need help with lighting

[Beemo]

im setting up a 10g nano reef and im not sure how to do lighting.
is there any bulb that can fit into a basic 20" perfecto strip light that will be good for corals? all the replacement bulbs i see for the strip lights are 50/50 but only 15 watts. dont they make a bulb for this thats like 80 watts or something?

 

[egdevilboy]

the "screw in" bulbs i believe you can only get 20w/bulb at most. Id recommend building your own canopy (fairly simple) and getting better lighting.

Go with a 2x32w or 1x70w MH lighting.

 

[Andrew]

[welcome]

I know a few people who use those bulbs and are happy with them but when I asked around because I wanted to try them, people gave me a negative feedback only because they are limited with light and your corals won't stand out or have the full color they should with them. For a 10 gallon reef, I would either recomend a 90 watt quad unit by coralife which runs for less then $100 at most places. Or I would get a 70 watt mh kit. If you want the best lighting for your tank and the best look for your corals, then go with the 70 watt mh. A 70 watt mh kit which would be retro would run around $100 also or more.

 

[Beemo]

do you think i can get by with just mushrooms and a feather duster with my current lighting?

 

[Andrew]

Feather Dusters are worms, not corals so they don't require any special lights. Muchrooms should do fine under those lights but you may nodice they not having full color after awhile.

 

[Shoestring Reefer]

Feather dusters will be fine with zero lighting. If you're talking about 15-watt flourescent bulbs, I'm growing some zoanthids in a fuge with a couple of them. They're hitch hikers, and lowly but shurly are multiplying.

 

[Avi]

If you aren't certain about your lighting or it turns out that your lighting isn't, after all, sufficient, try some Sun polyps along with the feather dusters. In that case, lighting won't be an issue at all. Though, you will have to feed the Sun Polys and also the feather dusters.

 

[Beemo]

thanks so much

i looked under my hood to see what the bulbs are, i only had an incadescent hood but last year i used it on a freshwater tank and instead of the incadescent bulbs i replaced then with a compact 50/50 flourescent 10w bulb. there are 2 of these bulbs, so i think that makes me have 2 watts per gallon?
i will get new bulbs next week since these bulbs are a year old.
what do i feed feed feather dusters?

 

[Andrew]

Feather Dusters will mainly feed for themself. Theres no traget feeding needed. btw, the watts per gallon rule isn't a good rule to follow because 100 watts of pc and 100 watts of mh are totaly differen't.

 

[Avi]

Feather Dusters are "filter-feeders." They'll take tiny organisms suspended in the water column, so long as there ARE tiny organisms suspended in the water. If you don't supplement with phytoplankton like DT's or Marine Snow or some other food of that kind, the Feather Dusters will seem to survive for a good while but they will be slowly starving all along.

 

[Beemo]

so if i buy them in a farely new setup as long as i feed what you listed they should do ok?
i was wondering if i need more flow too, i just have a power filter for flow right now, do i need a second power head at the other end of the tank? what flow for a 10g would you recommend?

 

[Avi]

The powerfilter might be enough on its own to provide sufficient flow since I'm certain you won't be putting coral that requires a heavy flow into your tank, unless the powerfilter is a very very small one.

You can keep Feather Dusters alive in a fairly newly-setup tank if you provide it with sufficient sustenance. Actually, I'd suggest that when you put the food (like phytoplankton or rotifers, etc.) in the tank, you make sure it's spread into the water so that it's everywhere in the water column (you'll see it when you first put it into the water, but you want it to become invisable which means it's spread out in the water and more available everywhere in the tank that way) and then you can even cut the flow off for a half-hour or an hour or so, and the Feather Dusters in the tank can ingest the food.

You should be very very careful though that you don't put too much food in the tank....smaller tanks, like a 10-gallon tank, can easily become too rich in nutrients and an adventitious algae outbreak would be the result. So, put whichever food you chose for it into the tank very sparingly.