Lightening for a FOWLR?

[Edward Smith]

All my experience with lightening has been for corals, forgot what I need to do for a FOWLR, lol!

The tank is 72x24x29 and will be FOWLR.

I tend to like a bluer light. So.......

T12's? T8's?

NO, HO, VHO?

# of bulbs?

Actinic versus black light (black light sounds like more "pop," do the fish care?

Do I really need to change them before they burn out? Or is that just with a reef tank?

Thanks for any help.

 

[JustinReef]

Just whatever you want really. If you like bluer, go blue. And use whatever bulb gets you that.

As for how long to use the bulbs, it doesn't matter really but after a while, old bulbs can cause algae breakouts. So you may want to watch for that.

I am just using cheap ebay MH bulbs for my tank and they are great. 14k, so pretty blue.

 

[LisaD]

I go with reef quality bulbs, just less of them. Usually power compacts. MH use too much electricity, IMO. I try to have enough lighting to support coralline growth, maybe some lower light soft corals, mushrooms and polyps. I tend to grow macro in my display, so I don't underlight most of my FOWLR tanks.

 

[Jerry W]

I run 4x65W pc's on my 120. Plenty bright, shows off the fish, good coraline growth, not too expensive to buy/run.

 

[nyvp]

I have a 200 72 x 24 x 30 and run 4 t-5's 80 watters and all is good. one day one 50/50

 

[forddna]

^ 72x24x30 is a 220g. I believe it's actually something like 224g.

Anyway, I have 3 x 250w MH's over my 220g FOWLR tank. I might add some actinics.

 

[petsarenice]

I like power compact on mine. The fish themselves don't need a ton, but if you want to put any live rock in the tank and keep it nice and purple, you'll need some actinic. Mine are 50/50.