Still don't get the lighting...

[hamdogg08]

Could someone give me a general overview on what inverts can be kept with each type of lighting. It seems like fish and feather dusters don't really care about what type of lighting they're under, and the LPS are the pretty bastard child of corals, needing MH lights. What are the requirements of everything in between?

[Goldpony75]

LPS dont require metal halides, you can keep them under pc just usually have to keep them higher in the tank. sps for the most part require intense lighting like metal halides or ho t-5. with two 96 or even two 65 on a 20 gallon and you can keep alot of lps and zoos, just dont expect much growth. this is all in my opinion mind you.

[capman]

With metal halides or other intense lighting you can keep pretty much anything that people keep in reef tanks. Some things might like to be lower in the tanks or shaded a bit or in darker corners or edges (e.g., people often keep mushrooms in lower light, though I have had them do great right under metal halides), while other things prefer being directly below the metal halides.

If you want to keep giant clams at some point, especially the smaller more colorful species (maxima and crocea) you will need metal halides or some other intense lighting. A lot of the SPS corals really need intense lighting, and I find that some of the soft corals like Xenia do best for me under this sort of lighting as well. My rose anemone is right under a 400W metal halide and it grows fast and is huge, though some folks keep them successfully with less light.

How much light counts as "really intense lighting" varies depending on who you talk to. Some folks have 10 or more watts per gallon over their tanks. Others argue that SPS corals actually develop better color with quite a bit less light than this. This color-tweaking of corals thing is almost an art form it seems. If your are interested at some point, you might do a search for some of Graham's comments on this on the old TCMAS forum over at thereeftank.com (but right now if you are just starting the bigger goal is to just get them to grow well of course!).

One of the really nice really successful reef tanks of a former club member was a 180 gallon tank with three 175W metal halides and two normal output (40 W) cool white (!) fluorescents - this is just a bit over 3 watts per gallon, which I think might be a lot less light than many people have on their SPS tanks. This tank had vigorous colorful SPS corals, misc soft corals, multiple large derasa clams, and a huge gigas clam (the clams were all grown up in this tank from tiny clams).

Personally, I really like the looks of metal halide on a reef tank, and I like the flexibility it gives me in terms of what I can keep in my tanks. My lab tanks range from about 4 to 10 watts per gallon, mostly at the higher end.

(I also feel terribly guilty about how much electricity these tanks consume!)