A Buyers Guide to Choosing the Right Lighting for Your Saltwater Aquarium
Lighting for saltwater aquariums is probably one of the most important decisions you will have to make when creating a tank.
What good is creating a visual effect under water when you can't see it properly? The type of fish that will be kept in a saltwater aquarium will have come from warm shallow seas with a lot of light shining on them.
So recreating that original setting is a must for your tank to flourish.
Types Of Tanks Before you buy the lighting you need to consider first what type of aquarium you will have.
Whether it be a fish only tank, fish only with live rock, or a reef tank.
Depending on what you decide will affect the choice of what lighting you will use for your saltwater aquarium.
You don't want to underlight it and you don't want to overlight it causing the water to overheat.
Types Of Fish The next thing to consider before you buy your lighting is what type of fish you will have in your tank.
You also need to think about what species can be put together in the same tank and what their needs are.
Some species require higher levels of lighting.
Also you need to research what the requirements are in a reef tank particularly.
Some organisms don't work well together.
What Lighting To Use For fish only tanks use fluorescent lighting as these aquariums don't require a lot of lighting.
Fluorescent lighting is cool in temperature, inexpensive and is evenly spread throughout the tank.
This is the lighting you see in offices.
The bulbs have a long life.
The rule of thumb for lighting with fluorescent lighting is 1W per gallon.
For fish with live rock tanks you might consider power compact fluorescent lighting.
This is put basically fluorescent lighting bent in half.
They are available in spectrums of Daylight, Actinic Blue and 50/50.
This type of lighting will help with coralline algae growth.
If you're not too concerned with this algae growth then you can just use fluorescent lighting.
For a reef tank it might be best to consider a more complicated sort of lighting.
It may require something with a very high output, (VHO) but the water temperature has to be considered.
You may have to think about buying fans and chillers.
You can also use metal halide lighting.
Halides are usually used for invertebrates and photosynthetic corals.
Be sure that comes with an ultra violet filter.
Or you could combine with mercury vapour types, they may have to come with reflective mechanisms to direct the light rays.
Halide lighting isn't as strong and so it creates a shadow effect on the reef making for a more dramatic appearance.
What good is creating a visual effect under water when you can't see it properly? The type of fish that will be kept in a saltwater aquarium will have come from warm shallow seas with a lot of light shining on them.
So recreating that original setting is a must for your tank to flourish.
Types Of Tanks Before you buy the lighting you need to consider first what type of aquarium you will have.
Whether it be a fish only tank, fish only with live rock, or a reef tank.
Depending on what you decide will affect the choice of what lighting you will use for your saltwater aquarium.
You don't want to underlight it and you don't want to overlight it causing the water to overheat.
Types Of Fish The next thing to consider before you buy your lighting is what type of fish you will have in your tank.
You also need to think about what species can be put together in the same tank and what their needs are.
Some species require higher levels of lighting.
Also you need to research what the requirements are in a reef tank particularly.
Some organisms don't work well together.
What Lighting To Use For fish only tanks use fluorescent lighting as these aquariums don't require a lot of lighting.
Fluorescent lighting is cool in temperature, inexpensive and is evenly spread throughout the tank.
This is the lighting you see in offices.
The bulbs have a long life.
The rule of thumb for lighting with fluorescent lighting is 1W per gallon.
For fish with live rock tanks you might consider power compact fluorescent lighting.
This is put basically fluorescent lighting bent in half.
They are available in spectrums of Daylight, Actinic Blue and 50/50.
This type of lighting will help with coralline algae growth.
If you're not too concerned with this algae growth then you can just use fluorescent lighting.
For a reef tank it might be best to consider a more complicated sort of lighting.
It may require something with a very high output, (VHO) but the water temperature has to be considered.
You may have to think about buying fans and chillers.
You can also use metal halide lighting.
Halides are usually used for invertebrates and photosynthetic corals.
Be sure that comes with an ultra violet filter.
Or you could combine with mercury vapour types, they may have to come with reflective mechanisms to direct the light rays.
Halide lighting isn't as strong and so it creates a shadow effect on the reef making for a more dramatic appearance.