what's the proper lighting for reef tank?

[beckysamotis]

Hello, we are building a reef tank. We have had our system running for 1 1/2 years. We only have fish now, 3 damsels, 1 royal gramma, and 1 brackish puffer, (along with hermits and a coral banded shrimp). We really want to start adding some corals or plants to our tank. We have 70 lbs of live rock, and 30 lbs live sand. Our light system doesn't seem to be very bright, and we have a reacurring problem with that blue/green algae. Please let me know what specific lighting system you would recommend! This is a 55 gallon tank with a 15 gal. sump, skimmer, wet/dry trickle filter. Thanks for your help!

 

[saltyrich]

It greatly depends on what you want to keep. There are several options. 1st- if you already have a canopy, you can get a retrofit kit that just screws into your existing hood. This is usually the cheapest method. As far as lighting, you can go with vho, power compacts, or metal halides. Or combinations of the above. There are vho/pc and vho/mh and mh/pc combos that come in retrofit kits. Each type of lighting was different characteristics, but all are great choices for a reef tank. If you want to keep soft corals, lps corals, and some sps corals, then power compacts and/or vho lighting work great. I have vho on one tank and pc on another and like them both. I prefer the look of vho lighting personally. If you want to keep primarily sps corals, then metal halide lighting is probably your best bet. I hope that this helps.

 

[beckysamotis]

I was hoping to cover the rocks with mushroom corals, a few anemones, soft corals. I do have a canopy, I bought the tank used, there are 4 bulbs, the man I bought it from bragged that they were great, and he had soft corals. But I want to update my system before subjecting any animals to unadequate conditions. I am new to this hobby, and just can't seem to get much growth on my live rock (probably because of the low light). Where would you recommend purchasing a retrofit kit? Thanks for your help!

 

[saltyrich]

Do a search on retrofit lighting on this forum. It will come up. I can't really tell you on the board because it is a competitor with our host. Email me or do an online search for "Aquarium Lighting". Actually, coralline growth is greater at lower light conditions (not too low though). It may be a circulation problem. Good circulation will spread the spores around and promote growth on your rock. It sounds to me like you need to go with vho or pc lighting based on what you want to keep. Remember, you should plan your lighting around what you want to keep both now and in the future. I would not worry about an anemone at this point. They need a mature tank with very stable long-term water parameters.