QT Lighting questions

I'm setting up a regular 5 gallon quarantine tank for fish and coral and had a few questions about lighting. I don't want to spend a lot of money and was wondering if a household 40watt compact fluorescent light bulb like this one was good enough to keep corals happy for a month? Maybe 2 of them? I'm not exactly sure what type of corals I want to get so let's assume it's lighting for a light hungry coral. Thanks.

 

This kind of light will not keep coral happy. I would get a small t5 set up. This is not enough light for all coral but will keep any alive for a qt period.

 

I agree completely. It would not matter for fish, but coral would be very unhappy. Also, depending on the size of the fish in QT, 5g would be a bit small. I have a ten gallon QT and I consider it on the puny side.

I would go out to the LFS, pay $12 for a ten gallon tank and use the 5g as a nano.

 

The size of the qt would depend on the size of the tank. You do not need that much extra room if your main tank is small, as you will not be buying large fish or coral. Think about the fish, you do not want the qt process to stress them out until they get sick and die. Coral are stationary so they do not need as much room.

 

Oh yeah......I dig it. I was just thinking the dude(ette) had a DT around the 55 to 75 mark. And it never hurts to have more tanks running!!!!! I know I never considered a nano or pico until I saw some of the wonderful setups that ya'll have. Hehehe. Ya gotta love it!!!