Is 4 watts per gallon enough ??

[KRMNAL1]

I have a 55 gallon tank wit about 75 lbs sand and 75 lbs live rock, is this enough light for corals now ??

 

[liveforphysics]

Impossible question to answer without some data.

For example, I can get more light from 1 110watt VHO tube with a home brew reflector than 4 110watt VHO bulbs with typical crap reflectors.

Likewise, 2000watts of incandecent lights could easily be adding less light than 55watts from a reflected PC bulb.

And finally, distance from the surface to the target organism you are trying to illuminate makes a huge difference in satisfying the lighting needs of the organism.

 

[Reefreak]

Most likely yes. However,
What type of lighting do you have?
What type of corals do you want to keep, or are you looking for advise on that, and is this a 48" 55 gallon

 

[wrightme43]

In addition, it would help alot if you let us know what type of coral you want to keep.
I can sorta guess from the watts, 4 x gallons 55 you are getting 220 watts.
Thats either 2 110w Vho bulbs or 4 55w compact flor bulbs.
If that is the case on a 55 you would be fine with mushrooms, softies, some of the lps corals. a few of the low light sps corals if kept near the top of the water.
Hope this helps, but like luke said more info would help alot.

 

[KRMNAL1]

Thanks for the replies and accept my apologies in advance because I am going to hijack my own thread and address more than just lighting :lol:

Yes my 55 is 48" long by I think 18 high and 12 deep ?? I am running all fluorescent tubes (for now) 2 of them are 18k 40 watt, 2 are 40 watt actinic and 2 are 30 watt 18k. I covered the entire underside of my hood with aluminum HVAC tape and the background is covered with one of the PetsCo blue foil cheepo backgrounds. I have a 7 gallon sump (the kind that was designed for Bio-Balls but I threw the balls out) with a MAG 5 return along with 2 Penguin 1100 or something power heads, oh yeah, I also run a SeaClone skimmer in my sump. Yeah, yeah I know that most of you pee on SeaClone skimmers but mine seems to be working just fine, I think. I clean out the collection cup 2 or 3 times a week and it is always close to 1/2 full. OK, I'll be honest and say that I make my 13yr old son clean the skimmer and I have no problem taking credit for it

I have close to 75lbs of Carib-Sea sand and almost 75lbs of live rock, close to 40 Astrea snails, 2 "Big A*$" Turbo snails, 10 or 12 hermits and 4 blue leg hermits that magically appeared 2 months after I set up the tank, 2 Clown fish, 2 Green Chromis and 2 electric blue Damsels that I have a love hate relationship with. I also have a small colony of green Mushroom Corals, a starter colony of about 15-20 Yellow star polyps (sp?) with a bunch of blue green Zooanthids on the same rock. I bought a small Anemone last weekend but I forgot the proper name, he is brown with purple tips and although the sales women said he was not a bubble tip anemone he sure looks similar to the pics I see on this site.

I only have 6 little fish and the only ones I really care about are my 2 clowns but as I said I have a love hate thing going with the 2 electric Damsels and 1 of the 2 is even starting to show some personality traits that I really enjoy. I think I want a purple Tang yet I hear they are mean and I should get a yellow Tang instead but those are fugly IMO, I also like the big Box fish that seem to live on the top of the tank but I don't know if they are practical, So help with what kind of reef safe fish I can buy would be helpful.

As far as Coral's I like the leather coral, bubble coral and I really like some of the hard type coral that I have seen while snorkeling in Hawaii but I don't what kind of lighting is required for those. Help would be great !!

Thanks
Mike D

 

[wrightme43]

The hard corals would be out of the range of your lights. They really need mh to thrive. Some hard corals like montipora do ok under less light.

 

[liveforphysics]

If you feel like doubleing your light for $45, buy 2 "workhorse 5" instant start ballasts for your lights. Run the tubes in SERIES. The light your tank sees will easily double, and if you are running magnetic ballasts now, you may even reduce the energy consumption, and increase bulb life.

 

[dabears26]

I think 4 watts per gallon is fine with your softies, leathers, polyps and mushrooms.With flourescent bulbs..That what i also started with.Then switched to a 192watt pc and saw improvement but really wasn't able to keep sps and some lps like frogspawn or bubbles.I finally upgraded to metal halide and a 90gal tank im getting about492watts from my fixture so around 5 watts per gal....And now i have got 2 acro and seem to be doing great...Hope this helps...And heres a few pics

 

[MarineTeng]

i keep frogspawn under 4x65 watt pc's the satelite fixture, sps didn't work well for me, tried it over a year ago and they died rather quickly though that might have been chemi clean, but umm things that say high light on most sites don't seem to work well, i had a tongue coral, had to mount it 4-5" from the light on a tupperware to keep it alive since it's substrate dwelling it didn't work, but softies like kenya trees work well, my mushrooms split often and zoos are growing quick as far as i can tell

 

[rainier29]

I had lps and softies in my 72g bowfront that did very well under 5.3 watts per gallon...however, that was with halides. I even had some clams in there that were doing awesome (they were high in the tank).

http://www.thewildsidepetswa.com/752580.html (travis' reef)

Just be careful on coral selection...research...

 

[Elmo18]

In my opinion, nothing can be said about watts/gallon ratio.

It's about as useless as a number as a glass algae cleaner on an acrylic tank. Ok bad analogy, but I agree with Luke.

Instead of watts/gallon, just describe your lighting specs as you already did

Best,
Ilham