Fowlr lighting requirements?

[Cahooligan]

iv read that you really dont need alot of light, and you can even use a fixture that isnt the length of the tank, but what is required? i know corals require the full spectrum of a 10-20K daylight bulb along with actinics to provide everything needed. what about liverock and fish? what kind of bulb is required, and how many? do i need actinic bulbs, or just daylight, and how many watts per galllon is required if any at all? i know t5 fixtures are probably recommended most, but what about flourescent fixtures? thanks for any input.

 

[Arthur França]

For all i know the lightings is not important in a FOWLR. It's only used to realce the fish color...

 

[Monkeyfish]

There are some fish that have difficulty adapting to brighter lights, but generally speaking just by what looks good to you. Personally, I think a 50/50 (Daylight 10,000K/Actinic) looks nice and really brings out the fishes' colors.

 

[Cahooligan]

ok thank you. its a 125g and i would want to keep a lionfish and an eel, both of which i know are nocturnal or dusk/dawn feeders, so they would prefer less light. but thanks. its good to know that i dont need anything expensive. i have a 75 reef with t5s and the light just happened to break about 3 days after the warranty expired(go figure), so only half was working. we borrowed a single bulb t5 fixture and at times it was the only light on, and to be honest even though it was only one bulb, i was impressed. i would be looking to go about a single t5 or flourescent bulb on each side of the tank.

 

[namxas]

What works well for us is to have 03 actinics and 10k daylights set up on separate timers, which allows us to run a dawn/dusk lighting simulation. The actinics come on 1-2 hrs before the 10k's, and the 10k's turn off 1-2 hrs ahead of the actinics.

We're also fond of LED moonlights rather than the tank going totally dark.

 

[Cahooligan]

yea i know what you mean, both of my reefs run on that same: hour early/hour late actinic lighting, but only one has the moonlights...