T5 HO lighting?

I have a 55gal corner tank that is about 21'' deep. When I bought my tank about 1 1/2 months ago I told my LFS that at first it was going to be a FOWLR tank for awhile, so he put everything together that I needed at the time. I have no idea what to make of these lights. They are T5 HO lamps 1-10,000K and 1-420/460nm, 24" bulbs 48W total, individual reflectors around each bulb. I would like to do corals eventually. Will these lights be good enough for anything?

 

maybe some simple polyps, like yellow polyps or zoanthids for a while.. I had mine under similar light until I got my big lights..

 

With two 24W T5 over a 55g with a 21" tank you should be ok with hardy low light soft corals such as mushroom corals. I would try mushrooms first and build rockwork up so that you could try some toadstools and some zoas, you might be able to eventually try some LPS but for now I would just try some shrooms. If you want to keep more demanding types of corals you would need to upgrade the lighting.
Has your tank cycled okay? Are you monitoring nutrients? I would recommend getting ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate test kits. Also make sure that you use RO water for topping up and when mixing up salt water.
Another question what kind of flow do you have in your tank (gallons per hour etc)?

 

Thats definatly just a starter so make sure when you want to start doing corals talk to your LFS and they should be able to help you but with the high prices of lights I would compare them to the internet and the LFS

 

Thanks for the quick replies. My tank cycled fine and quite quickly actually never saw a amm spike but did have a small nitrite spike. All levels including nitrate have been a zero for past 3 weeks. I need to get a phosphate test kit yet. As for flow rate I'm not to sure, just new to this yet. I run a Berlin X2 turbo skimmer and a cannister filter right now. Just using declorinated tap water... I know you don't have to say it. I am going to start looking at RO units in new year. I have 2 false perc clowns, sand sifter gobie and a purple fire fish that are all doing great, 3 hermits, 2 snails and a cleaner shrimp.

 

i like metal halide mogul base/ magnetic ballast. they overdrive the bulb. dont throw away your t 5s and maybee look for a used aqua c skimmer in the future. Do you have a sump