light question

[fish man]

I have a 75 gallon saltwater aquarium and I am wanting to have some live rock and some easy coral and some anemones. I was wondering if I could just buy an actinic blue and an actinic white bulb and put it in my regular lighting fixture and make the live rock work. The fish that I have in the aquarium is a yellowtail damsel, dragon goby, and mexican snail. I have base rock right now and live sand as my substrate. Any information would be helpful. By the way the lighting fixture is a 64 watt fixture. 2 bulbs 48" long

 

[littlebuck]

well for any corals you will need to get new lights for anemones you really need MH lights. SO i would start looking at lights. Check out some other sites for lighting. You really need MH but VHO and PC lights will work but cant keep high light corals.

 

[fish man]

what is mh and vho lights? Very unfamiliar with the termonolgy

 

[littlebuck]

well mh is metal halide, and i think vho is very high output lights UMMM i have no clue on that..... BUt you are looking to spend around 300-500 on the lighting if not more.

 

[farslayer]

Basic rule of thumb is that you need PC, VHO or T5 lighting for softies and LPS corals, metal halide lighting (expensive!) for anemones, clams and SPS corals. Be aware that anemones sting, so if you want corals I would advise against getting an anemone. It is simply not worth the risk IMHO.

 

[27mtaylor]

Look at this link. It is a thread someone posted a while back. It has a lot of good lighting info on it.
https://forums.saltwaterfish.com/t/36975/reef-lighting-by-c-marlowe

 

[fish man]

Thanks for the information but I saw a tank have corals and anemones in one tank together

 

[27mtaylor]

It can work, but you have to be cautious of you anemone moving locations in your tank.

 

[farslayer]

So have I, and I've also seen withered corals and crashed tanks because of them. Just a friendly word of warning

 

[fish man]

thanks for your help