Is this T5 lighting sufficient for a 40g tank?

Hiya,

Firstly, I'd just like to mention that I'm quite new to the hobby, and although I've been trying to take it slow and well-researched, I'm sure there are still plenty of things I've yet to learn. But hey, that's why I'm here

I've been setting up a 40 gallon reef tank 36 x 14 wide x 20 high, and have chosen the Hagen Glo T5HO 36" 2x39w fixture as my lighting source, fitted with 1x Marine Glo actinic blue and 1x Power Glo 18K tubes. Don't worry, I'm not going to jump straight into SPS corals any time soon!

Right now, the tank doesn't even have water in it, but eventually I do hope to focus largely on soft corals, a few mushrooms, and perhaps even some LPS corals that aren't too heavily dependant on light. I was wondering if the current lighting I have right now would be even remotely sufficient for any of this, or should I really be looking at getting at least another 2 T5 tubes in there?

Thanks in advance,
Brendan.

 

Hey, welcome to 3reef.

Should be enough mate, altho you will only be able to keep soft corals and all elevated up towards the top!
If you want room to play with you should ideally go with 4xT5's.

Dont forget to use reflectors!!

 

Mushrooms will be OK for sure, softies may demand more especially if they are too low.


The great things about lights is they can be changed anytime with no worry, not like puting in one kind of substrate then later saying, boy I wish I went with the other one..

 

Personally I think you will be fine keeping softies in your tank. What I would recommend is getting some decent bulbs if you can. I kept two fairly large leather toadstalls, mushrooms and green star polyps in my old tank with just two t5 bulbs (one white, one blue). They grew very well and the toadstalls where at the bottom of the tank, albeit on a rock.

 

I believe that you could keep almost any soft coral with that light. I would prefer one actinic and something around a 10K -14k for the other.

 

Just wanted to say a quick thanks for the replies. I ended up doubling up on the lighting, and have 4 T5HO's up and running now. At least this way I have the option of moving up to more light-demanding corals, should something both suitable and beautiful catch my eye.

Hmm, that's probably more than likely, methinks!

 

When you start buying corals look at what light level that you bought them from and place them either high or low in your tank to be similar at first. You dont really want to put a coral right under your lights if it has been in a tank with PC's and far away from the light. After letting the corals get used to your tank you can move them to the higher positions for better light.

Good Reefing!!!

 

they are enough light but i'm not sure about the bulbs they offer.most people use an even mixture of actinics and 10,000k bulbs and tru glow does'nt sell there fixtures with them bulbs or even offer them.