I am about to pull the trigger on two AI Illumination Hydra Twenty Sixes, Director and rails.
This will be for a 48" x 19 tall 55 gallon tank.
My LFS guy says that the Twenty Six model can penetrate a 24x24x24 cube of space and is sufficient for my purposes. He is recommending two of them mounted on rails (due to cats in the house).
The light will need to go through a glass top though I may swap out the top for a screen top if I can devise a system that will take the weight of a full grown cat should the little monster ever figure out how to make it onto the tank.
What I don't want to do is buy lights twice. I was going to do a group buy for Evergrow lights but honestly, the support on them sorta steered me away. I have no problem dropping whatever cash it takes to outfit the system with good coral growth lights but the Fifty Two's sound like overkill.
I want the flexibility to put whatever corals catch my eye into the tank without really worrying too much about lights. If need be I can have a Canopy built and install a couple MH's into it as well as the AI's, but if I can avoid doing that I would prefer to do so.
Thanks for your help on this.
P.S. Sorry if this is a noob question but I am new to all this, having only made one attempt at a reef tank in the past...a 20L that shall we just say...could have gone better. lol
This will be for a 48" x 19 tall 55 gallon tank.
My LFS guy says that the Twenty Six model can penetrate a 24x24x24 cube of space and is sufficient for my purposes. He is recommending two of them mounted on rails (due to cats in the house).
The light will need to go through a glass top though I may swap out the top for a screen top if I can devise a system that will take the weight of a full grown cat should the little monster ever figure out how to make it onto the tank.
What I don't want to do is buy lights twice. I was going to do a group buy for Evergrow lights but honestly, the support on them sorta steered me away. I have no problem dropping whatever cash it takes to outfit the system with good coral growth lights but the Fifty Two's sound like overkill.
I want the flexibility to put whatever corals catch my eye into the tank without really worrying too much about lights. If need be I can have a Canopy built and install a couple MH's into it as well as the AI's, but if I can avoid doing that I would prefer to do so.
Thanks for your help on this.
P.S. Sorry if this is a noob question but I am new to all this, having only made one attempt at a reef tank in the past...a 20L that shall we just say...could have gone better. lol
