low light level

[jc1of2]

I keep reading about low light level corals such as zoo's and mushrooms, but just what is the watts per gallon rule for such coral? I might like to add some zoanthus and mushrooms later but I'm not sure if I need more light. Right now I have a 75 gallon with 130watts of 50/50 light. I can upgrade to a 260watts if I need to, but I read that the coralline algae prefer low light environments. What would the wattage be for a mix of low light coral and coralline algae be?

 

[Brenden]

Zoo's for the most part are mod to high light corals. Only certain mushrooms like low light as a lot also like mod to high light. The watts per gal rule is very vague and should not relied on. A better way is tank depth, coral height etc. Right now you may be able to keep a blue, green, or giant mushroom if you put it high in the tank. A sun polyp is a coral you can keep but will take some additional care/feeding compared to mushrooms. If a light upgrade is possible I would suggest it if you are wanting to try corals. If you buy one coral then you will eventually want 2,3,4 If you do the upgrade you will be able to keep additional moderate light corals. Liveaquaria.com gives you a good idea of corals requirements.

 

[jc1of2]

O.K. thanks for the advice. My plan now is to upgrade to 260 watts of 50/50 pc lights. Any corals I get would be about 12" to 16" from the bulbs with the glass canopy inbetween them. Does a clean glass canopy block any light from the corals? Just for reference my tank is 75 gallons with 85 pounds of LR. fish include an ocellaris clown, 2 firefish, a clown goby, a honey chromis and a small blue tang. I believe all of these are reef safe. One thing i'm not sure of is a black cowrie that I have which is about 3 inches long. He seems to not pay much attention to anything but the algae. Also the honey chromis may be moving to another tank soon.