Light for a 55 gallon “diamond” aquarium

Bobbyb

Bobbyb

New Member
hello, relatively new to reef builds, I currently have a good setup with a 55 gallon “ diamond” shaped aquarium, not sure the dimensions off hand, just recently received for birthday present. The tank has been active and established for over a month now and I’ve been wanting to start adding a mixture of soft and hard corals to my tank, I have a marine life led strip I’ve been using” not sure of specs” and it’s worked great for the current set up but fear it will not be sufficient or maybe to much for my aquarium. I was wondering if anyone on here has experience or lnownof anyone who has with this type of build and could hook me up with lighting ideas. From what I’ve read a 250-300w lighting system would suffice, but I would prefer to stick with full spectrum LED if possible. I plan to aquire corals that “glow” under the blue lighting. Any help hints or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Tried posting a pic of my setup but “files to largebfor server” error.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Could you get up measurements for the tank? The lighting will vary depending on the bottom surface area and the depth of the tank.

These kind of tanks are very tricky to light. Typically you need to use pendant fixtures of one sort or another, and you may need 2 or 3 smaller ones rather than one large one.

As a note, It looks like your tank has two large anemones in it. Anemones require well established tanks with excellent water conditions. Usually this means a tank running for about a year. I recommend you return the anemones to your LFS, sell them or give them away. Anemones in a new tank is recipe for disaster.
 
StirCrayzy

StirCrayzy

Well-Known Member
Looks to be a pretty standard hex tank, 24" across probably. I would think one good small pendant could do ok depending how your scape is setup. A central pile would likely do fine, but if you spread light loving corals to the edges, you will want two.
 
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