Is 6000k enough for mushrooms

[Lynden]

I just got some pumping Xenia, Mushroom coral, Caulerpa, and two colonies of Zooanthids. First of all, do Xenia have Zooxanthellae in their tissues, and will two 48" 6100k standard flourescents plus two 18" actinic bulbs be able to support the animals and algae listed?

Also, what about scallops, clams and oysters? I know scallops don't need too much, will they eat Artemia nauplii?
I heard they are quite difficult to keep long.

 

[murph145]

hi there....

im new to this board but know alot about reef tanks and especially lighting.... i currently have a 100G reef with soft, LPS, and SPS corals also a T. Crocea super purple clam, my tank has 500W of 20K double ended metal halide bulbs and then another 200W of 10K power compact lighting

im assuming you are talking about standrad normal output flourescent lighting....

how big of a tank do you have?? how many total watts are each bulb?? 20W?40W?

most be at least 4 feet long which means its going to be around 75 im thinking...

with normal output flourescent the light isnt intence enough to penetrate the water deep enough to give corals that have light dependant algaes to help sustain there life live.... xenias also have these algaes in there tissue which compansates for feeding... i would say in order to keep some zoo's mushrooms and xenias u would need around 3 watts of total lighting per gallon of water.... meaning if you have a 75 gallon tank you would need 225 watts of light.... its good to go with a mixture of 10K, 6500K and actinics .... your going to most likely need to get some sort of power compact kit or VHO kit to keep any soft corals successfully long term...

once you get more lighting they will reproduce and divide a lot faster too

as for scallops they usually die within 6-8 months in an aquarium since there is not enough food in the water to keep them alive they are filter feeders which need a lot of microscopic food to take in.... as for clams being crocea, maxima, and others like that they need high lighting in most cases which means metal halides i wouldnt ever get a clam until you upgrade to metal halides for sure....

good luck on everything hope it helped somewhat