Saltyllama

Hello all,
First, let me take a quick sec to introduce myself. My name is Mike and I'm a newb to saltwater. Luckily my brother was into the hobby and has been a huge help. However it's been 10 years since he had a tank running so his info is a little out of date. I'm in week 3 of cycling my 46 gal bowfront Oceanic and I'm in love already.

This is dragging on so I'll start with the real question.
Right now I am running 72 watts of lighting in the form of one coralife twin bulb (blue/white) 42 watt T5 fixture, and one old school 30 watts 50/50 T8. As I said before, I'm on week three of cycling so I am slowly adding choice LR as I see it at the LFS and have 4 damsels and 2 chromis in the tank. However I plan to go full reef once everything is stable.

It seems I need to upgrade my lighting and these are the two options I am considering.

#1 http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS...onglowledlamps

#2 http://www.aquacave.com/36-2x96w-cor...amps-641.html#

I'm leaning toward option 1 because I love the 3 switch and 3 plug options, but would like some input from the pros.

harpua2002

I'd suggest looking at high output T5s if you haven't already. The light output between a comparable PC bulb and T5 bulb is vastly different- you get much more light out of the HO T5s. I'm in a very similar situation to you, except my tank-in-process is a 50 gallon- still a 3 foot tank. I have a 2x96W PC fixture already, kind of like the ones you are looking at. But, I've decided to sell it and buy a 6 bulb T5 fixture instead because it will give me many more options for what corals I can keep. Here's a link to a 4x39W T5 fixture if you are interested. It's cheaper than the PC lights you linked, and will put out WAY more light even though the wattage is lower. It's the 36"x8" fixture.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...0&pcatid=16770

Saltyllama

So this would give me enough light to grow most corals and inverts?

I would like to keep some Actinic lighting in the tank as well. So would I be better off going with a six bulb and swapping 2 Actinic in? Or would you recommend getting the 4 bulb and then just keeping the regular non-HO T5 fixture as well?

thanks for the quick reply!!!!

harpua2002

The Current T5 fixtures include actinics. I believe it's 2 and 2 for the 4 bulb.

Saltyllama

Gotcha! Thanks so much!