Lighting for live rock

jastim

jastim

Member
What Wattage per gallon is usually the rule of thumb to keep live rock going? I currently have a 75 gal. tank with a single bulb, 40W strip light. Would I get significant die off with this setup?
 
whipple

whipple

Member
It all depends what shows up on your rock. LR doesnt need much in the way of lighting its the items that come with the rock that need the light. ---Bill
 
ocellaris_keeper

ocellaris_keeper

Active Member
Live Rock works because of the littel holes in the rock where bacteria survie and absorb ammonia/nitrites. these areas of the rockj typically never see any tlight anyway. It's the little cool stuff on the surface that requires the light and no matter what you will get die off.
Your light os OK for now, if you plan on creating a reef tank you will need to upgrade.
 
fshhub

fshhub

Active Member
light does help with all algae growth in all areas of the tank, especialy with the algaes that you want on your rock and in your tank, i have 2x55watt pc's at 10000kelvin on my 75 gallon, and love the output,a nd have alot of good growth on my rock, macro algaes(the desired ones), polyps, sponges an d a little mushroom, i am looking to add vho's soon, for my blue(actinic) lightin, but this is for the corals i intend to be getting soon, but the pc's, i am very happy with, as far as growth, and it really shows off my fishes color beautifully, when we went from standard flourescent lighting to pc's, my fish looked alot different, and oddly, not only did the colors appear stronger, but they seemed to get even better, maybe the stronger light helped them by making them happier or something, but they seem to be even better now, but he colors weere noticable even right away,
as for the lr, my coraline is doing much better than my friends tank and she has flo's and on oldr tank, guess what, she is looking at pc's herself now
and as whipple said, it all depends on what you have and want from your lr
HTH
 
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