# Ultra Low-light corals?



## Gourami Swami

Hey all. Ive been reading for a while about saltwater and I know quite a bit about maintaining it, keping the parameters, correct S.G., etc. But now that I have actually finished setting up my nano, I was wondering what some good low/no light corals you would recommend? It is a small tank, 5.5g, and the dimensions are 15l-10w-9h, so I will probably only get one coral. The lighting is a desk lamp . I could upgrade a little if it will open new doors but im not looking to spend too much money. Are there any cool inverts that will give the impression of corals?


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## Guest

There are some gorgonians that are non-photosynthetic. Some easier shrooms like purples and reds are pretty easy to keep in low lights along with xenia. You're pretty much gonna be looking at soft corals, but you may not even be able to keep that depending on your light. What is the wattage on the lamp and what kind of light is it? On a tank as small as a 5.5, you can get a mini light fixture for pretty cheap. Coralife makes a CF mini-fixture for about $30.


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## Gourami Swami

Actually, New update. I took a "shop light" with a household 40-watt bulb and mounted it on the tank. Is there any problem with using this light? If not, would it be enough to grow a zooanthid?

And yeah, Dylan was telling me about the gorgonians a while ago but i forgot what they were called.

Thanks for replying


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## TheOldSalt

I don't think a shop-lite will grow usually much of anything but algae.


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## Gourami Swami

Ive decided to buy one of the screw in PC bulbs. Ugh, this is turning into another investment. Oh well, I should've seen that coming 

Heres what im talking about: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+8068+9870&pcatid=9870


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## Guest

You should never go into saltwater thinking its not going to be an investment, no matter the size tank. 

I agree with TOS. You'd be better off buying a light fixture with some sort of daylight and some sort of actinic lighting. How many watts is this light you're using now? You may not be able to keep any coral under it.

Something like this would be okay for some of the easier soft corals, but it has low wattage even for a 5 gallon tank.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+11382&pcatid=11382

If you are handy, you may want to look into setting up a small retro-fit light of T5s or CF.

If you're going to go reef, there is almost no point in going with one coral. The point of a reef is to have a variety. A zoa tank would look really awesome, but having one zoa is going to be like having one dime-sized piece of coral in a whole tank.

This is an example of a 2 gallon pico reef that looks amazing, and is actually incredibly simply set up.
http://www.melevsreef.com/pico.html


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## Gourami Swami

^ yeah, I know. I guess it was naive to think it wouldnt cost too much. EH, im in no rush, The tank has to cycle and in a couple paychecks Ill have some more dough. I live within walking distance of a real good facility... www.altisreef.com. The guy is nice and since I dont pay for shipping I should be a able to get a few different zoas. I think a 60w 50/50 PC light would be pretty good. There is nothing wrong with my fixture, Ill just get some nice bulbs.

And yeah, thats a nice lil' reef. I want to do something like that.


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## Guest

Doesn't matter how many watts the bulb is, its how many watts the ballast is.


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## Gourami Swami

ahhh... ill have to go check tha


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## Gourami Swami

Turns out I need the light I had on the tank for something else anyway, so Im going to buy a new fixture. Should I get like a 60 watt fixture?


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## Guest

That depends on what you want to keep. What kind of corals are you interested in?


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## Gourami Swami

I was looking forward to keeping Zoa's and a few mushrooms, maybe a couple other easy softies.

And it turns out the lamp is 100w. Would the lamp with the PC bulb I linked to be a good enough light for that?

EDIT: W00t 1000 posts


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## Guest

I still wouldn't. I've noticed from my saltwater tanks, when you don't have actinic light and just daylight CF, brown algae tends to grow. Plus, just daylight CF won't bring out the colors of the coral nearly as well as if you have actinics.
I would get a new light fixture.
If you're just keeping softies, 60 watts is unecessary IMO. 

A light setup like in Kevin's (K-Dawg) 5 gallon mantis tank would be perfect for some soft corals. I'd ask him how he set it up.


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## Gourami Swami

how much would something like this cost BTW?


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## Guest

What are the dimensions of the tank? I'll look around for some fixtures that should work nicely.


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## Gourami Swami

15 long, 10 high, 9 wide I believe... Thanks so much for all your help, im still a bit lost with saltwater.


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## Guest

No problem. I found a few different lights, but they measured 12 inches, so you'd need some sort of top or a way to hang the lights. Prices I saw were from about $40-$60. I just looked at CF to get an idea.

Check out hellolights.com. I don't think their prices are the best you can find, but they have a big variety of saltwater lighting, including some nano stuff. Nano-reef.com is inevitably a good source of info as well.


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## Gourami Swami

Would this be good? http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=419

I could easily mount it with some acrylic, and the coral will be on my LR in the middle of the tank so I dont think the length really matters


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## Guest

at 18 watts, it should be fine for some easier soft corals, although I'm not 100% sure how zoas would thrive.


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## Gourami Swami

Okay, how about this? Looks like a bigger, juiced up version of the other, and twice the wattage http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=6


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## Fishfirst

careful with leathers and other softies... a lot of them use chemical warfare and extrude toxins into the water, killing your precious zoas... of coarse heavy carbon use and water changes can nullify this.


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## kay-bee

If you had a larger tank you could go with a non-photosynthetic stony coral (such as the tubastraea or 'sun coral'), in which case lighting would be a non-issue. 

Though, the amount of feeding a sun coral would require would probably make maintaining water quality in such a small tank a real chor (for some reason the last word in that sentence gets censored if I spell it correctly, but anyway here's a pic of my sun coral)


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## Gourami Swami

Wow, thats really nice. What exactly do you feed him? And Could I get one going with maybe 4-5 polyps, then frag and sell/give away and that grow?


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## kay-bee

I feed it twice a week mostly mysis, but sometimes cyclopeeze. 

I've never fragged one of these before.


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## Gourami Swami

I guess i dont need ultra low light anymore... i broke down and bought this http://www.hellolights.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=6


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