LPS Lighting and System Suggestions.

[SunnyX]

I am venturing into uncharted territory.

I have worked hard on my 225gl SPS tank and it is now doing great and thriving. I have nothing left to do for it so I decided to keep myself busy with another tank.

Unlike most people I went straight to SPS, without ever getting into Soft corals or LPS.

So I set up a 30gl Oceanic tank(20.5Lx18.5Wx21H)
All water was added from the SPS system including all the live rock.

I have decided for the moment not to run a skimmer on this tank, mainly because of noise and the fact that this tank will contain no SPS.

For lighting I really wanted to go with a TEK T5 Light fixture but the tank is too short for the 24" fixture. I wanted to suspend it but didnt want to have too much light spillage.
I have a feeling I may still go with the T5 unit later, just hope there isnt too much light spillage.

I also looked at some MH fixtures but didn't want to deal with the added heat.

I ordered the 20" Orbit 2x40 watt SunPaq w/ Lunar LightClick Here
The unit should be here tomarrow.


Now my question is will I be able to keep any soft or LPS I chose too?

Specifically a Yellow Fiji Leather. Click Here I seen one at my LFS and really wanted it for a center peice.

 

[reefgeek84]

Yeah that light should be fine... I would have also considered the PC 96watt coralife fixture, but I am sure this one will get the job done very well!!!!

You should be able to keep that leather, you might want to put it in the mid level part of the tank. But with 80 watts, you should have no problem keeping alot of the LPS coral. Hell I keep, hammer, galaxea, candy cane, favia, open brain, and monti (i know its SPS, but it goes to show) under 30 watts of regular Flourence bulbs. Granted my tank is more shallow, but still 80watts should get you to where you want to be, with keeping LPS. I have noticed that LPS do not require as much light as everyone seems to think they do. also as a side note I do not feed the corals, they grad the fish food and that seems to keep them happy.

I know you know what you are doing when it comes to this hobby, so you should not have any issues at all. So lets see the set up and keep us updated with pics.