The first aquarium lighting questions you need to ask are:
 What is in your tank?
How deep is your tank?
How large is your tank?
What is in your tank?:
What is in your tank?:
Reef tanks need more lighting than fish only tanks (planted freshwater tanks also require ample lighting). If you have a single coral you need to treat the entire tank as a reef tank (in terms of lighting and filtration). A tank with live rock--where you are cultivating the photosynthetic animals or macro algae commonly found on live rock--needs to be treated as a reef tank. Fish tanks with live rock used for the purpose of beneficial bacteria or natural appearance do not need high output lighting. Hard corals need more light than soft corals. For example, small polyped stony corals, such as Acropora, definitely need high-intensity lighting. If you have a reef tank you should think about some form of high intensity aquarium lighting such as VHO Lighting, Compact Fluorescent Lighting or Metal Halide Lighting. Our Reef Lighting Chart will help you determine the right amount of lighting you'll need based on the types of organisms in your tank.
What is the size and depth of your tank?.
Experts often give recommendations for determining reef aquarium lighting wattage needed based on the # of gallons in a tank. The ratios given range from 1.5 Watts/gallon to 6 Watts/gallon. However, since light does not penetrate water very well, a tank that is deeper needs more light than a relatively shallow tank holding the same number of gallons of water. According to the Inverse Square Law: The intensity of light falling upon an object decreases in proportion to the square of the distance between the object and the light source. So, a doubling of distance between the lamps and the organisms will result in a need for four times as many lamps for the organisms to grow at the same rate. If your tank is over 20 inches deep you should definitely consider metal halide lighting because metal halide lamps are the most concentrated form of aquarium lighting. To help you determine the proper lighting configuration for tanks of various sizes, we've provided the Reef Lighting Chart.
Other important considerations:
Retrofits or Kits
If your aquarium has a canopy (cover) you probably want an aquarium lighting retrofit. The retrofit will need to be screwed into the canopy. There are compact fluorescent retrofits, such as the Coralife Aqualight Retrofits and SunPaq Retrofits and metal halide retrofits.
If you don't have a canopy you will probably want a Hood. Hoods lay on the glass/acrylic top and or edges of the tank. They are extremely easy to set up and come available as either Compact Fluorescents or Metal Halides.
Spectrum
The natural habitats of many common reef aquarium organisms have a bluer light spectrum." (Deeper water is bluer because as one travels deeper into water the longer light waves, toward the red end of the spectrum, are filtered out.) Included in this category are stony and soft corals, live rock and anemones.
Reef tank aquariums are commonly lit with a combination of daylight and blue (aka actinic) lights to emulate the natural environment. Almost all lighting systems we sell, with the exception of those specifically label as for freshwater planted tanks, will have the proper balance of daylight and actinic lamps.
Freshwater planted tanks should have 5500K, 6000K, 6500K or 6700K bulbs. Though we specialize in reef tanks, we do have the Freshwater Aqualight compact fluorescents for freshwater planted tanks and our metal halides have a 5500K & 6500K options.
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