Lighting a Biocube

J

jrwoltman

Member
I have been out of the reef game for the past two years, but as most of you know, it is truly a sickness, and I can't wait to dive back in. :woohoo: For a couple of years, I had a 75 gallon LPS dominated tank with T5 lighting up and running. I sold the tank and just about everything else tank related on here, thanks guys!!! The major downfall of my 75 was that I could NEVER get SPS going very well and would like to give it another try.

With that said, in June, I am going to obtain a 29 gallon Biocube and begin my reintroduction into this madness. :crazy: I want to have a SPS dominated cube, but I need lightning assistance. Can LEDs grow and sustain SPS? Downsides to LEDs with SPS? Better lighting choices? Any and all advice and rantings are greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

Jim
 
The biocube 29 has some bottlenecks when it come to lighting upgrades. If your doing SPS, either you take the the hood off and get an upgraded lighting system or you get one of those retrofit kits for the cost of a more common form factor for lighting. The retrokit lighting won't easily move to a new tank when you get the itch to upgrade.

Consider the Nuvo line of AIOs. See the thread by Ninjamyst, he has a Nuvo with AI primes.
 
I had the same issue with my Nanocube24 and I've had pretty good luck with the TrueLumen Pro led strips. I have the 72 watts of compact fluorescent with 3 9w 12" led strips ( 2 Mixed, 1 Full actinic). They are reasonably cheap off amazon and mine have worked well so far with SPS.
 
Paulip said:
The biocube 29 has some bottlenecks when it come to lighting upgrades. If your doing SPS, either you take the the hood off and get an upgraded lighting system or you get one of those retrofit kits for the cost of a more common form factor for lighting. The retrokit lighting won't easily move to a new tank when you get the itch to upgrade.

Consider the Nuvo line of AIOs. See the thread by Ninjamyst, he has a Nuvo with AI primes.
Click to expand...

Agreed, Nuvo line of AIOs are pretty nice.. When I was looking previously you could get the tank and AI light for 400.. Nice footprint and the prime you could grow pretty much anything.
 
I would go without the hood; you'll have more options for lighting then. You could hang a fixture or bulb above the tank. I used to use a single Par38 LED bulb for my cube but it had very little SPS.
 
I have a cheap chinese made par38 LED 54W rated from ebay.

1) I really don't like the spot lighting effect. I can't raise the lamp high enough with my 18" gooseneck. Raising the lamp, makes 2 wavemakers cast incredibly big shadows.
2) Since, it is 50/50 white and blue, it has an incredibly irritating disco ball effect.

Right now, the only thing that lets me enjoy my biocube is the all blue (reefbar type)actinics built into the hood which don't discoball. I don't know if this will be alleviated by buying AI Primes or Kessils. I assume it is just a matter of spectrum. I sure would hate to pony up the $200 or $300 for a discoball. The shadowing can't be avoided once you raise your lights above the hood level, which is another reason I wan't a rectangular tank. For a nano, you can move the obstructions away from the main display zone.
 
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