***Reef Tank Lighting --- Advice Needed***

[VJNJIT]

Hello Great People out there!

I need some good advice regarding my 60 gallon reef tank lighting. It is a 4 feet long, 2 feet tall and 1 feet thick tank. It is a tall one. At present it has 1 X 48" Current USA marine orbit LED light (Not the pro one). I have a pink cabbage coral, frogspawn, purple polyps, green zoanthids. I am planning to add some LPS and Soft corals in few weeks. I am not sure if my lighting would be sufficient for my corals, especially since it is a tall tank.

Please advice on how to proceed. Can I add one coralife 48" High Output dual T5 aqualight to my tank ? Will it suffice all my needs for corals along with the depth factor. I don't have lot if budget for this right now.

Thanks,
VJNJIT

 

[VJNJIT]

Hello Great People out there!

I need some good advice regarding my 60 gallon reef tank lighting. It is a 4 feet long, 2 feet tall and 1 feet thick tank. It is a tall one. At present it has 1 X 48" Current USA marine orbit LED light (Not the pro one). I have a pink cabbage coral, frogspawn, purple polyps, green zoanthids. I am planning to add some LPS and Soft corals in few weeks. I am not sure if my lighting would be sufficient for my corals, especially since it is a tall tank.

Please advice on how to proceed. Can I add one coralife 48" High Output dual T5 aqualight to my tank ? Will it suffice all my lighting needs for corals along with the depth factor. I don't have lot of budget for this right now.

Thanks,
VJNJIT

 

[Ron Reefman]

In a 2' deep tank, your fixture is at it's very limit to keep soft coral growing. It may keep lps or sps alive, but only just and I have my doubts about even that. They use 0.3 to 0.5watt leds and try to make up for the lack of punch that a 3 watt led has to penetrate the water by adding lots of leds... it doesn't work, especially over a 24" deep tank. Look at their website and see what they say the PAR is at 24" deep.




Your light was really designed for small tanks that are only 12" or maybe 18" deep.

A PAR of 5 to 20 is only just enough to keep really easy stuff alive. Even 20 to 40 is pretty lame. Dana Riddle says good PAR for sps is 100 to 200. So your light is OK for stony corals if you keep them up at the very top.

Look into some inexpensive (not cheap) Chinese led fixtures. There are several brands that are sponsors here at RC and have forums here at the bottom of the page so you can talk to them.

 

[VJNJIT]

Thanks Ron for the valuable suggestion. What do you think about the coralife high output T5 dual light fixture ? Will it be good in my case ? It is just 115 $.

 

[Aero175]

I use to keep softy's, frogspawn, and a candy cane under a 2 bulb t5-HO fixture. I would say that would get you by. Just for reference this was over a 29 gallon tank.

 

[VJNJIT]

Is coralife dual T5 HO strong enough on a 2 feet deep tank?