Skimmer and Lighting question

[DJ88]

I understand about light feeding corals. But the thing is this tank is a 33. It is taller than a 20. Not much(a few inches but)The intensity of the PC will decrease exponentially as you go deeper. That was why I mentioneed I had 320W of NO light(even 400W at one point) on a 90 and the LPS were right below the surface and they didn't fare well. And that was with regular feeding.

We also don't know how far from the surface you have your LPS. How far Patrick intends to keep his. In general tho I would not recommend LPS under that amount of light.

And this is why..

I moved my LPS from 320W of NO in my 90 to about 350W of MH(not VHO's as I have now)with NO actinics in a 33 and they were flourishing. Both were the same distance from the lighting. If not deeper in the 33. There is no siginficant difference in wattage. Feedings haven't changed. Intensity did. You can look at PC lamps directly. But to look at a MH bulb you will hurt your eyes. It is that intensity that penetrates much further into the water column that keeps light loving corals alive.

Wattage or watts per gallon, means squat to me. It is the intensity of the lighting that keeps these corals alive. If you are using NO you need to be real close to the lamps to get any real intensity, PC's are a little further away. With MH you can get the intensity you need to keep them alive at a much greater depth.

I dont' feed my branching hammer anymore and it is showing new branches all over it. IT was barely alive when I moved it out of my old tank to a MH equipped tank.

That is all my experience tho and opinion..