Lighting - Help Me Spend My $$$

[saltwater_n00b]

I am just now getting through the 3rd month of getting my tank up and running. I have a 110g FOWLR that is 30" tall. I am planning on doing some soft corals in the near future so my next step is lighting. I have built my own hood and right now I'm just running 2 36" fluorescents just to light the tank.

I don't want to go crazy and I did come into a little money and would like to get a good light setup for the money. What are your recommendations for this tall of a tank. What is a good combo as far as coral lighting and viewing lighting? I don't know much when it comes to the T5's and halides and just want some good opinions. Thanks guys.

 

[rabbut]

Most softies are filter feeders (Leathers, Xenia e.t.c) and hence require very little light. Even in a deap tank, 3-4 T5's would be more than suffice. If you are wanting things like LPS later, upping to 150W Halides could be a good idea. If SPS are a potential option 250W or even 400W halides would be a better option. It realy depends on how likely you think it will be that you move into hard corals in the future.

For the moment, for just softies, a 3-4 lamp T5 lamp unit with individual reflectors on the lamps would cover well for the vast majority of soft corals.

All the best
Rabbut

 

[saltwater_n00b]

Most softies are filter feeders (Leathers, Xenia e.t.c) and hence require very little light. Even in a deap tank, 3-4 T5's would be more than suffice. If you are wanting things like LPS later, upping to 150W Halides could be a good idea. If SPS are a potential option 250W or even 400W halides would be a better option. It realy depends on how likely you think it will be that you move into hard corals in the future.

For the moment, for just softies, a 3-4 lamp T5 lamp unit with individual reflectors on the lamps would cover well for the vast majority of soft corals.

All the best
Rabbut

Good deal....thank you. I think I may go with 4 T5's for right now and if I think about adding LPS later on then I can always the halides to it.