10 gallon nano reef lighting?

[theOOkymonster]

I have a 10 gallon tank with about 10 pounds of live rock, an inch thick of live sand, and two new false percs. I only have a walmart incandesant hood on it right now. I would like to grow some easy low light corals and soft corals and whatnot. Is there a good (and cheap) way to light the tank or even modify my incandesant hood enough to grow some corals? Anybody got some ideas?

[charlie]

Welcome to Reefland

Have you checked any of our Sponsors for nano tank lighting? It would help to know the dimensions of your tank and we can go from there, OK?

[theOOkymonster]

It is 20 in. X about 10.4 or 5 or something right in there, and it is 12.5 inches tall. I think its a pretty standard 10 gallon size. It looks the same as every one i've ever seen.

[charlie]

You are going to have to be extremely aware of heat issues with any lite you put on there. Did you look into any of our sponsors for lighting? I know they make a clip on halide light, but I don't know if you want to mess with that considering your choice of corals????

[Carissa]

When I was setting up my 33g the most economical option I could find was the dual T5 HO GLO strip from Hagen, for my size tank it was about $100 and puts off a lot of light for the size. The smallest I know of is the 24" 2 x 24W, it might hang off the side of your tank a bit if your tank is smaller than 24" which would mean you would have to lay it directly across the tank (heat may be an issue but if not this would give you more intensity) or suspend it from the ceiling (it comes with hardware for this). That would give you nearly 5 wpg for $100. Then what I have on the top is just one of those cheap glass sliding covers to make sure nobody jumps out, they are probably $20 or so. I couldn't find anything cheaper than this for my 33g for the amount of light you get and it looks nice.

[reeferguru]

Incandescent lights run very hot and I believe are not FULL-SPECTRUM BULBS therefore are no good for corals and other photosynthetic animals.
Corallife makes a version of a dual powercompact lighting fixture that would be perfect for your size tank. It comes with (2) 18 watt powercompact bulbs-1 actinic and 1-10000k bulb for around $75.00!

This will allow you to maintain numerous easy, less light demanding corals like mushrooms, zoanthids and many large polyped stony corals.