Lighting question for 10 gallon nano

I have seen where people are successfully running a nano reef with 2 20w Aqueon Coralife Mini Compact Fluorescent 50/50 Colormax Lamp. My question is will 2 10w work for just some soft corals? The reason I as is petsmart sells the 10w but not the 20w. Seems the only place I can find the 20w is online.

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Welcome to 3reef, they should work for softies.

 

Thanks, and thanks for the reply. I think I'll try then out. It won't hurt.

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They will probably work fine for softies, but I don't think you will see too much growth. I had the 20w Coralife Mini Compacts and I was seeing some growth but there definately could be more. With the 10w I don't think you will be able to keep LPS if you wanted to... but the 20w gives you a wider range of the kinds of softies and LPS you would like to keep. SPS is out of the question unfortunately though. You can order the Coralife mini compacts 50/50 20wat ones right from Petsmart online. I did that and got them 3 days later! They are fast and none were broken. And it was just under $50 for both bulbs... that includes taxes, shipping and handling. That may vary depending on where you live. But yes the 10w bulbs will work for softies and that's just about it.

 

I say a single Par30 bulb would do the trick nicely. You could grow more than softies too.

 

why do you want to go with a CF?

 

That's what I'm saying.

 

I have twin 20 watt CF on a 17 gal cube. Is that not enough? I will eventually trade to something else but I built a temporary wooden hood to make the wife happy and needed light to start a softy tank.