in Aquarium Frontiers comparing the PAR of various bulbs (Photosynthetically Available Radiation) or the amount of light usable by zooxanthellae for photosynthesis. Here's the article - it shows that the Iwasaki 6500K bulbs produce more PAR light than other bulbs. They also produce more blue light than many higher temperature bulbs, but their increased yellow light makes them appear less white/blue. Bottom line: less dollars for more light that the corals love. As you can see from my reef pictures, the corals love it.

After much aggravation, stress, and second-guessing, I decided to try the BlueLine electronic ballasts (in the picture). I was very reluctant after my experience with the IceCap MH ballast, but I spent a lot of time on the phone with the guys from Champion Lighting, and they admitted the IceCap were crap, but told me that the BlueLine ballasts work 100%, never flicker, work without tuning, and are generally a dream come true. I calculated the price difference between the regular ballasts and the BlueLine electronic, and the cost of the additional electricity given the efficiency ratings of both ballasts and what power costs here, and I figured it would take about 20 months to recoup the additional cost from energy savings (not counting the additional load on the air conditioning that would be caused by the heat from the normal ballasts). I figured I would definitely have the ballasts much longer than that, so I went for it. Unfortunately, it took over two months to actually get them - they were on back order. Once again, planning ahead paid off, and I was able to get them going before I stocked the aquarium despite the delay. The MH bulbs are so bright that you almost cannot tell if the VHO lights are on or off when looking at the lights in the equipment room. There is a definite visual color shift however, from yellowish to white when the actinics are on.

The BlueLine 400 watt ballasts work BEAUTIFULLY! They are just as advertised! They fire up every time, no problem, no flicker, and almost no heat in the ballasts - great product! They come with high quality connectors and wires. There is only one small caveat: I previously used X10 control for my aquarium (this is what most aquarium controller/computer things use as well to control lighting, pumps, etc.) I have found, however, that the BlueLine ballasts produce too much noise on the line for X10 use. They will turn on just fine, but once the bulbs are in full power (after 5 minutes or so) I cannot switch them off again with X10, although all other devices still work fine. I have tried noise filters, and noise blockers between the X10 switch and the ballast (from Smarthome.com), all to no avail. I did not try X10 signal amplifiers. I gave up because I do not use an aquarium controller, and my new home is automated with PHAST instead of X10, so I don't really care. For now I put simple appliance timers from home depot on the lights. I will one day finish my project to create software that turns any PC into an Octopus-type controller and finish my experiments. That's a topic for another day. If you want to know more about BlueLine ballasts and X10, send me an email.

The racks

I mounted the lights on a simple rack that I purchased, you guessed it, at Home Depot. It is made for shelving, and costs less than $10. It is strong, light, and lets air flow right through. I used reflectors for the MH bulbs (like SpiderLights, only a cheaper knock-off). The flourescent bulbs hang down from the shelf with cord and cable-ties so that they are close to the aquarium surface, instead of up on the shelf. (See picture at right). The actinic bulbs have internal reflectors.

These racks hang from cord that goes through pulleys on the ceiling, then back down the wall so they are reachable. Whenever I need to work in the aquarium, I pull on the cord and PRESTO! the light racks hoist up to the ceiling and leave me plenty of room for access. This system works great and I highly recommend it.

Cooling

Plenty of shelves to store my junk below the air-conditioner. The tube coming down from the AC unit is for water condensation (there's high humidity of course) to drip into the sink (at right).

I use two 20-inch box fans from Home Depot to blow across the lights and top of the tank (see picture at the top of this page). The fans turn on when the MH lights turn on. With this setup, I don't need to use my chiller at all because the air-conditioner keeps the aquarium room at a constant 76 degrees. Note that there is a dedicated air-conditioner for this room. It is a ductless-split unit rated for 18000 BTU, which is more than I need, but I wanted a margin of safety. The small room (only 9x12 or so) really gets hot if the air-conditioner is not turned on. Hot means over 100°F, so this is a serious issue. 3000 watts of light, with another 1000 watts in pumps really puts heat into this small room. Of course there has to be a separate thermostat and air-conditioner for this room, since the room is closed off to the rest of the house, so the house thermostat reads a comfortable temperature and the AC would never kick on no matter how hot it got in the equipment room.

Twice I came home from work to find my equipment room roasting hot (no AC, and about 110 degrees!) because something happened to the AC unit. Luckily, the tank is so large that even after a day of the intense heat, the tank temperature rises only about 2-3 degrees, so nothing too serious happened. Keeping with my philosophy of handling emergencies, I added a separate thermostat connected to a relay to control the MH lights. This way, when the temperature rises above 80 in the room because the AC failed, the MH lights will turn off. This has actually kicked in a couple times since installing it. It seems that whenever the power goes off, the AC unit goes to "off", and even when the power comes back on, the AC unit does not. I have to first hit the On/Off switch again before it operates after a power failure. This is a terrible design and really annoying. Had I known this beforehand, I would have chosen a different AC unit!