Juststarting back up !

So I recently started back up my marine tank . I'm running a 50 gallon 48" long cycled my tank for close to two months then added some live rock to the tank I had a large amount of rock from before but as it's dead , I'm wondering about how long until that rock becomes alive again and a part of the living filtration system of thentank . I'm running a duel bulb t5 where as I used to run the duel t5and a mix of compact florecents . Will my t5 alone be enough for my size of tank or should I add another t5 set up or add the compacts back in .... I was trying to use less if more wasn't needed , didn't want to be running light just to run it .

 

Congrats on the the start up.

You can simply challenge the tank with the addition of fish food, add a pinch, test the next two days.

If you see a detectable ammonia or nitrite value than the biological filter needs more time to grow/more time.

As far lights go, what do you want to keep coral wise and what is the name of fixture or bulb types?

 

The fixture is a glo and has 2x 10,000k bulbs in it and yes eventually I want to keep corals again .

 

On 50 gallons you will probably have to upgrade the lighting to keep stony corals.

 

What would be sufficient 4 t5s ?

 

Yes, with decent bulbs and a good reflector.

 

Agree on the lighting. Ideally, you will want individual reflectors with 4 quality bulbs (ATI, Giesmann etc.).

 

There are some really nice combinations of colors for T5 lighting that you will really like the look of.