Confusion Lighting

L

lovelyepona

Okay after reading a completely flabbergasting thread on lighting at RC, I need some help.
To be frank, I can't afford or justify buying MH lighting. I do want some of those pretty corals. leathers are okay, polyps, I've seen some nice ones too.
I'e been looking at PC lighting. Though I don't know how many wats I truely need. This is a 20L so its not deep.
I think I've read too much tech stuff and not enough about the animals that go in the tank!!!
 
With those you won't even need MH. PCs are OK but I've always preferred VHO's or T5. The amounts you need though don't make them huge amounts cheaper then MH.


Just keep readiing about both tech and the animals. Ultimately your tech should be a product of what you'll keep!
 
Thank you for the advice.

Can soemone tell me how many watts I need for these corals? I heard 5watts per gallon, but then I was told I needed like 110W for my 20g.
 
If you're just looking at soft corals, such as leathers and zoanthid polyps, even some LPS, then you would be fine with 5 watts per gallon of either PC, VHO or T5 in a mixture of actinic and 10,000K daylight spectrums. You could go with a 150 watt metal halide pendant and a bit of actinic if you wanted to expand your horizons a bit.
 
I don't like the 50/50 bulbs. I've used them.

Instead, put a blue (actinic or 03) 65w PC bulb in the front, and a white (daylight or 6500K) in the back. That looked good over my 29g.

I did put 3 PC bulbs over my tank and it did well. The third bulb was a 50/50 to keep the blue and white balanced, which was appealing to my eyes.
 
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