FishChannel Forums / Freshwater Forums / Everything but Livestock / New 125 Gallon Tank / Latest Posts

RE: New 125 Gallon Tank

filipem — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:32:18 GMT

I Never thought about that.

RE: New 125 Gallon Tank

Hailey — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:58:17 GMT

I'd look for an actual 72" fixture because placing smaller fixtures side-by-side doesn't work out all that well. You usually can't use the legs so they have to sit right on the top of the tank (which is sometimes a heat issue or can burn the tops of plants at the surface), and if the cord and switches are on the side, they can't sit flush against each other, which leads to the ends hanging off the sides of the tank. I did it with my 48" tank (two 24" coralife fixtures) and I have the issues I described.

New 125 Gallon Tank

filipem — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:57:55 GMT

Long story short. I had a 90 gallon tank that I was going to setup but I was given a 125 gallon that had a cracked plane of glass for free. so I decided to sell my 90 gallon and fix the 125 gallon instead. I plan on fully planting this tank before I add fish.

The tank is six feet long and I plan on keeping low light plants in there for now. The problem I have is the lighting. There does not seem to be a lot of 72" fixtures out there. I was thinking of using 3 24" power compact units to light the tank. The units have 2 bulbs each @ 65W giving me a total of 390W. way to much power for a low light setup. But if I only run one bulb on each fixture I have a total of 195W. Is this still too high for low light plants? I know the WPG rule changes on larger tanks and power compact bulbs these units are not cheap so I would really like some input on this before I got out a re-mortage the house to buy these units.