JWright's Nano Venture: Lighting

[JWright]

Hello salties....

I've decided to take the salt water plunge. Over the next few weeks I'll be setting up a 20G nano. Over that time, I'll have a few of these threads becuase I have absolutely no saltwater experience. Obviously the basics of fishkeeping apply, but I just want to get some advice as I go along, so here we go...

I plan on this being a FOWLR tank to start with, but after it's been stable for a while, I'd like to add coral.

To that end, I've been looking at the 24" Coralife Lunar Aqualight (2 x 65W). I'd run with the standard bulbs, (1) 10K and (1) Actinic.

It's a standard 20G, Surface area of 12"x24", 16" deep.

And since this is a related question... Do I need a hood? Or can I just get away with the light on the mounting legs? I realize this kind of depends on livestock, so let's, for the moment, assume we're talking about non-jumping species.

~JW

(And don't worry Mushroomman... I may not buy all my stuff from you guys, but you can be sure I'll be up for some of my stuff )

 

[Cichlid-Man]

Well i'm no pro....but i have a 20" Coralife 96W over my 15gal. Love the light, and i just have it sitting on mounting legs, no other hood around it.

 

[kevin4052002]

Sounds great so far. You might not ever want a hood, and if you get a jumper, go with eggcrate.

 

[OCCFan023]

No hood is needed. Hoods will cause heating problems and will cause extra evaporation and the need for top offs.

Unless you are planning on possibly jumper species like a firefish or something then nothing will be needed.

THe light you are looking at is a great light and will enable you some nice coral options later on down the road.

welcome to the world of salt

 

[SALTY WATERS]

That light is plenty for a 20g tank and is actually the same light I currently use. That gives you 6.5 watts per gallon, there is a great selection of corals you can grow under that. Any of the higher light corals you would need to have placed near the top of the tank though.

As for a lid on the tank... as stated above, not a good idea! You will 1) be blocking out light, 2) restricting gas/oxygen exchange and 3) rasing tank temp by not allowing evaporative cool.

Go with the attachment mounting legs available and just make sure to wipe off any salt creep weekly that forms on the clear protective slide-out cover on the underside as over time that build-up will restrice light.

 

[wayne]

That will be a good light, but I would swap out the actinic for something more useful like an 18 or 20K.
No hood is needed , and they tend to make the tank to warm by trapping heat, and they inevitably block at least 15% of your light. On the downside, if you have no hood you get a lot more evaporation. If you can't get to the tank every day or two to topup you're going to soon be looking at an autotopup.

Uggh, 20 highs - can't you get a 20 long. It's a far superior shape for actually keeping things.

 

[JWright]

20H is what I have laying around. I realize it limits some things, but I'm willing to work within those constraints.

Thanks for the advice with the bulbs. I'll probably run the actinic until it needs replacing (I doubt I'll be doing corals in the first 6 months anyway), but go with a higher K bulb when I need to swap it out.

Regular top-offs won't be an issue.

~JW

 

[Mushroomman]

Ha, Im not worried man, my store (rather, the store I work at) has some good stuff but we really arent as good as it should be and some of our stuff is overpriced... drives me nuts but oh well.