How much is too much?

[jspicer16]

I'm new to reef keeping and was wondering whats too much? I see these pictures of these amazing nano reef tanks where there is something growing everywhere you look from top to bottom and and love it and I wont lie, I'd like to have something like that some day. Right now I have a 20 gallon tank thats been up and running for exactly a year and a half. The tank parameters seem very stable, I test for nitrate/ph/nitrite/ammonia/alk/cal every saturday as well as swap out a 2 gallon water change.

I have probably 15-20 lbs of live rock, I cant really remember how much. There has only been some zoos and some xenias in there and a hairy mushroom thats growing like crazy as well as a small purple mushroom that has now become three small ones. I only have two tank raised ocellaris clowns in there, a hermit crab, and two turbo snails.

A LFS has a very nice torch coral I've had my eye on for a week now and would love to get. I was wondering if i could put that in my tank? I've seen like 8 gallon tanks with those in there even with more coral then i got.

 

[classklown90]

torch would be fine, assuming your lighting is good. keep it away from other corals, they sting

 

[jspicer16]

I have four 22 inch T5ho with individual reflectors 2 are 10000k daylight and 2 are actinic

 

[iDream]

that sounds good, but whats the wattage on the bulbs?

i think you should be fine though, torch are medium light corals

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Lighting-wise you're fine, but I wouldn't put a torch in a 20g. It can put out some loooonng sweepers when it senses other corals, and in a 20g it could pretty much reach anything. I had (past tense) a torch in the middle of my 46g (bad idea) and watched it reach out about 10 inches and sting a Stylophora multiple times. Kinda interesting to watch, but not for long. The torch was at the LFS for credit the next weekend.