Lighting Question!!

[herefishyfishy]

Okay, so I have an 18" 15w Florescent light for my 20 gallon soon to be reef tank.
I dont have a heater in it now and the temperature was at the top of the green on the thermometer. So I took off the hood and hung the whole lighting unit over the uncovered tank. It's now closer to the water and shows to be brighter. To prevent any of the internal parts of getting wet, I put a tight piece of saran wrap around the bottom area. Is everything ok with what I did?
thx.
Alex

 

[RamJet]

Ok, I am happy you took the top off, but you still need a different light for reef. The one you have is no way near as strong as what you need.
The pipe fish will not last long in a fish bowl, and you still need to get the sargent majors out. A good reef light will run you around $100.00 to $150.00 for that tank.
If you try putting corals in your tank, they will just die. Ok, thats all I have time for at the moment, I would love to help you, but you are going to have to take some of my advice. Trust me, I have been doing this for quite awile now.
Oh, dont use tap water and get rid of the under gravel filter.

 

[herefishyfishy]

Errrrr. I loved the way my two Sergeant majors swam around happily together playing in the down draft of the water coming back from the filter but one (the bigger one of course) chases everything that's smaller than it, which is only two fish so far. I guess Im going to have to take Ram's advice and let the two of em go . Ill probably get 3 for $11 and get 3 damsels in place.

Oh ya Im looking at buying a 65 gallon to use as my reef tank (if the one im looking at is cheap) before I invest in lighting for my 20 gallon, im looking at the 24" Power Compact for lights for my 20 (not sure the wattagebut I believe its at least 60w).

One more thing, is the light I have now powerful enough to spread Coralline algae on my live rocks and glass? on that matter, will the PC be powerfull enough?

And what's wrong with the undergravel filter, I was just thinking about upgrading the airstones to powerheads.

 

[Great Lakes]

UGFs have been known to crash rather rapidly in a reef aquarium.

The 24" pc light should be good.

And I seriously doubt coraline will grow under a 15watt bulb


GL