I'm new help please...

[Budromero001]

So I am very new to the reef hobby came from fresh water.

In have one nlfive gallon pico reef and just bought a 37 gal quarter circle tank. (Corner tank). I want to know what a good light for me would be . I have the orbit marine led on my five gal. wouldn't a bigger version of this light work for my 37 gal it's 18 wide by 18 deep.

I've been lurking and have only found answers from old threads. Please help meet

 

[mannyo_09]

The issues I've found with orbit marine is that a depth of 18 inches there is not much penetration and the PAR readings are very low. For the depth you're best bet is to go with a higher intensity LED (assuming you want to stick with LED) such as the ai Prime hd or even a hydra 26. I had the prime hd on a 28 Gallon nano and had great results with keeping softies in the bottom of the tank. It's a 22" deep tank and the lights were at 8 inches off the surface. You could also look into the radions. The xr15 is a great light and disperses the light evenly also


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[mcgyvr]

What are you keeping in the tank?
Thats important..
fish only? corals?

 

[Pandagobyguy]

What are you keeping in the tank?
Thats important..
fish only? corals?

This^

Fish don't even need a light. Ive seen softies grown in a sump with just a fullspectrum household bulb and with extremely high light as well. LPS are in my experience actually pretty low light also. The real jump ime is sps. They require WAY higher light than everything else. In my 29 biocube i am having trouble getting a lighting gradient so that i can actually keep LPS. Right now they live only in the shade. They bleach even on the sandbed. But if i turn down the lights my sps look sad.

So ya totally dependent on what you want.

Fish only: no light/cheapest light
Softies: anything but my reccomendation is the fairly cheap nicrew leds on amazon.
Lps: youll need a more significant light source (the nicrew would probably work imo but check reviews to see if someone tried it)
Sps: now you are looking at the very least 100 on a blackbox led. I bought a slightly more expensive for a reefbreeders superlux because i wanted cree leds. They are insanely powerful. I imagine this light could handle a depth of far more than 4 feet of water (and grow sps). I have mine set on 1% and 5% mounted on the provided brackets (i plan on hanging and raising soon) but at that level it can bleach lps on the sandbed.

Hope this helps best of luck

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