Very confused about lighting...HELP plz!

[doc308]

All right, get ready to laugh at me. All I know about electricity is that you plug things in but not your fingers. Seriously. I have no clue about all this T5, metal halide, terminology or even how to go forward with upgrading. But I've been trying to read up on all this stuff.
I have a 5 year old nanocube 24 with the stock hood. The bulbs have been replaced recently, but all they said was that the bulbs were 2-color actinic blue and white fluorescent. The total wattage is 72 and the total "output" is 20,000k. I asked about upgrading but I needed an interpreter for almost everything he said after that. He eventually asked what all I have in my tank and I told him:
a clownfish, a flowerpot coral, a bubble coral, ricordeas, zoas, featherduster, hammer coral, kenya tree and some mushrooms. He said that what I had was just fine that no upgrade was needed. But then I read on here in several places that similar setups are not powerful enough.
Everyone is talking about metal halide and I know that my hood is not capable of that. However, can my stock hood be retrofitted for t5? is there anything I can do to upgrade at a reasonable expense?
Thanks!

 

[scsinet]

Although it is possibly to self-engineer a halide upgrade to the stock hood on a nano cube, it doesn't sound like something that you'd want to take on yourself.
There are several web sites out there that sell complete hood replacements with the retrofits already done. Of course forum rules prevent me from saying exactly where, but if you google around you should find them.
The problem with doing this is that you will almost certainly have a heat problem because those hoods trap a lot of heat given off by the halides. What most people do is remove the hood entirely and clamp a light to the tank that sits overhead. K2 Viper and Sunpod are the two biggies.
I use a K2 Viper on mine, it has a 150w halide lamp. You can get them for around $300.
It's worth considering though... if the corals you have are doing just fine, why the sudden need for the upgrade? If you've had these corals for over a year and they are doing just fine, then they have passed the test of time with your system, and unless you are planning for more demanding livestock, what you have should be fine.

 

[doc308]

thanks for the reply! Yeah, I'm with you on this one. the corals are looking great and I'd rather not upgrade. With everyone going metal halide and t5 it had me questioning if I had sufficient lighting. I'll leave it as is and see what happens! Thanks for the good advice!

 

[nycbob]

the corals u hv will do fine under the current setup. u will need to upgrade only if u decide to keep sps, anemone or clams.