Lights!? How many required?

Hi everyone, ok so the last thing on my list to get is LIGHTS! Sigh...So confusing. I was wondering if someone could tell me how many Lumens I need. I would like to keep all different kinds of coral so something everything can live under. Also how many watts would you recommened. I have a 90g tank. What kind of lights would you recommend and how many?

 

ive got a 90 also. what they said would work fine, was 6x54 watt t5's, 10000 kelvin or as shown 10kk. 3 white ho's and 3 blue actinics.

 

needed watts is 4 watts per gallon do the math,or higher

 

for any coral i would say 30,000 lumens(6x4 foot t5s?) just a guess as i use lumens mainly to compare fixtures efficency.
I think PAR is really the measurement your interested in but not everybody has a fancy meter not even me. par and lumens arent proportional to each other.


most guides go by a 4 wpg gallon rule with certain lighting types, t5 and halide.
quality fixtures are important for both lighting types.

edit: par explained http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetically_active_radiation

 

great just what i needed too. somethin else to research. now i gotta find out what lumens are and what ive got. thnx alot sostoudt. lol

 

In a 90, I would suggest metal halide lighting with supplement T5s, however, you could use T5s, but placement would be more of an issue. Watts per gallon is an old and outdated method of determining lighting requirements. PAR is a much better value to look at.

 

I had 2 175W MH on my 180. It kept the corals I had happy except for some SPS(even with cheap bulbs). If you had good bulbs you could probably keep anything you want. I upgraded to 250w to keep SPS corals happier. So the question is really what type of corals are you going to keep.. If mainly SPS I would go higher. I don't like watts per gallon formulas. One bulb will cover about a 2'X2' area. I would go with Metal halides for your setup personally. It will allow you to keep most anything you want and I like they way they look. Knowing Lumens and PAR really isn't necessary. PAR levels will vary at every level of the depth in the aquarium.