Lighting on a 20 Long
 

I am starting my first trainer reef tank and am piecing together hardware that I already have and was just wondering if dual T5 NOs would provide me with enough light for any of the lower end corals? It would be about 10 inches of water from the top o the sand bed.

depends what you plan on keeping

also don't look at the coralife 30" fixture. it useds 28" bulbs and they are the only company that makes that size 2x24watt t5's should be great for zoa's, softies and a handful of lps

thanks not sure what I plan on keeping yet, but hey zoas, softies and a handful of lps sound great at this point.

unfortunately I already have the coralife 30 and thus the use of a proprietary bulb is just another reason that I will never buy another coralife product.

I wouldn't count on growing much of anything with just dual T5NOs. With 2x24" T5HO you could do low light stuff like you want.

+1 to coralife being subpar

I have a local store that sells 30" 2x 24w T5 HO fixtures. They are kinda hard to come by but when I turn my FW 20 long into a frag tank I was planning on running one or two fixtures with the frags about the same distance as you. The other option is clamp on or hanging metal halide fixtures

what about dual 65 watt PCs? I can probably pick one of those up used. How much heat do they throw though, I have never owned a PC?

I don't want to invest too much in this setup as it is only a temporary set up and I will probably go with either a 24 or 36 inch final setup.

20g
 

buy my set up whcih comes with metal halide. its gonna cost you half the price then you starting from scratch

20g
 

i also have an extra 150watt metal halide pendent with ballast also that i can throw in the price. check under 20g long and you will see my ad

thanks, my 20 long is only a temporary setup that I am throwing together with stuff I mostly already have sitting around. for my final setup I am liking the look of the marineland cube tanks and will probably go with that.

PC's will work ok for this depth, especially for a temp solution. On my 30" 52gallon tank I ended up going with a 24" metal halide/pc/led combo that I just mounted to my canopy. Fits nice and doesn't overhang the tank which I think looks best.