VHO only 120?

[JoeAyers]

So I'm in the process of plumbing my wife's dad's tank and I need to start thinking about lights. For reference the tank is 48x24x24, he will have Zoas, candycane, softies and possibly other LPS. I already have some VHO lights, minus the lamps and would like to use them for the easy of install, maintenance, and heat. He will never get into SPS or other high light corals cause I will be maintaining the tank and won't put them in there.  VHOs okay on a 24" tank without any SPS? If so, how many and what combo of bulbs should I run?

Thanks,
Joe

[scott wilson]

Use good waterproof end caps and place the bulbs very close to the surface of the water.  You should do just fine.

[micki]

Vho's are stronger than PC's right?  I used to have only PC's and my tank did fine with every LPS I had.  Heck I even had a clam and it did fine.  So, if VHO is stronger than PC I would say you're good. If not then my bad... 

[CoralBeauties]

I had 4 vho's over my 120 5 ft tank for years.  I was able to keep many different types of corals.  I switched over to t-5's recently because I got tired of buying bulbs every 6 months to keep thinks looking good.  I ran 2 actinic and 2 day/actinic bulbs.
Jeff

[Joel]

If you have an Ice Cap 660 get 4 of the 46.5" 110 watt lamps with the built in reflectors from URI. This will work fine on a broad range of corals including many LPS and even some of the easier sps such as monti cap, hydnophora  & Pavona for example. I owned a tank with that light set up for several years and had excellent successes. I Used two actinic white (50/50) and two Super actinics. It looked great and the corals did very well, many were gragged a few time due to their growth rate. THese lamps need to be replaced every 10 to 12 months and I would suggest that you get a spare back ballast. Although the Ice Cap ballast is a great one, they are notoius for failing and needing to be sent to ice cap for a repair. That typically taks 4 or 5 days to send it, get it fixed and then returned. The corals might not be tral happy with that. Also get some slow blow fuses at radio shack. I think that it takes a 1.5 but double check to make sure. They pop fuses fairly often like from power surges or similar.

I most likely have the lamps in stock too

Joel