72 Gallon Tank Lighting - Project

[steve149c]

Hi All,

Really progress is being made on the planning now, I have made most of the decisions, however a few are yet to be made.

The lighting, I can get 5 T5 39W lights above my tank, they would be approx 5cm/2inch above the water line, giving me a total of 195W. They will be 2xActinic's Marine blue 420's and 3xMarine White 14,000K.

From the tubes to the base of the tank (Glass base) is 57cm, reduced to 52cm of water. This gives me 2.7 Watt per US Gallon, and 0.7 Watt per litre.

Is this enough? Looking at probably keeping soft corals, polys, fish, hermits, snails etc to start with, progressing to hard corals later (maybe)

Thanks

Steve

[neilanh]

I'm no expert, still learning/planning myself. I was going to put 6x39W over my 46 gallon tank, the guys here convinced me that I'd be somewhat limited in my coral selection without having more light, so I guess it really depends on the corals you want to have.

[pat8you]

You may be able to keep a few of the more low light corals but i would consider bumping up your lighting a little bit.

[Ziggy953]

I agree with the above. I had a 72 setup as a reef for almost 3 years. I just upgraded to a 120.

Over my 72 I had dual 175w MH with 220w VHOs and 108w of T5.

Since this is a 4' tank why not go with the 54w T5's that are 4' long to match your tank? If you put 5 of them on the tank you will greatly increase your coral options, giving you 270w of light or 3.75wpg.