Enough lighting? and a few other questions.

P

playeryhm

Reefing newb
Hello! i am new to the fourms and this will be my first post :)

First off, i do not own a saltwater tank yet but am going toget one somtime soon, i have a 36bowfrong freshwater that im going to turn into a saltwater, i have a light for it now that is a 36inch corallife 130watts. Would this be enough for it? i would just like to have a few standard corals and live rock.

Now hoping that it is enough i will need to buy new bulbs for it, should i buy 1 daylight and 1 actinic or 2 50/50?

I know quite abit about setting a saltwater tank up, and i plan on not getting the bare minimum, i plan on getting a protein skimmer, and good powerheads, and i already have a power filter, how big of a protein skimer should i get? any reccomendations?

live sand, and live rock. I plan on having both, what is the best kind of live sand? what is your fav live rock i plan on getting fiji, where is some good websites that sell cured live rock that is good?

Thank you for all your help and if there is anything else you think i should know please tell me
 
I'm assuming your going to have 130 watts of T5 lighting? If so you are ok on lighting It's a little on the low side but very doable. I have 150w daylight and 130w actinic and it works well for me so I would say a 50/50 is good. Always get a skimmer that can do your tank size plus 1/2 if you want a thumb rule. This will give you room to add a sump later which you will probably want to do. You can cycle your tank with a few pieces of live rock, dry base rock, and plain old dry sand. At the end of the cycle it will all be live. So save some money and don't spend to much on the live stuff right off the bat. Don't worry about the live rock being cured either. It will cure during your cycle.
 
I dunno since he just wants basic stuff I am assuming all low light softies. I would think that would be plenty of light to do those. Then when he gets hooked he has to upgrade to the better light.
 
so let me clear this up, i have a corallife fixture i need to get 2 50-50 65 watt bulbs...right? and this will be good for now? will it be able to support mushrooms, polyps, hammer head coral, and pulsing zenus stuff like that?
 
I think there is a big misconcetion about lighting but I'm not certain I'm right. I see people post all the time about if you have 2 150w lights you have 300 watts. Or in your example 2 65w lights is 130w...I don't think this is right.

I don't think 2 65w lights equal 130w of light. I think they equal 2 65w lights. the amount of light they are putting out is only 65 watts. If you have 2 they just cover a larger area. Can somebody please answer this for me? In my head, I think my way of determining watts is correct, but I've ben wrong before.
 
I would assume your fixture turns both bulbs on at once. if so I would say a 50/50 mix and doesn't matter how you do it. a 50/50 bulb or 1 daylight bulb 1 actinic. You can easily handle mushrooms, xenias, and polyps. I don't know about hammerheads though as I'm not a big LPS fan.
 
PRC said:
I think there is a big misconcetion about lighting but I'm not certain I'm right. I see people post all the time about if you have 2 150w lights you have 300 watts. Or in your example 2 65w lights is 130w...I don't think this is right.

I don't think 2 65w lights equal 130w of light. I think they equal 2 65w lights. the amount of light they are putting out is only 65 watts. If you have 2 they just cover a larger area. Can somebody please answer this for me? In my head, I think my way of determining watts is correct, but I've ben wrong before.
Click to expand...

Watts is just a way to measure energy consumption. 2 X 65 =130 so if you have 1 130w bulb it would be the same as 2 65w bulbs in the same area. the big differance is the type of light. 130w of PCs are like 25% the light of 130w MH. (I pulled that percentage outa my butt btw so don't use it.) A 10W CFL can prvide how much light compared to an incandescent of the same wattage? Not to get to deep in it is to start getting into the K rating and par of the bulbs. Basics though is for PCs 130w in a 30ish gal tank can grow some softies but nothing more. 130w of T5s or even MHs and you can grow about whatever you want.
 
playeryhm said:
To: prc, your post confused me yes there is 2 65watt bulbs
Click to expand...

I got into a discussion the other day about the amount of light being put out by bulbs. Here's the argument.

I say that if you have 2 65w bulbs, YOU DON"T have 130w of light. You have 65w of light covering 2 bulbs worth of area.

The person I was talking to says that if you have 2 65w bulbs you have 130w of light.

I obviously think I'm right.

I contend that 2 65w bulbs are not as bright as 1 130w bulb.
 
PRC said:
I think there is a big misconcetion about lighting but I'm not certain I'm right. I see people post all the time about if you have 2 150w lights you have 300 watts. Or in your example 2 65w lights is 130w...I don't think this is right.

I don't think 2 65w lights equal 130w of light. I think they equal 2 65w lights. the amount of light they are putting out is only 65 watts. If you have 2 they just cover a larger area. Can somebody please answer this for me? In my head, I think my way of determining watts is correct, but I've ben wrong before.
Click to expand...

When you have two lights right next to each other, the light from them overlap. Therefore, it will add up. So 2 65w PC bulbs will equal 130w. You also have to realize that watt is not a measure of light but of how much power is being consumed to run the lights. That is why it is important on what kind of light you have over your tank. 100w MH will be brighter and put out more PAR than 100w of PC. It is just the nature of the lights. That is also why the watts per gallon rule is starting to become obsolete. It worked very well when the only lights available were the t12VHO's and everybody had the same lighting. But now with t5's, MH's and LED's all available each putting out different amounts of light per watt, the rule doesnt work much anymore. Hope that helped some. If not, let me know I could try to explain it a bit better
 
playeryhm said:
2 switches for each bulb
Click to expand...

if you control each seperatly then 1 daylight bulb and one actinic. The Actinic turn on 1 hr before the daylight and it turns off 1 hr after the daylight. This simulates dusk and dawn. You can use a basic timer to do this.
 
bjohanson1234 said:
When you have two lights right next to each other, the light from them overlap. Therefore, it will add up. So 2 65w PC bulbs will equal 130w. You also have to realize that watt is not a measure of light but of how much power is being consumed to run the lights. That is why it is important on what kind of light you have over your tank. 100w MH will be brighter and put out more PAR than 100w of PC. It is just the nature of the lights. That is also why the watts per gallon rule is starting to become obsolete. It worked very well when the only lights available were the t12VHO's and everybody had the same lighting. But now with t5's, MH's and LED's all available each putting out different amounts of light per watt, the rule doesnt work much anymore. Hope that helped some. If not, let me know I could try to explain it a bit better
Click to expand...

Man me and you should start building aquarium lighting then reselling em or something. I like the way you think.
 
VAreef said:
Man me and you should start building aquarium lighting then reselling em or something. I like the way you think.
Click to expand...

I did build my own lighting system for my tank. 4 x 24 watt t5s with individual reflectors. Mounted it in my canopy. Blew my old lighting system out of the water. 4x24 watt t5s with a single reflector. Amazing how much more light is coming off the individual reflectors.
 
bjohanson1234 said:
When you have two lights right next to each other, the light from them overlap. Therefore, it will add up. So 2 65w PC bulbs will equal 130w.
Click to expand...

Ok, but doesn't 1 130w light put out more lumens than 1 65w light? So even if you muliply the 65w by a factor of 2 it's still lower than 1 130w bulb.

I'm more than happy to concede this point. I just want to know for sure...It's been driving me crazy and google is NOT my friend.
 
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