# Lighting for 180 gallon reef tank



## Noochy12

I'm trying to decide what lighting I want to get for my 180 gallon 72x24x24. I want to get 3 Ecoray 112D units but they're kind of expensive, Approx $1500 for 3. I was looking into this: AquaticLife 8 Lamp T5 HO with 6 lunar LEDs but will this be enough? The price of this unit is $549. Thanks


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## tike

Looks like they have indivdual reflectors so it's a good one. Couple of things: what type of corals are you keeping?, 24" depth for t-5 is a little deep, 18" depth is maximum to get good light penetration to the depths. You could always keep high light loving corals in the middle to top of your rock work.


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## Ranger

I currently have T5 but I'm hoping to move over to LED's over the next few weeks, as far as I'm aware LED's are better than T5 but not as good as Metal Halide but with Halides the don't have enough Blue, you can see this now as most new Halides have some blue in them mostly LED's(Funny how Halide manufacturers never told anyone this till recently).

LED also claims to have deeper penetration of the water TMC say theirs will go 1 metre in Depth and they will more than likely give you the Shimmer Effect which really makes a tank look good.


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## Noochy12

I only have a umbrella leather in there now. The lights I have now arent strong enough to put any hard corals in. I want to go with 3 Ecoray 112D units but that will cost about $1500. Don't really want to go that route.


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## Ranger

The thing with Reef Tanks is you really need to understand how you will feel in a year or 2, you will pay the 1500 Dollars and it will be great but if you decide to sell up then you won't get anywhere near that cash back.

The TMC Tiles claim to be strong enough for hard corals, I was looking at Aquarays which is also claimed to be able to do Hard Corals but I will prob get them and stick to Soft Corals.

The Aquarays are £90 each here with at least 2 being needed I will look at 3, the tiles cost about £250 each not sure what that is in US Dollars exactly but it's a lot cheaper than the 1500 Dollars


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