Power Compact?

[josh95632]

Hey everyone, I was wondering where I can find a 30" power compact lighting system with 5 bulbs. I have a 40 gallon aquarium, and want to have a very strong actinic lighting setup. In order to keep corals, what wattage would the total lighting need to be? And would all actinic lights be fine for the corals? I will post a list in a few minutes of some of the corals I'm interested in!

 

[josh95632]

Here's a list of some of the coral from SWF.com that I'm interested in getting...
Brain - Green Closed
Brain - Green Open
Brain - Red Open
Bubble Coral
Carnation - Orange
Candy Cane Coral
Christmas Tree Coral
Distichopora - Purple
Goniopora - Branching
Hammer Coral - Green
Leather - Cabbage
Orange Finger
Pink Finger
Plate Corals
Sun Coral - Orange
Xmas Tree Rock
Yellow Finger
Do you think the actinic lighting will cover most of these corals? If not--- which ones won't it? And will any of these give the glowing affect under the actinics? I know the star polyps will!

 

[acekjd83]

you arent going to put all of those in a 40g, are you? you'd be hard pressed to get 10 species in a 40g...
i dont think you'll be able to find a 30" ballast with 5 bulbs... i have a 30" Current USA dual satellite in a 29g, and that was the most powerful ballast i could find at my LFS's. i guess you could get 2 of them, if you didnt mind having the entire top of your tank covered by lights, but my tank seems to be doing really well with just the two 65W bulbs...
:happy:

 

[josh95632]

LOL, theres no way I could even afford all those corals! I just went through the corals list, and listed the ones I liked the looks of! So 2 65 watt actinic light bulbs should be enough for most of those corals? What kinds of corals do you have in your tank? Thanks for the help!

 

[josh95632]

anybody else who can help?

 

[acekjd83]

i have a branch hammer, long tentacle plate and a purple gorgonian... and the branch hammer REALLY glows under just actinic, after the daylights go out. the plate is really beautiful too, but doesnt have that glow.
o, btw, i did happen to find several ballasts with 4 bulbs, after some searching, but they are only 36" and up... if you could go up to 36" then your options are greatly enhanced.:thinking:

 

[peter78]

I have a coralife 30in retro that have 2x65w and the corals that I have in my tank are
zoos
paly
hairy mushroom
neon mushrooms
ricordia
keyna tree
cup coral
They all seem to be doing really good. With PC you just dont have that high intensity that you need for a lot of the stoney coral but there are some stoney that you can have. You will just have to ask and do reseach to make sure people are right.