What should I do about lighting

[DeletedAccount]

Is your plan to keep this a FOWLR tank or are you going to slowly convert it to a reef (that is how my FOWLR looks)?

[malofish]

Maybe look into VHO's??? Not real expensive but do look good! 3 36in. bulbs wood do the trick.

[Tim Marvin]

I have a used set-up of 4-40 watt bulbs that I used to grow softies and coralline with. It is plenty of light for your application. You can get a new set-up like it for pretty low cost or VHO's would be a little better but also a little more in cost.

[DeletedAccount]

On our FOWLR we put 4 VHO retro kit. I love the brightness and we now have all kinds of soft corals growing happily in it!

[matt]

Maybe this is the perfect scenario for the T5 bulbs, because they're so small. If not, a couple of 36" P.C. tubes would be okay. Better would be to squeeze 4 55W bulbs; I think they're about 22" long so you should be able to do it. Call ahsupply.com and talk to the guy there; he really knows about P.C. applications and dimensions.

[georgeortiz]

Hi,
I was looking at Hellolights and they have a vho ballast for 35 bucks that will run two 48 inch 120 watt bulbs or up to 240 watts of bulbs. You can get the waterproof endcaps and a couple of bulbs and the whole setup including diy hood should cost you under 100 bucks. This would give you about 4.3 watts per gallon which should be enough for the type of coral specimens you want to keep.