meagan1823

I am wanting to set up around a 20-30 gallon saltwater tank. I want to have live rock, coral, inverts, and maybe a couple of fish down the road.

I have seen some post about people talking about a certain wattage per gallon? What is the recommended wattage per gallon for this type of tank?
What brand/type/style of lights are good quality but won't break your budget?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

travie

I have this light 150 watts of Metal Halide with 2 T5 light bulbs for actinic on my 29g tank. I just received it last weekend, and so far I am loving it. It also enables me to keep almost any coral.

meagan1823

well that is a little out of my price range. Thanks for the recommendation though.

Peterpiper

I would look at a quad ( 4 tubes ) T5HO, It will let you keep most of the corals

sgould

T5's would be cheaper than metal halide and would still give you lots of options for corals. A little cheaper yet would be power compacts, but that would start to limit your coral selections a little.

meagan1823

so would something like this be good?
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-T5ho-t5-ho-2...3A1%7C294%3A50

Peterpiper

looks good, wish we could get them here that cheap, go for 14k 2 x white 2 x blue, you even get the LED for night viewing!
Just so you know. a 4' x 4 T5HO here starts around au$350 on the net, but no one will insure them with postage.. to many get damaged. so in the LFS priced around au$450

sirdarksol

Wow! That's a good price for those lights, particularly with the moon lighting included.
When I started reading this thread, I was going to say that you could build your own lighting setup, but frankly, I think that light is less expensive than it would likely be if you made it yourself.

Peterpiper

I am starting to think about getting getting all my equipment from the US and mailed over.

meagan1823

thanks for the help and advice

fishrule101

I have T-5s I bought form drsfosterandsmith.com. They are worth the money. As long as your tank depth is not more than 24" T-5s will be ok. It also depends on what kind of corals you want to have.

meagan1823

so when getting this one
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-T5ho-t5-ho-2...3A1%7C294%3A50

I need the 14 k whites? these will be sufficient for most coral?

travie

Does it have individual reflectors for the bulbs? Individual reflectors will help get more light out of each bulb.

meagan1823

yes it has individual reflectors for the bulbs.
so will the 14 k ones be good?

travie

14k will be fine. 14k if I'm not mistaken gives off more of a blue spectrum of light. 10k gives off more of a white spectrum. 10k and above is suggested for reef tanks.

meagan1823

so there is a little change in plans. I now purchased a 55 gallon aquarium so it is bigger than what I was planning to get.
Will the 14 ks still work? I will of course be getting the longer light but I didn't know if it needed to be more than 14 k as well.
thanks for all your help.

travie

14k is fine.

au01st

14K is fine, but one of the best features about T5 is the ability to run more than one spectrum of bulb. All 4 of my bulbs are different, I have 2 actinics (460nm and 420nm) a "sunlight" bulb that is 10k, a little pink, and a 12k bulb that is very white with a hint of blue. This achieves an overall white look with a hint of purple/blue, has produced great growth in my corals (including SPS and LPS corals) and makes the colors pop out, especially when it's actinics only for the morning/evening effect.

Not to mention the fact that the bulbs that will come with the fixture are likely to be junk, you'll want to replace those anyways.