Day and Night Lighting

[wcolwell88]

I'm currently buying new equipment to sit up my first saltwater tank. The tank I'm going with is a 20 gal. long tank. 12x12x30. I'm going to have fish and live rock for now but eventually I want to make it into a reef tank. I would go for something bigger, but the tank is going on the second floor of the house and I'm not sure I would trust the floor with a lot more weight. I've been looking at lighting options for the past few days and have not figured out what I want to go with. What I had in mind was 2 separate sets of bulbs, 1 daytime, and 1 night time actinic. I had originally planned to hook them up to a timer, having the full spectrum bulb/bulbs on during the day and then switching to the actinic bulb/bulbs for the night.. After doing some researching, I have not found anything that would allow me to do this. Any suggestions on how I would hook this up?

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[5xevy]

Welcome to AC!

Not sure how much power or what kind of lighting you're looking for but there are 30" ones out there.

Here's an example:
http://www.aquacon.com/coralife.html

You can hook the different plugs up to timers.

Edit- I just reread your post, are you saying it's 30" high?? Just making sure as I'm assuming you're not.

 

[wcolwell88]

No, its 30" long. I was thinking about VHO fluorescent bulbs, but these should be good. I noticed that this hood is 7"W, some of the fish I'm considering putting in the tank are jumpers, what would you recommend to cover the rest of the tank?