Need some advice on lighting?

[plkdb]

I bought a 5.5 all glass aquarium. I want to build it into a nano, I`m confused about the lighting. I bought two sylvania 23w bulbs, because they were on clearance at Lowes, but I`m not sure they will work with what I will need for the tank. Its a scew in type compact flourescent, 23w, but its only 3000k. Now that I got the tank home, and started poking around some more, it looks like for a little more (about 20.00) I could upgrade the hood that came with the tank, to just a glass cover, and use the hellolights kit that has two 9w pc bulbs, one actinic, one 10,000k. What do you think?

 

[Biggen]

I will tell you if it were me, I would dump that 3K bulb and get something at least in the 10K + range. That yellow look would really turn me off...

I would think the hellolights.com kit would be good though for keeping most low light corals.

I'll let someone else try, though, as I have zero experience with nanos.

 

[fishfreek]

I would not do the glass cover. Instead build a canopy so your lights are 4-5" above the water surface and have the water surface uncovered. This will help the water temp keep from climbing high.

I have two little 5 gal tanks and I think a pair of little PC bulbs would light it nicely. I thought they had 13W PC bulbs.

 

[biotoxin]

plk, im doing a nano also and a good site is nano-reef.com. The general rule of thumb is 3-5 watts per gallon. I would not use anything under 6500k and the advice from the people before this is good. Is it an all glass tank or an eclipse? Some of those hoods you can retrofit a csl (customsealife) kit into. Something like a 28-32watt kit would do good even tho ive seen people put a 96watt powerquad on it. It really depends on what you wana grow such as sps or lps, clams etc. But one of the golden rules is never skimp on light and i would live by the rule that more is better when it comes to lighting.

 

[loganj]

You can get the screw in PC's from Home Depot in 6500k. The brand is Commercial Electric and they're called "daylights". A 32w PC would do a great job as well.

 

[steve-s]

I just purchased the type that loganj mentioned for my 5 gal nano. Those PC threaded bulbs rock...

Cheers
Steve