Lighting placement

[Leakytree]

First off, you guy were correct about the plusrite bulbs! They have plenty of blue color and they make my tank really pop. So that brings me to my next dilemma....

The tank is 72"L x 18"W x 28"H (150) gallon. I realize the tank is pretty deep for a reef setup, but I did get it at a discount price. $300 for tank, stand, canopy, 40g sump, 30g custom fuge, plumbing, eheim return pump, inline sterilizer, and around 200 pounds of live rock. Not a bad price! I dried the rock out, because it was covered in slime and God knows what. Figured it was better to be safe than sorry and I'm glad I did. I found the remains of a 5in mantis shrimp that was hiding somewhere in the rock. He would have ravaged my reef occupants!

Anyway I digress from my original purpose. So my dilemma falls to the lighting. I purchased three 250w fixtures and ice cap ballast for the tank. Figuring it would be enough to blast decent lighting to the bottom. However, what I didn't factor in was the center brace. ( looks at the pics below) Its about a half inch thick and it has a plastic seem in the middle. The pic of the tank from the front shows a pronounced difference in lighting, but the eye sees it more evenly. So my questions are:

1. Should I run all three 250w halides and what effects will it have on the brace?

2. Will light penetrate the brace enough to matter for coral growth?

3. would a 150w self contained unit be safer to run?

Thanks

Eddie

[FarmerTy]

Eddie,

From the build, it looks like an old Oceanic tank. I had the 125-gallon version with the exact same middle brace and ran it fine for 3 years with 250-watt metal halides and the plusrite bulbs (SE 20k).

Here is what my tank looked like at it peak before I began my upgrade to the 210-gallon tank. I think you should be fine. Just keep the glass clean on top from salt creep and dust and on the bottom, clean it as well. If the water touches it at all, I would try to aim to cut your overflow teeth deeper to lower the tank water so that algae doesn't grow on it.

Excuse the overly blue picture but it was taken with my wife's Iphone that tends to blue up images really well.

You can see some of my biggest colonies were below that middle brace.

[Timfish]

You might try playing with the angling the two outside fixtures towards the middle, just the reverse of what I did here:

A cheap lux meter will give you a good idea of your light field while the tank is dry. Adding water will focus the light and give you slightly higher readings. How much light you need will depend on the specific corals you get. The glass center brace should only cause about a 5% loss when clean but it is easy to get salt and algae on the bottom side of it.

[Leakytree]

Thanks for the input guys I really appreciate it. I read on Reef central that for every 1/4 inch of glass you lose 10% of the light output. I was under the impression that I losing 40% of the light. Thanks to you i have cleared up that miss information. I just read on the forums that someone donated to river city a par meter. I think I will get in line for it and see exactly I'm working with.

Thanks