The sun has risen in my living room.

[Pain Devine]

So I finally got my aquarium stand, sump and hood finished for my 16 gallon tank. I set it all up tonight, through in some of that "Agra-alive" sand stuff and 'dead' rocks' and put the 5 gallons of Distilled water I already have in there (after I mixed in the salt) I have to wait until morning for the grocery store to open to get more water.

So anyway... I made my own lights... I have 2, 20 watt 6500k and 2 20 watt 10,000k lights. holy cripes! I turned the thing on and it was like the sun rose in my friggen livingroom! It's REALLY bright! It really does look like daylight. I had tested it previously and it didn't seem so blinding. I think the bowfront of the tank is having some sort of lensing effect or something. I'm going to have to drop little sunglasses in there before I put any fish in.

 

[reefobsessed]

You could land a plan with the light that comes off of mine. My neighbors must wonder what kind of evil experiences I have going on over here...he he

 

[notmuffy]

WOW!
all that in 16 gallons!
I have a 40 gallon tank, 1 35 watt 10,000k and 1 30 wall "50/50" bulb (half actinic) and I think I have just enough lighting. I had my star polyps on the sand (they are on a short rock) and recently put them at the top of the tank under the lights in case they weren't getting enough. They hate it up there I think so I'll put them back far away. I have a couple anemones that have crawled into caves (photo), I guess because of the light!
oh - and yes I have an abundance of different algae... I have caulerpa that VISIBLY grows about a half inch a night on all its shoots... (lucky I have sarcoglossans that munch on it).

So anyway, I can't imagine 2 more bulbs in my 40 gallon tank. I can't even fathom what they must look like in your 16 gallon!

 

[Bearfan]

Actually, your about on target at 80W for the 16 gal. I'd rather be on the high end of the spectrum and be able to do anything, than the low end and have probs.

 

[fishfreek]

One thing to note is that the brightness of a buld and its intensity are somewhat different. For example if you take that 40W of light and you double it to 80W. The tank will not appear (to you) to be twice as bright. There will be a degree of increase in its apparent brightness but it wont be 2X.