i want to upgrade my lighting on my 20 gal

[rthoman]

I was thinking of going with an ah supply kit, i have a standard aquarium hood. They make a kit that will fit right in. or should i build a whole new hood? Its a 20 gal tank and my plans are to add some corals. Is 36w good enough or should i go to 55w. And do the combo PC bulbs work as good as the solid ones? I wanna try to stay around 50 bucks if possible. Any Ideas?

[reefrunner69]

Alot of whether 36W vs 55W, will be what you want to keep in the tank. Also, is this 1 or 2 bulbs? I think if your wanting to do a reef with low to med light corals, 2 X 36W will be fine, If your wanting to do higher light corals go with 2 X 55W. If your just going to keep some lower light stuff, them a 1X 55W would be OK, if just going with 1 bulb, then I would get the 50/50 bulb. Otherwise I would get one of each daylight and actinic.

[fishfreek]

I would be worried that the PC bulb would produce enough heat to melt or soften a plastic light strip. PC bulbs do get a little warm. Warm enough to a point that you cant just grap ahold of them after they ahve been on for a while.

Infact on my canopy that I have 2 36W bulbs I have the reflectors connected directly to the wood with no spacer and I learned that I can NOT put a plant on top of the tank unless I water it like everyday. This is because the top of the canopy gets warm to the touch. This is by the lights heating the reflector and that then heats the 3/8" plywood.

[rthoman]

Thanks, I think i have decided to build a new hood. I will probably go with 2 bulbs. I want to be able to put some higher light corals eventually. So 2 55w's will probably be the way i go. There is no such thing as too much light is there?

[fishfreek]

There is no such thing as too much light is there?

While this is the case for the most part what you can do is bleach your corals if they are exposed to a much brigher light all of a sudden. When upgrading your lights make sure you shorten the photo period for a few weeks slowly increasing the photo period until your back to 12hr's on and 12 hr's off.

When you get new corals place them in the tank with the lights off. Start them out on the bottom of the tank and if they are higher light loving corals then slowly move them up higher and higher in the tank.

Going with two blubs is good choice. If you get two ballasts you can put them on different timers and have the actinic bulb come on 1 hour earlier and 1 hour later than the daylight bulb.