FOWLR: how much light needed?

[jaiden]

I've got the dual 24" NO fixture which came with my 54g corner bowfront

if I buy LR, am I just going to kill all the coralline?

I've got 60lb hirocks in the tank now and it's 2 weeks into the cycle.

 

[electrikat]

How many watts total does the 24" fixture have?

 

[jaiden]

really not sure... I looked on the all-glass web site and I couldn't tell either.

 

[steve-s]

A 24" NO bulb is 20w I believe. On a 55 gal tank, it won't do much to help coralline growth but it should sustain it somewhat. Coralline growth would prosper in a 2ish watt/gal setting heavier on the actinic spectrum.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Brad]

That's my experience also. You won't likely be able to have a ton of coraline, but your LR will still be very interesting and valuable. FOWLR generally suggests that the LR is there only for bacterial filtration to support the fish.

If you've got the lighting to grow coraline, you could probably also keep some corals etc. At that point, you've got a reef tank...whether you intended it or not!

 

[quarryshark]

I have NO on my fish and inverts with live rock (FAIWLR) . Its a 30" deep tank and I have a decent amount of coraline. What came on my lr remains (mostly on the top pieces). It has spread a bit to the overflows and some on the back glass. My rock looks nice, not reef tank nice but I like it.
Not really worried about it too much, after all I'm in it for the animals.

 

[loganj]

I maintain a 75g tank (FOWLR) that has excellent coraline growth with 80w of NO lighting. One daylight and one actinic. This is a mature tank and cal/alk levels are carefully maintained. I would look into a PC fixture for your bowfront...something with a 2x65w bulb arrangement would work well.

 

[seaham358]

I have 80watts NO on my 55 fowlr and it has nice coralline algae growth on the LR. Not that much on the glass. I add nothing to my tank to help it grow either, just water changes to help with nutrients.

 

[jaiden]

OK, they're only 2 15 watt bulbs, which doesn't seem like enough to me. I will migrate to a reef tank eventually, but I can't afford the lights yet. if 2wpg is enough, I have my eye on a 2x65 PC fixture that should handle that much.. it's not out of my "soon" price range

 

[electrikat]

Is it the coralife aqualight pc? they are very reasonable.

 

[steve-s]

If your going to migrate over to reef eventually, I wouldn't bother with the 2x65w PC. It won't be enough.

For a reef depending on your tank dimensions, I'd suggest either 2x96w powerquads minimum or better still MH.

Cheers
Steve

 

[jaiden]

I'm very limited because I have a corner tank. the 24" fixture takes up a lot of space, but I can probably go to 30" or so

I'll need to build a canopy to keep my cats out and hang lights so I can remove the glass top

All of this is "way too expensive" for now. The coralife (yep) is 130 watts and small enough to fit. I know I want a reef eventually, but mostly I just want to get a few fish and have them live in a place that's not so bare. Coralline and some microcritters would make it much more of an ecosystem and much less of the "glass box with bare sand and rock" taht it is now. hirocks and dry aragonite are kinda boring. I don't want "bad" algea to take hold, but if I don't have enough light for coralline, it's kinda silly to spend another $80 on 10 lb of live rock only to see it die.

thoughts?

 

[steve-s]

If your good with DIY stuff you can use the 2x65w later on when you upgrade the lighting, just consider this the first step towards something better. The main thing to avoid is spending alot of money on something your not going to keep. Lighting being quite exspensive is something you only want to do once.

If you think the 2x65w is something that won't go to waste, ie.. reworked into a home built hood with additional lighting for a reef, then I'd say go ahead. If you don't think that's something you can't swing, I'd wait until you can afford something better.

It's really up to your budget and DIY skills.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Clown Monarch]

When you say "coraline" algae, do you just mean the purple algae?

 

[steve-s]

When you say "coraline" algae, do you just mean the purple algae?

Me

If so, yes. <<Coralline>>.

Cheers
Steve