which lighting? I'm confused!

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suziq

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May 30, 2002
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I am setting up a 20g tall SW tank based around a jawfish with live rock, feathers, maybe mushrooms or anenomes. I'm getting the live rock on thursday.
The guy who I do think is pretty knowledgable at one lfs said that he could set me up with a 55wpc light. I'm not sure if the bulb would be 50/50 or if i will also be using my stock 15w fl. for the actinic.
Well, another person at a another lfs (that I used to think was knowledgable) told me that I would need a 110w pc on my tank.

I don't want to limit myself so which do you think would be better? If I go with the 110w and don't have anything that needs that kind of light, could there be problems?

What is a pretty good watts/gal range?
 
The sticky issue is the anemone. I wouldn't recommend one in a smaller tank, and especially in a new tank. It's also the factor that is dictating the additional lighting. The 110W unit would be an absolute MUST to stand even a chance with an anemone. However, if you scratch the anemone from your plan (a good idea), then the 55W unit would be more than sufficient for mushrooms, polyps, and other simple soft corals.

Going with the 110W unit probably won't produce any additional problems aside from the minor chance of heat complications. You may have to rig up a fan over a tank this small to keep the lights from driving up the temp too high.

One other thing - if you go for a jawfish, you need to be planning for an extra-deep sand bed. Shoot for a liberal 4" in depth. I know that eats up a lot of space in the tank, but the jawfish will tunnel under the rock otherwise, leaving you little opportunity to see it. Jaws prefer to dig holes in open sand with an unobstructed view so that they can see predators coming from a distance, so leave some open plots of sand without too much rock stacked up in the near vicinity. Scatter in a small handful of pebble-sized pieces of crushed coral near where you want the jawfish to build its tunnel - it will use these to reinforce the sides and to cover the "doorway" at night.
 
Also, with a Jawfish, make sure you place the LR directly onto the glass and then put sand around it... If you dont, the rocks can shift and either crush yer fish or break yer glass...

An ounce of prevention......... =)
 
Thanks guys for the info. What type of invertebrates would work with 55w +/- the 15w fluorescent?

p.s. Ravencad, you miss quoted Paracelsus...."What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison." ;)
 
Inverts with NO (normal output, thats the name of what you are describing..) lighting..... Not nearly as limited as you probably think...

Anything moving will be fine, as they don't rely on the light for anything... Crabs, shrimp, starfish, all of that type of stuff...

As for sessile inverts, you can get Feather Dusters, Mushrooms, polyps (some) sponges..... I'm sure Boogie can add to this list, but that's all that I'm coming up with right now..

Thanks for the tip on the quote, I'll look into that... I'm quoting a quote, so I blame the person I stole it from ;)

Btw, did you EVER read the PM I sent you back about the movie? I sent it before I called you a wuss on that thread, and I probably seemed very rude since you hadn't read it first ;)
 
Oh no, you didn't seem rude! You were just razzin me and I razzed back. :p

hehe I'm not used to this new format yet and thought that if i got a pm it would pop up when I was in the forum or somthing like that . I'll check it now but it is probably out of date. :rolleyes:
 
In your profile, it gives an option of having it pop up a notification when you get a PM.. Mine goes off constantly hehehe
 
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