Coralife T-5 Double Strip any good?

[madboy]

I'm trying to start a 37 gallon on a really tight budget. I'm wondering if this light fixture would suffice until I can afford to spend a little more money.
http://www.esuweb.com/cardfile.asp?I...lationship=370
I've seen them several places going around $50 which seems kinda cheap for what you're getting if I'm reading the description right.
The tank will contain live rock, 5-6 fish/crusties, and maybe a couple pieces of coral.
Any thoughts?

 

[scsinet]

That's about 1 watt per gallon.
That's not sufficient for any corals. Even Zoos or Stick Polyps should have twice that. Perhaps you can use two of them?
If money is really tight, check out the Oddysea Stuff. I don't like to recommend it as it's low quality, but for the money, you get an awful lot.

 

[fefo23]

That's no good go for somthing with some more power

 

[rylan1]

Not enough to keep corals. These T-5's are not HO or High OutPut. I'd recommend Power Compact Lighting or the new Nova Extreme HO T-5's. These will allow you to keep some corals

 

[madboy]

Those are the answers I was expecting....thanks.
I'm thinking I need to just give up the coral idea and go with fish and live rock only until I can spend money on some decent lighting.
Do fish, crusties, and live rock require any particular lighting outside of standard flourescents?

 

[rylan1]

No, Fish Only tanks don't need special lighting. You could also do some corals that don't require lighting such as sun corals among others. These are corals that you have to feed and are not photosyntic. You could maybe have some mushrooms... I'd recommend looking at t-5 HO fixtures. You may be able to find the lighting you need to have more corals for >$200.
You could also perhaps find a MH light for around this amount or less. I have seen some for $160 or so for 1 lamp, which is probably all you would need for a 36gal. Look for one that clamps on back of tank. Good Luck!

 

[rylan1]

Another thought... You may want to decrease the # of fish you have to 3 or so. I'm not sure what type of fish you are looking at but you may run into some problems later with your fish dieing do to overcrowding. It would be hard to keep corals also because naturally with those many fish your water parameters will be of lower quality. But everyone that posts on the site are going to tell you that you can only keep small fish such as some clowns, damels, chomis, etc... No tangs, angels, etc or fish that require much swimming room or grow large in size...

 

[madboy]

Luckily cj7eagle was selling a decent setup for what I'm looking to do so I should have a little more flexibility now.
As far as fish go I figured I could keep maybe a couple clowns, 1-2 blens, and a goby or 2. Aside from that I just want maybe 2-3 small crabs/shrimp and some snails. Would that be overcrowding in a 37? Does the cleaning crew count towards your crowding, ie..shrimp and snails?

 

[madboy]

actually this is kinda changing topics so I'll start another thread about overcrowding in the appropriate forum