What Corals Can I Get With Current Lighting?

[27mtaylor]

I currently have a 46 gallon bow tank with 190 watts of VHO lighting. I've tinkered with a few pieces of corals and anemonies, but I would like to get a few more. What carols and anemonies will my lighting allow me? Thanks.

 

[jjlittle]

You are runnign at 4.13 watts per gal not bad though teh lighting you have I would say to stick with more softies maybe some low light sps's & anenomes . The problem is your lights are not intense like MH lighting which most sps's need you also need high flow for sps corals too.

 

[ags]

How tall is your tank?
Your lighting is sufficient for most soft corals such as green/yellow star polyps, zoanthids, finger leathers and mushrooms. You could also keep lower light demanding LPS such as hammers, candycanes and trumpet corals. You cannot keep any SPS, clams or anemones.
As the previous poster said higher intensity lighting is required to let most LPS, SPS, clams and anemones to thrive. VHO lighting is very versatile and many aquarist use it, me included.

 

[27mtaylor]

From my gravel to the top of my tank is 18". I do have some live rock which I could place the corals a little closer to the lighting. I currently have a bulb anemonie and have had it for well over a year. Over the past few months, I have noticed a decline in his health. He has gotten very small and his face has become very flat with tentacles only on the outter rim. The tentacles are very short and narrow too. I think this may be due to me getting lazy on my water changes and not feeding him very much... but as you mentioned earlier, it could be due to my lighting. My Clarki Clown is much too big for the bulb to house him now, but the clown still hangs out around and brushes up on the anemonie. Any ideas on my anemonie?

... I don't know if this matters a lot or not, but my tank is close to a window and the morning sun filters through part of it for about 2 hours.

 

[ags]

near perfect water quality is the key to successfull reef keeping. In addition you should be testing your water for the right balance of calcium and alkalinity.
How often do you do water changes?

 

[27mtaylor]

I usually do a 25% water change every month. Like I said earlier, I got lazy. I probably went 2 months before doing one. I know that couldn't be good for my tank. How often do you recommend doing a water change and how much water do you remove?

 

[danedodger]

It's never good to get lazy with water changes but so much more so when you have a slightly smaller tank like a 46.
How often do you recommend doing a water change and how much water do you remove?
It seems people are generally of two different mindsets, the larger water change less frequently and the smaller water change more frequently. I tend to lean towards the second and even moreso for smaller tanks. A larger water change more frequently may mean 25-30% or so monthly and a smaller more frequent may be 10-15% weekly. It does depend to some degree what animals you have and what your water tests are showing though.