Our 50 gallon tank from the beginning

[OurFishies]

So we have 2 10k actinic bulbs and 2 10k coral life.

[Bifferwine]

But how many watts are each of them? It will say on the fixture usually.

[OurFishies]

Ok! I looked on the box and they are 32 watts each which is 128 watts, which is 2.56 watts per gallon. Which I guess is pretty low.

[Piggy]

Are the lights PC or T5's?

[Bifferwine]

2.5 watts per gallon is barely enough for the lowest light corals... Softies, zoas and mushrooms might be okay under those, but definitely not an anemone, which needs about 5 times as much light... If your anemone is doing okay so far, keep an eye on it. A couple people have been able to keep them under less light than is recommended, you may be one of the lucky ones. However, that's really rare. They usually end up slowly dying.

[OurFishies]

My husband says the lights are T-5's (the bulbs are pretty big around). Sadly there isn't more room in the hood of the tank. These guys fill it up completely!

Weird note though, when I look up the bulbs, I see a T-8 associated with them?

How does one get more wattage in under the hood?

[mudrummer012]

Originally Posted by OurFishies

Weird note though, when I look up the bulbs, I see a T-8 associated with them?

Then those would be t-8 bulbs! What you have are either high output or regular florescent lights.

[Bifferwine]

Yep, T5s are different than T8s (but both are used for aquariums). T5s are much much much thinner in diameter than T8s, so if yours are fat around and say T8, then they are T8. Which are just regular fluorescent lights, as Mud pointed out.

You can get more wattage under the hood by doing away with the T8s. You will be able to fit a lot more T5 bulbs in that same space (because they are smaller around). T5s are a lot more powerful than T8s. You won't be able to keep anything but very low light corals under the amount of light you have now. Retrofitting some T5s into your hood would be the way I'd go.

[OurFishies]

Okey dokey. I will do a final verification on exactly what the lighting is with my friend who works at the LFS that helps with our tank, and verify that they are T-8 (I was looking up the brand online and that is what I came up with), or if they are actually T-5's.... bah! Confusing.

They said that the lights we put in were "nice" lights, but I guess nice doesn't equal enough. My husband had much less lighting in his old tank that he had running for years (it was not a reef tank though, so less lighting makes a wee bit more sense). We didn't skimp on the protein skimmer (but if you ask me what it is I can't answer that question, lol)...

[Piggy]

If the bulbs are long and skinny they're T5's. If they're fat they're T8. Usally it's on the bulb some where.