suver569
Member
Recently, i've set up a 50 gallon reef tank. I currently have 20 pounds of LR, half a dozen snails, another half dozen crabs, and a scarlet shrimp. Everything seems to be flourishing. I have red stony corals popping up everywhere, 3 cucmbers that survived the LR transport and are thriving, something that looks like the start of some kind of sea mat (havent I.D.'d yet), and quite a few other small thing that i've been trying to figure out what they are. I even noticed several hundred tiny copepods that popped up so I know everything is going well.
Water tests are perfect after the initial cycle, never have any spikes of any kind.
My questions is about my lighting. I havent invested in any acintic lighting yet (budget issues). I'm running solely off of 2 compact flourscent fixtures that I found at home depot (hardware store if ya didnt know). They are 65 watt, compact florscent and brighter than the eye can stand to look at. The tank is insanely bright and looks awesome and it ran me about 65 bucks for the fixtures which included the bulbs. I've been told that I might want to invest in acintic lighting, which I'm sure I will in the very near future.
My question is, do I really NEED to upgrade lighting?
Second question is should I upgrade to at least 1 acintic bult (say, 1 - 4' acintic) and possibly 1-2 metal halides?
The metal halides I can pick up cheap (I deal with electrical distributors at work and can pick up lamps and fixtures for near nothing). But the acintic I would have to pick up from a LFS and we all know how expensive that can get.
The final factor in my little problem is the wife. She's freak if I spent $200+ on a nice ballast/bulbs for my tank. I know I could pull off 75 bucks here, 75 bucks there for lighting but all at once... I'd be sleeping in the living room with my pretty new lights right next to me in my tank.
Water tests are perfect after the initial cycle, never have any spikes of any kind.
My questions is about my lighting. I havent invested in any acintic lighting yet (budget issues). I'm running solely off of 2 compact flourscent fixtures that I found at home depot (hardware store if ya didnt know). They are 65 watt, compact florscent and brighter than the eye can stand to look at. The tank is insanely bright and looks awesome and it ran me about 65 bucks for the fixtures which included the bulbs. I've been told that I might want to invest in acintic lighting, which I'm sure I will in the very near future.
My question is, do I really NEED to upgrade lighting?
Second question is should I upgrade to at least 1 acintic bult (say, 1 - 4' acintic) and possibly 1-2 metal halides?
The metal halides I can pick up cheap (I deal with electrical distributors at work and can pick up lamps and fixtures for near nothing). But the acintic I would have to pick up from a LFS and we all know how expensive that can get.
The final factor in my little problem is the wife. She's freak if I spent $200+ on a nice ballast/bulbs for my tank. I know I could pull off 75 bucks here, 75 bucks there for lighting but all at once... I'd be sleeping in the living room with my pretty new lights right next to me in my tank.
