lights

ive heard so many things about lighting for coral. what is the best to do? ive got one fixture with two t5ho bulbs 54 watt each. then aother one with two t5 bulbs 28watts each on a 55g. how many watts do i have on my tank? i think ive got a total of 164 watts.

 

the 28w lamps are not going to help with coral they put about the same as a t8 48" lamp the t5 54w about 2 to 3 times a t8.The lights you have are ok for fish and low light coral combined as long as they have good reflectors and placement of the coral

 

its all about placement. softies and low light corals place on bottom and place sun loving corals on liverock closer to surface. i run a 55 gallon softi/lps/sps tank off of four t5 bulbs and have great growth on all. oddly enough i had a frag tank that i grew corals with and it was a 10 dollar flourescent shop light from wal mart with 6700k t8 bulbs. the corals grew fast but had little color or were brown. then once the coral colonies were bigger and healthier i slowly acclimated them to 10000k t5s and they got their color back and bam i had healthy thriving giant coral colonies. that worked with zoas, mushrooms. duncans. blastos, torches, frog spawns, pocilliporas, donuts, finger leathers, and favias. (didnt work so well with acros but that was to be expected)

 

You have totaled the watts up correctly. You should have enough light for a mixed reef tank as long as you have individual reflectors for each bulb.