lights

[jjjo]

how much light should a reef tank have to keep shrooms, zoos, star polyps and leather corals?

[Bsl67css]

It depends of the aquarium you plan to keep them in, and generally they don't require much lighting. Please tell details on your setup, and I can help you with the rest.

[xeon]

What size tank? The answer isn't black and white. You have to figure out what you can fit first, then what works best. The general rule is around 3 - 5W per gallon.

[jjjo]

my tank is a 10 gallon nano-reef with a 28 watt pc aqualight made by coralife. It is about 1 and a half inches above tha tank for ventilation. I supply my tank with calcium, strontium, iodide and reef buffer.

[bladze]

get 250w ab ocean light for 250 with 10hours/day on, you don't have to worry about spending money on your light the next 18 months.

[jjjo]

wont that fry almost everything in my small tank. You're talking 25 watts per gallon!

[xeon]

You are kind of on the hairy edge for the corals you mentioned. You could double your lighting and you should be fine. A 250W would be serious overkill, especially for "low light" corals. Go over to hellolights.com and poke around the lighting and figure out what you can use that will fit the size you need. Of the top of my head you could double your 28W, go with a single 55/65W PC, a 96W quad or maybe even a 24" VHO.

 

Of the three, I would just double the 28W, then you could run a 10K and 03 combo. That is what I have over a DIY 7 gallon cube tank.