Is this light good for a 20 gallon long with soft corals?

[dulcisveteranus]

This is going to be my first reef tank. Currently it is a heavily planted tank. When I saw the general rule of thumb for low light corals I was shocked! 3.5 watts per gallon minimum! Holy cow ! That's like the maximum for a planted tank! I need to spend a little more money on lighting now. I found this cheap T5 HO lamp fixture with 10000k bulbs. Will this be good to keep stuff like mushrooms and zoanthids?
Odyssea T5 Aquarium Lighting

 

[ImACoolguy]

4 T5 bulbs will be more than enough probably.


Caleb

 

[Sniperhank]

Watts per gallon isn't really a rule... Don't know where you saw that at in terms of low light, it is usually seen with led fixtures for high intensity light corals. Still a myth.
That said, the 4 bulb fixture should be fine. Be careful though, if I remember correctly those fixtures are pretty cheap and can rust if not properly taken care of.


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[dulcisveteranus]

On a scale from 1 to 10 how good is this light fixture. 10 being the best light like kessil.

 

[Masoniac]

In all honesty go led you are able to grow what ever you want under it. The cost of replacing bulbs yearly (I preferred to change every 6 months when I ran T5) will put you over what a kessil costs after a year or 2 depending on the brand of bulb you choose. I'm not bashing T5s in anyway just more cost effective to go with led. To answer your question though yes that fixture would be fine for zoas, mushrooms, soft corals, and some lps.