I have a 30g tank. It measures 24" wide x 24" tall x 12" front to back.
I am currently using a Power Compact (PC) Fluorescent light. It has a 65 watt daylight and a 65 watt actinic. 130w total. It's enough for mushrooms, zoas and polyps.
I wouldn't DREAM of killing an anenome under these lights. That would be cruel.
I have ordered a nice T5 unit w/ 6 bulbs @ 24w each. I've read that T5 compared to PC is like 2:1, so maybe my 144w T5 will be like having 288w of PC?
Everything I read says that you need a MINIMUM of T5 lightsa for an anenome. That's the bare minimum and you'll probably have to keep it up high in the tank, close to the lights.
Most people say that you really should have a metal halide (MH) light for anenomes. Apparently, a lot of the anenomes that we like in our fish tanks live in shallow waters and are exposed to some extreemely bright sunlight on a daily basis. If they were deepwatyer anenomes, it would be different because the water filters the suns rays. But, since most of these anenomes seam to live in less than 30' of water--the light they have evolved to live with is extremely bright.
A lot of anenomes have a type of algae (zooanthelle ? ) inside their bodies. The anenome gets it's energy from that algae inside it's body. Algae needs intense lighting to grow and thrive.
I've read that anenomes which do not have enough light will do all kinds of stuff to try and get enough light to survive. They will spread out to make a larger "footprint" for light to be absorbed. They will move around the tank to try and find brighter lighting--not good--they sting other corals and inverts.
You really shouldn't even be thinking about an anenome unless you really are an expert and have a very stable tank thats well established.
Read this FAQ about anenomes:
http://www.carlosreef.com/AnemoneFAQ.pdf
I bought an Ocellaris clown recently. I got kids--what can I say? Well, I fancy myself pretty knowledgeable about fishies and my tank is really stable. But, after reading that article--I ain't gettin' one. Not worth the risk to the rest of my reef. I probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000--$1200 in my little 30g tank. $300+ of that is just invertebrates. No way I'll risk all that $$$ just to have an anenome for "Nemo"
Nemo can just hide in the rocks or host in a mushroom colony. :lol: