Lighting for fish only tank

Hi, its been a few years since I posted here. I gave up on my reef tank a few years back after I came home from a vacation and found that one of my clams died and polluted the water and killed everything in my 75 gal reef. I have been running a 120L fish only tank with a 30g refuge and sump. I let the tank go for a few years, no water change, poor lighting but much to my surprise my Purple Tang, Powder Blue Tang, Picasso Trigger and Blue Devil have survived and appear healthy. The Purple Tang is over 10yrs old and the Powder blue is approaching 10yr.

Any way, I have cleaned my tank and did a 75% water change and everything is well. However, I need to buy new bulbs for my 260watt Power compact fixture. I was wondering what lighting would be the best for bringing out the colors in my fish? (I have forgotten so much about this hobby the last few years). I need 4x65 watt bulbs. I was thinking about 2x50/50 actinic and 10K bulbs and 2x10K bulbs. What do you guys think?

By the way, any one living in MN want to buy a 75g reef ready tank?

Thanks,

Larry

 

Welcome back Raven

as it is fish only, the light you select will be more to do with viewing pleasure than needs of the inhabitants

the mix your suggestiing sounds OK to me although if you prefer a more blue effect then 2 x actinic and 2 x 10k would also be a nice combination IMO

 

Thanks Steve!

 

Welcome back, I am sure you will find that lighting has changed pretty dramatically. Do a search on here for "LED"....

 

My wife and I are new to having fish, and we inherited a 175 gal. tank with 6 chichlids, and rather big Pacu.... 2 suckermouth catfish, and another fish i am not sure what it is... looks a lot like a white koi.

We are doing ok with the aquarium. We put in a new filtration system that is a canister type (the system that was on it was 2 whisper 30/60 units that seemed just totally inadequate).

The lighting on this tank is just a single 36" two florescent bulb set up that just sets on top of a tank glass panel. This too seems VERY inadequate!!!

My tank dimensions are 28 1/2 in height, 72" in length, and 18" wide...

Any suggestions???

Thanks!!

 

My cousin has a 180 gallon tank with roughly 40 cichlids in it. He is running (4) T5 HO lights, they are 36" fixtures. That really brings out the colors of the fish. He does set them right on the tank, cant really use the legs since 3' fixtures put you in the middle of the tank. You could opt for a 72" fixture that will span the length of the tank and have 2 sets of 36" bulbs.

 

Thanks Slenhart!!

Since we are new to this... I don't honestly know if the lighting I have is adequate or not for what we have. I don't think it is... but perhaps having something more would be too much... I just don't know. IF it isn't enough lighting, I don't want to have lights just sit on top of the tank panels, primarily because moving them would be a pain when I need to get into the tank to clean and feed.