I have a 36 gallon aquariun live rock w/ fish regular hood light what type of light should I use?

Answer 1

Your regular aquarium light is fine unless you start adding anemone and corals. Most fish are fine under regular aquarium lighting, however always check the animals requirement before purchasing the animal.

Answer 2

I like how you stated your question - live rock with fish! (most people go the other way, but live rock and all the stuff that comes on it is what I like best!)

Really, there are a couple of options you could use, depending on how you want the tank to look. For your fish, any lighting would be fine. If you bought good live rock (with coraline algae, sponges, and macroalgae, you might want something a little better to help bring out the color on your rock. Depending on how much money you might want to spend, you could just upgrade the lamp in a normal hood to something more in the range for plant photosynthesis (5,500K - 6,500K). Or, you could invest in a hood with a double fixture (two fluorescent tubes instead of one). Personally, I use a twin tube compact fluorescent which gives even brighter lighting and is suitable for some corals and anemones. The very best for brightness and high intensity corals, clams, and anemones is a metal halide system - these are the most expensive, and really unnecessary if all you're planning to keep is fish.

Depending on how good of a quality of live rock you have, and if you think you might ever want to try some of the easier corals, I'd suggest either upgrading the fluorescent tube in your existing fixture or investing in a compact fluorescent.

I'll provide a link below where you can get additional information on marine lighting options - the lighting section is near the bottom of the page: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marsetupindex2.htm

Answer 3

Your present day lighting fixtures is nice for fish purely. Kat is optimal that coraline algae definitely grows greater useful in low gentle. Coraline algae may additionally develop right into a headache because it has a tendency to advance everywhere yet the place you go with it. it is going to advance on something plastic putting interior the tank, the glass front lower back factors and so on. Your fish record is nice as they're all tremendously small, i could lose the damsel in spite of the undeniable fact that. they're very aggresive and only nasty. I additionally could re-evaluate the protein skimmer. Skimmers are actually not necessary , yet a thank you to delivery out waste is. you're able to try this water modifications, yet once you're making use of faucet water they gained't help plenty. a sturdy skimmer will upload oxygen to the tank besides as professional longing the time necessary between water modifications.