Lighting for sump
 

I'm going to be purchasing a bulb to light my sump very soon and I was wondering what lighting is reccommended. I know mostly everyone uses normal output lights but my sump will also have a refugium at one end of it. The entire sump/refugium will be about 5 feet long by 18" wide and 18" high. I would like about 24" of that length to be the refugium. I planned on getting a 48" 110W VHO White actinic bulb for this purpose. Any reason why I shouldn't?

reply
 

White actinic, whats that?

110 watts should be enough to grow macro algae, but do you really need that long of a bulb? Just curious.

Why not just buy a 24" light for the Fuge.
The sump itself doesn't need to be lit.

That would be my recommendation too. Lighting the 3' section of the sump may just lead to nuisance algae growth on that side. Of course, if you plan to use the sump as a frag tank, then go for it. Otherwise, one or two 2' light strips would do for your refugium & then you could leave the light on 24/7.

Just my $.02,

Anthony

sump lighting
 

I was going to put live rock in the sump as well as the refugium. I'm not going to have much live rock in the display tank because of the heightened egg crate that the live rock is going to sit on. I thought I'd make up for it a little in the sump.