Smart Lamp's not enough?

[DebbieC]

I am so confused after reading all of the articles on lighting. I currently have a 55 gallon tank with 2 - 65 watt 10K/Actinic SmartLamps. It appears that this is not enough from my reading attempts. I also have a standard hood light with a Coralife Trichromatic 6500K full spectrum light, but I discontinued use of it after I purchased the SmartLamps. Should I use it also...in combination with the 2 SmartLamps? It sounds like the ideal thing for me to do...would be for me to purchase the German 175 watt 10K to go with my SmartLamps. Help........
Thank you.

 

[2poor2reef]

It all depends on what your trying to keep. You don't need very much light for a FOWLR tank. Mushrooms and many polyps take relatively little light. Softies a little more. SPS and clams a whole lot more. Let us know what animals you're going to keep and we can give you some opinions.

 

[DebbieC]

I'm mainly interested in the soft corals and anomones. I currently have a small clump of Xenia...and what I think is an Orange Nepthia. Both are doing very good. I would like to purchase some type of anemone..and more soft corals. I currently only have two Percula Clowns, 1 Orange Tail Damsel and a WeedEater Blennie. I hope to get a Naso Tang this week. That should be my final fish. Then I would really like to start adding the different colorful soft corals and a large anemone.

 

[EmilyB]

If clwonfish hosting anemones are in your future, you should start thinking about the upgrade to MH, IMO.

Hopefully, you have not added a Naso Tang, unless you have a big tank coming soon !

 

[hectina]

I have seen this same setup support mushrooms, some LPS, and softies at my LFS for quite some time. I would still go ahead and upgrade to VHO actinic (icecap ballast) and MH. Don't worry about the money spent on the PCs, you could sell them on Ebay for a pretty penny!

 

[2poor2reef]

Debbie, all anemonaes that I know of require high light levels to survive any length of time. Even then anemonaes generally live small fractions of their normal lifespan in our tanks. For that reason I don't keep them. Most clowns will host in less demanding substitutes. I would look into that if that;s the reason you want an anemonae. Also, I would urge you to take Emily's advice and skip the Naso Tang. The minimum recommended tank size for that species is 135g. You might want to pick up a copy of a good marine fish reference book like Marine Fishes by Scott Michael.

 

[Mr Premnas]

Depending on the type of anemone that you want to keep, your lighting may be sufficient. If you are looking in to getting a bubble tip anemone, you have plenty of lighting. These BTAs seem to be among the hardiest anemone and are available captive raised--so if you are set on getting one, this would be my recommendation. For the list of articles that you proposed keeping, my opinion is that your lighting is good to go.
p.s. pass on the tang (unless you are upgrading tanks soon)

 

[MedicineMan1]

I'm afraid many of you anemone experts are missing the point here. Yes, anemones have zooxanthellae and require decent lighting. However, anemones don't live by zooxanthellae energy production alone: they need to be well fed! Sometimes this can be a pain in the a$$ but they seem to need the extra nutrients provided by feeding meaty foods.