Lighting selection for 10 gallon?

[Secondgen]

What would be a good lighting setup in which I would be able keep some easy to keep corals, and still keep a mantis happy. I know I have read about people having to much lighting for mantis tanks and in turn it affecting the mantis. Right now my lighting setip includes 2x10 watt screw in style 50/50 compact bulbs. All suggestions are welcome. Thanks alot, and God bless.

 

[Agu]

Upgrade the bulbs to 26 w curly daylight PC's. I keep LPS, softies, and a mantis under that bulb.

They're available at HD or Lowes for about $8 each.

 

[IDESONE]

I have a 65w 50\50 on my ten gallon mantis tank.

 

[Secondgen]

Will the 27 watt daylight bulbs screw right into my stock hood without any modification? I assume you are talking about store bought household daylight PC bulbs right.

 

[infalible-one]

i tried using those and they seemed to heat up the water too much, about 3 degrees every 2 hours. i would suggest using a 65w strip light instead of bulbs. it won't heat up the water as fast or sometimes at all.

 

[doryarlin955]

I use a plain ten gallon incandescent hood over my ten gallon, with 2X26W compact flourescent spirals. All I had to do was bend and move around the reflectors a bit, and you have to be careful with it because the bulbs stick out the bottm. Right now I have prolifera and caulerpa growing crazily, a whole bunch of shrooms, some zoos, and unfortunately an acropora (it's 1/2 inch from the top of the water and it hasnt died yet)... at one time I had green star polyps, leather frags, and xenia but the xenia melted from temp changes, the leather just plain died, and the gsp got some kind of infection. Im not sure if there death was related to the light, but while I had them I only had 26 watts on the tank.

 

[Secondgen]

Wow thanks for the info. I don't know why I didn't think about just plain old store bought bulbs. Thats a cheap lighting upgrade, and I like cheap.