wanting to put in corals.... any suggestions

swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
I wanted to put some coral in today and was wondering what types i could put in with the type of lighting i have.
First of all here is the tank status as of now...
1 year 5 month old established tank....
60 Gallons
20 Gallon sumo with refugium
2 600Gph Powerheads
Asm baby g protein skimmer
2 54w 10k and actinic t-5 bulbs
Water Parameters:
salinity: 1.23
0 amm.
0 nitrites
0 nitrates
8.1 ph
450 cal
Live Stock:
1 Perc. Clown
1 Green Chromis
15 Blue legs
15 nasarius
10 various types of snails
(I know not many but i wanted to take it slow becuase i am in the military and i deploy alot)
So now that i have established what i have i was wondering if i could get ideas of what types of corals i could keep in my tank.
 
05xrunner

05xrunner

Active Member
what brand light do u have.
AS of now you can pretty much have any coral but SPS...if you have a tek light I would say you are good for SPS as well.
 
swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
the box said, this is not a direct quote of the box but it read something like this... vho tek lighting 2 54w 10k and actinic bulbs
 
brandon7491

brandon7491

Member
i would try and get ur salinity to 1.025-1.026 and ur ph to 8.2. for corals ur lighitng is extremely weak even for soft corals. i would spend the money upgrading ur lighitng to either 2 150 or 2 250watt mhs or 4-5 t-5 bulbs
 
swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
Originally Posted by brandon7491
i would try and get ur salinity to 1.025-1.026 and ur ph to 8.2.
and i have always kept my tank at about 1.023 and at about
8.1-8.1 ph so i aint to worried about that right now, i am just wondering about the light upgrade which is the overall suggestion i am getting
 
swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
i think i am gonna try the gorg's but my question is that with t-5 lighting i get a higher output than pc's so with 2 bulbs of t-5's i can put put more lighting than 4 pc's, and on this board i have heard people say that you can keep corals with 4 pc's? so whats the truth on lighting?
 
K

king_nothing_

Guest
I bought a "do it yourself" lighting kit from my LFS for 100 bucks that they JUST got in. It's some new kind of light...I had to wire them myself. But anyway, it's only 1 36" 10K bulb and 1 36" actinic bulb, and they said that I can keep anythign except SPS under those in my 40 gal. So I'm thinking you're probably safe. Different bulbs have different spectrum outputs and soforth, so there's no way to be sure, unfortunately, without knowing exactly what they are. I'm JUST saying: I only have 2 bulbs and my corals are fine.
 
swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
thanks for the info king, i figured that it would be ok, to keep corals, i know that the whole wattage per gallon is not accurate so if i was to go by the 4 to 6 watts per gallon i would only be 16 watts off, and well i was also told that t-5's are hold better photosynthetic light than pc's even if you have a bunch of pc's a pair of t-5's are much better, so i am just confused at this point but thanks for your info. i guess this hobby is full of trial and errors...i have been saltwater tank keeping for over 2 years now but i have never ventured over to reef keeping and its been a hard transition so far
 
grubsnaek

grubsnaek

Active Member
even though its two bulbs if the lite system is a tek T5 setup than i would think that your good for softies, and some LPS not all. but honestly an upgrade would make it easier.
 
beatlesfan

beatlesfan

Member
it would be much better and easier if you upgraded. Also to keep corals you NEED to have your salinity at 1.025-1.027 and your ph at at least 8.2.
 
swfishfan

swfishfan

Member
Originally Posted by grubsnaek
even though its two bulbs if the lite system is a tek T5 setup than i would think that your good for softies, and some LPS not all. but honestly an upgrade would make it easier.
yeah i guess your right grub it would just be easier to have no doubt that i could keep what i would like to keep by just upgradeing
 
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