Lighting for 20 reef

[sland165]

Well I finally decided to get back into the hobby after a year long hiatus and 8,000 mile move. So I decided to set up a 20h tank, got a few small clowns in there and some clown gobys, but my intent is to get some corals in there after tank sets up. Got about 35lbs of live rock, going to add some more, now I am stuck on what lighting to get. Not 100% sure on what I will be keeping, a lot has to do with local store and his stock....I was looking into t-5 ho double bulb with 20k white and actinic...or i was looking at a fixture running 250w halide and 4 actinics....Not sure how the tank would react to the halide....I have never run t-5 ho before as I always had MH over my larger tanks....now I seem like I lost my touch....any help would be appreciated, also any thoughts on PC? But I heard HO is kinda putting them off the map....Lets just say my wife wants a clam later down the road...so thats a must...Thanks all and love the forums!

[Original Fin]

8K mile move to Kansas? Where were you stationed before that?
You'd be able to grow just about anything off a 250mh in a 20, but you'll also need actininc tubes, so why not just go all T5HO? They're less expensive to buy and run, they run cooler, and give off really good PAR. One big advantage of the MH is that they can penetrate deeper, but I don't see that being an issue in a 20.

You may have trouble keeping reef quality water conditions with your stocking plan though...Unless you plan to run a 50+ gal sump, 5 or more fish in that tank is too many IMHO.

[sland165]

I have looked into the T-5 HO, what would you recommend as far as that goes? I really would like to try to stay away from MH due to the heat it will produce in such a small area....The stocking list is 1 maroon clown, and 2 clown goby's, the 3/4 inch guys....plan to keep it at that besides inverts of course, crabs, snails,etc....How many watts/ which setup will you think will work the best.....maybe doing some hard corals...not sure yet...

[Original Fin]

How wide is your tank? If it's less than 24", heres an example of a very nice 6 x 18" fixture that will get you 108 watts. Current USA Nova Extreme Pro T5HO 10k/460nm Actinics

If you can fit a 24" fixture, check out ATI. You can get them all the way up to 10 bulbs at 240 total watts. These are pretty pricy though. If you ever felt like you needed more than that for the hard corals, you could probably retrofit to VHO, but by the time you spend all that money, it's probably more cost effective to just go MH.
ATI Powermodule T5 HO Fixture | SustainableReefs.com

[sland165]

Yes it is a 24'' tank....I was looking at the Wavepoint 4 tube HO setup....twin 10k and twin actinics totaling out to 96W for the fixture... didn't seem to bad....what are your thoughts?

[Original Fin]

I think that would be a great choice, as long as you don't mind not being able to control the bles and whitesseperately...it only has one power cord. Also, if you can find one that has lunar LED's built in, that's a nice feature to have too, not that you can't add them seperately.
I run a 4 bulb on my 55 too, just half as long, and it has two power cords and LEDs. Two actinics and two 10k's, just like hat you're looking at. Works great for me. Up till today, I've only had softies, and they are thriving. I just picked up my first hard coral this afternoon...a nice 3" green Trachyphyllia brain...not too demanding as LPS goes, so we'll see.

Sometimes I wish I got the 6 bulb...not so much because I want more wattage/PAR, but moreso to be able to experiment with different color tube combinations...I'd like to see a Fiji purple in there, but I'm not sure it's a good idea at this point to lose an actinic or 10k to do it. I do have room to add a 2nd two bulb fixture, so maybe someday I'll do that.

[sland165]

Yah I think that will be the system I go with, but were going to wait to upgrade till a later date, wife, christmas, yall know the drill....until then we will keep an eye out for anything else that comes up.....Also I was looking into the clamp on MH, anyone have any thoughts on maybe using that?