20L Lighting advice

[J_Anton]

Recently set up my first 20 gallon (long) tank. It is fully cycled, everything is in good shape I've got some snails and hermits in there taking care of business on my live rock (25 pounds or so). No fish yet, waiting to get some black misbar clowns from the LFS.

The light I have on top is a 4 bulb T5 fixture (half daylight, half actinic) with LED moonlights. 96 watts of t5. Basically my question is, what are my limitations as to what corals I can put in with this kind of light output. I have tons of flow, just not sure where I stand with lighting. Keep in mind the tank is 12" deep.

 

[oyf709]

if you have tons flow, you should be fine for LPS maybe monti and birds nest for SPS. Softies prefer lower flow and if too much flow will blow them away.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

You should be fine with high light corals in the middle of your tank and medium to lower light corals at the ends. I wouldn't go with SPS corals myself. You'll run out of room really fast and they need very low nutrients to show their best colors. I doubt you'll have trouble keeping whatever soft and LPS corals you like. You should even be able to keep a clam after your tank has ages 6 months or so. 12" tank height is very little. You'll have a good deal of light even at the bottom.

Love your tank by the way! Beautiful rock work. What filter are you running?

 

[J_Anton]

Thank you. The rock was from premium aquatic, uncured Fiji and uncured manado. A piece of base rock as well. They sent me more rock than I had ordered, which was bittersweet, but I tried to make the best of it.

As for lighting, I'm glad to hear my options aren't too limited. Not too tempted by SPS though as was brought up, nutrient control could be an issue. Right now I'm running a seaclone 100 skimmer. I have a HOB filter which I might throw some carbon into but I'm not sure that I will even go that route.

My intent is to eventually have a hang on back refugium... Down the road. Besides snails and hermits all I have currently is some random frag the LFS gave me free yesterday. Looks like little flowers almost when it opens. Possible a glove polyp. There was red algae attached with it so my hermits have been crawling all over the poor coral to get it lol.

Anybody have any favorite corals they'd suggest?

 

[Beengirl]

Thank you. The rock was from premium aquatic, uncured Fiji and uncured manado. A piece of base rock as well. They sent me more rock than I had ordered, which was bittersweet, but I tried to make the best of it.

As for lighting, I'm glad to hear my options aren't too limited. Not too tempted by SPS though as was brought up, nutrient control could be an issue. Right now I'm running a seaclone 100 skimmer. I have a HOB filter which I might throw some carbon into but I'm not sure that I will even go that route.

My intent is to eventually have a hang on back refugium... Down the road. Besides snails and hermits all I have currently is some random frag the LFS gave me free yesterday. Looks like little flowers almost when it opens. Possible a glove polyp. There was red algae attached with it so my hermits have been crawling all over the poor coral to get it lol.

Anybody have any favorite corals they'd suggest?

I really like my frogspawn. Ricordeas are nice. Chalice corals are cool. Zoas are pretty and very colorful. I have a red eyed favia that I really like, feed it mysis occasionally.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I really like my frogspawn. Ricordeas are nice. Chalice corals are cool. Zoas are pretty and very colorful. I have a red eyed favia that I really like, feed it mysis occasionally.

I like all those suggestions too. I'd add a Duncan, red or green mushrooms, green trumpet corals, xenia (to help water quality), a toadstool leather, and favia to that list of potential candidates. These are all nice beginner corals that are easy as pie to keep and reproduce.