It's not the light. A mixed reef is the hardest reef to keep. Water that SPS like, softies don't. LPS like water SPS don't. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get this point through to newbies. It's not about the light, it's what the corals like.
Just as an example, I grow lorapies, turakis and many SPS at pretty good rates. Yet I cannot keep a humulis or gemeneferia. All of those mentioned are SPS.
I run an SPS tank and most of my LPS were doing poorly, so I had to sell them off rather than have them die in water parameters they don't like (my lighting and where I placed them was well within their tolerance range).
I'm not saying you can't keep a mixed reef, but it's not as easy as placing them under lights. I honestly feel a mixed reef is the hardest of all to keep.
Flourishing LPS and softies with brown SPS may be good enough for some, but this would not be considered "thriving".
In short, lighting isn't a big deal. I kept a 55 gallon SPS reef with nothing but 4 VHO's. What else do you plan to use (skimmer, flow, etc.) Please don't say fuge... you're gonna say fuge, aren't you?:irked:
It's the water, not the lights. But for Shaun, it's the biology. He's the only person I know with a nice mixed reef. Check ?'s with him.
