lighting help, dumbed down advise needed

[ryan]

After thoroughly reading and researching for a week almost nonstop i think i have almost everything figured out for my 29 gallon FOWLR tank i plan to set up. The tank will have a dsb and of course, live rock (~35 lbs). I dont plan on keeping corals, ever, although i might pick up a feather duster or something like that and the thought of fish is so far away im not too worried about it, but i was thinking damsels? royal gramma? some dwarf angel? I want to have some diversity of snails, shimp, maybe even small crabs. which brings me to the real question.....LIGHTS!

i have a glass canopy so far. This is the one part of the set up i do want to cut corners on. I found some two foot work light strips at menards, each with two 20 watt flouresent tubes. i was thinking of buying two of these (80 watts) and placing them over the canopy with some creative engineering. How does this sound? also, on the off chance that this will work, will the tubes that come with it work? or will i have to buy new ones.

ryan

[mogurnda]

If you won't have corals or any other photosynthetic life, you can skimp as much as you want on the lights, as long as the fish look good to you. One of those shoplights should be plenty to show off the fish and get a little coralline algae growth. Although the fish won't care, I bet you won't be thrilled with the way they look under the standard fluorescent tubes, so you might experiment around a little with various bulbs.
The bacteria in the live rock will do their job just fine without more light, the fanworms won't need it, and you don't sound interested in corals or macroalgae, so even a single 20 watt bulb will be fine. 80 watts will just grow more algae.
Now you just have to worry about the fish to put into it.

[ryan]

Originally posted by mogurnda
Now you just have to worry about the fish to put into it.

thats the kind of problem i dont mind having :D

ryan