Lighting. How much?

[Pro Fish Keeper]

Im about to start a 90g and was wondering how much lighting i would need for amemomies, stonies and soft to semi hard corals? If i had 4 pc at 96 w each and 2 VHO actinics and 110 w each would that be enough for most corals?(i want to keep an amenomie for more then 2 weeks)

[Delphinus]

Anemones, stonies, and soft to semihard corals. While I'm not quite sure what you mean by "semi hard coral", that's still a rather wide spectrum of stuff there... My advice is to try to narrow your focus a bit for now, and slowwwwly build outwards from there.

If this is a new tank, try really hard to wean yourself of the idea of putting an indopacific hosting species of anemone for the time being. They typically don't do well in a tank that isn't matured beyond six months. While a cycle may take only days to a few weeks or so, there is still so much going on in a new tank that it takes that long (half year to a year) for things to realy settle down. Anemones fare very badly, overall, in captivity. It needs to be a very careful and measured choice to decide to keep one.

As for lighting (getting back to your question), personally I'm partial to halide lighting. 2x250's or 2x400's plus perhaps a mixture of PC or fluorescent will likely suit you just fine, whatever you decide on keeping in the end.

cheers

[Pro Fish Keeper]

HOw much are halides? Both the 250 and 400, and how much do they cost to run about 6 hours a day?( the ballast to)

[BCOrchidGuy]

I'm very happy with two 175 MHs with two actinics


To figure out your cost of running them, figure your total wattage, 2 x 175 = 350 PLUS 2 x 40 actinics = 430 watts total.... Electricity is calculated as Kilowatt hours so for every 1000 watts you use for 1 hour you get charged your rate, in Burnaby we pay $0.05/KWh... so lets just round it off to 400 watts, you could run your lights for 2 1/2 hours before you had to pay out your nickle.

I would run MH 10 - 12 hours a day depending on what you are going to keep, OH BTW, Flame scallops don't do well in captivity. Cost ... shop around, you can get your ballast and fixture from a hydroponics shop for a couple hundered bucks, the bulb will be another hundred or so. You can add one MH light and then add a second if your budget is tight.

If you really want my opinion on stuff to start with, Start out with Xenia, Anthellia, Montipora digitata, and some leather corals and colt corals, they are all hardy and will do well for you with moderate light. The Monti digitata will do best with MH though... heck everything will in my opinion.

[Wilty]

Some people really push the MH's and some people swear by the PC's. My opinion is that you can be successful either way. I've heard some corals dislike one or the other. Despite what some people say there is such thing as over lighting (Its just hard to do). What you have list there will be more then adequate for growing a wide varity of corals. Your success will be measured more by what Delphinus has to say.