Is my lighting good enough?

[wallj]

well i want to know if i can keep zoanthids they are my favorite coral because of their color.:frog: I have a 36 gallon bowfront aquarium. on top for lighting i have a 30" Nova extreme T5ho double bulb fixture. The t5ho's are each 24" and have individual reflectors. One bulb is a 460 actinic and the other is a 10,000K. so i want to know if i can keep zoanthids and if so which ones? thanks in advance

 

[Jeff]

Yep, sounds like a fine lighting system for zoas. If it were me, I would change the actinic over to something around 14K. Actinics don't do much for coral health, they just look cool.

 

[wallj]

ok that makes me real happy to hear..but as for the light suggestion are u saying that i should have the 14K with the 10K

 

[mfinn]

I think you won't be as happy with the color if you switch out the actinic. If anything, I'd look to increase the amount of bulbs and switch them all to 14K except the actinic.

I use a 250 watt mh 20K Radium with 2 x 75 watt VHO over my zoanthids and it's this kind of color temp bulbs that make the zoanthid colors pop.
But that just my opinion and preference.

 

[jaygalindo]

i agree with the others but will do the job for now

 

[wallj]

so if i got them with my lighting i have now will they even be colorful?

 

[ShawnKPD]

I had the Nove USA Current 30" fixture over my first 29 gallon tank and this was just fine for all of my zoanthids. I did change out the bulbs and got more of a pop from all of the corals. Mine used 4 T5's so I changed to: Gesemien 2 Actintic + and 2 Aquablue +. I alternated them in the fixture and it did perfect.

 

[tate1]

+1 for the one above.

 

[wallj]

ok, i have the 2 bulb fixture not the 4, but anyways my next question is how much flow would i need total?