mature or not?

I approach the lighting issues the same as I approach life. You can do whats needed to survive, or you can have the right amount to grow. I'm sure your parents give you what you need to grow and not just to keep you alive. Something everyone should think about when building your mini-reef.

My T5 setup is 4x 18,000K - 2x Actinic - 6x blue/white led moon
for a 40g tank. Wattage is 230... But I calculate penetration at 18 inches so I expect my wattage ratio to be about 4 watts per gallon and not the 5+ watts that one would calculate via raw-wattage.

I hope your new lighting setup brings you many happy hours and enjoyment of your reef.
-Fritts

 

I have A bunch of xenia half way up a 20inch deep under 234watt 2xactinics 4xwhites, of t5, and every day the xenia is splitting and riseing up the tank towards the light, its over 2 thirds the way up now, still riseing, it loves the light from what i can gather, and in my case the xenia is thriveing and pulseing like mad, just using this as a guide to in my opinion seems just how much xenia love light, hope this helps...

 

from the looks of this thread it seems most are still going by the watts/gallon rule. with the vartiy of lighting options in todays market this rule is no longer valid, it was a good general rule when all that was available were T12 bulbs; add a bulb add watts therefore more light output. today with T2, T5, LED and MH lighting watts are less important in figuring how much light you are acctually putting into your tank. for instance a 150w MH bulb would be perfered to a 150w incandescant light bulb, enen though they are the same watts the MH will be able to sustain a reef set up where the other will not. remember a watt is a measure of energy not of light output. more important indicators of lighting a reef tank are lumens/lux and PAR(photosyntheticlly active radiation). in order to figure out what lights will best suit your tank you should have an end goal. if you one day want to keep SPS then get light that will support them. it may cost what seem like a lot of money but in the end its cheaper than buying 4 different lighting systems. or if money is a problem buy what you can afford but know what corals you will be limited to keeping