New lighting question...

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Sep 25, 2006
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Hi guys,

So I have a DIY hood that i have made, and I am swapping out my lights in it. Currently, I have a 15 watt t5 bulb, and 2 coralife 20 watt 50/50 bulbs in it; 55 watts of lighting in it. I just purchased some PC lights, and am going to swap them out for the current lights either tonight, or tomorrow. I got one customsealife retrofit kit, and one sunpaq retrofit kit, each with 65 watt (50/50:10,000K/Actinic) power compact bulbs, and each light has an individual reflector. This puts me at a total of 130 watts of lighting over my 20 gallon high tank. Would you guys classify this as low, medium, or high lighting for my tank, just so I know about what kind of corals I could get. Also, would you expect a lot more algae to appear in my tank, and is there a way I could stop that? One more quick one; do you think I could keep some type of anemone in my tank with this lighting?

Thanks all, and I will post pictures as soon as it's done!!
 
That is on the lower end of medium lighting. It will allow you to keep most, if not all "soft" corals, polyps, and a good number of 'lps' corals. You should only see an increase in algae if other conditions are conducive to their growth.
 
well I am thinking of changing one of yhe bulbs to a 10000k. That would put me at around 100 watts of 10000k and 30 watts of actinic; where do you think that would put me, and would you recommnd I do that? Would I lose a lot of color from the corals due to the 10000k instead of the actinic?

Thanks!!
 
That would give you more of an edge on intensity, but not terribly much further. The next step up would be T5HO or metal halide lighting. A good T5 or MH setup will allow you to keep whatever you want.
 
If I did change to 1 10,000K and 1 50/50, or both 10,000Ks, will I notice a big difference in the color of my corals? Will it put me from low medium light to higher light, or will it be the same roughly?

Thanks
 
Slightly more light, but in the same general tier of intensity. Yes, you'll lose some fluorescence with the exclusion of actinic spectra.
 
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