NEED MORE LIGHTING!

[StirCrazy]

Well, here we are the big lighting debatewhile it is true that you could probably get away with what you have for most of your stuff, others will be severly lacking the light they need.

the bigest light demand will be from your anemone (if you feed it regulary , you could get away with lower light). softys and zoos should be fine, but if you ever want to get a clam or sps you should concider a upgrade. SPS are very demanding in the light but not how we all think, they will live and even grow under no lights but the growth forms will be thin and slow and the color will be severly lacking. I can say this with confadance as I have been exparamenting on lighting conditions with a relitivly low light SPS (montipora digitata). in my MH lit tank the coral grew by the day and was a emerald green with large and dence polyps to the extent that all you see is the polyps. In my 25 gal tank which is lit by two 55watt PC's and one no actinic, the color is brown, growth is slow and polyps are sparce to the point that you can see the base. I have taken a chunk out of the low light tank and put it back in the main tank and within two weeks the coral was back to its original splendor.

so no opinion here just some hard factual observations.

as for my opinion, I personaly would throw a single 150 watt MH on the 20 gal with a couple NO actinics on a workhorse 5. When I upgraded my lighting from PC's to MH even my soft corals did better so I am a MH fan now.

Steve