Beginners lighting question

spiers411 · Jan 10, 2015

Hello everyone!!! We are new to the saltwater aquarium hobby....we have 2 successful freshwater tanks (one 75 gallon, one 55 gallon) I recently acquired a 55 galloon tank and stand and we decided to try our hand at saltwater. I LOVE this forum and have found it to be very helpful ((I have done a ton of research on saltwater tanks, and continue to do so)).

My question right not is the lighting that came with the tank is as follows:
Hood: Solar Max H.O.
High Output double T5 lighting system
input power: 120v-60hz.
output power: 108w (54w x 2)
Model #SE4234b

What I need to know if this lighting system is appropriate for saltwater tanks and if it is, how long should I run the "daylight" bulbs "nighttime" bulbs?

Right now the tank has been up since November 2014. It has 32 lbs live rock, one coral shrimp who seems to be doing well and then we have several snails and a couple of hermit crabs. We recently added a fighting conch. We had 3 fire fish but they died!

Please let me know what you think about this lighting system and maybe any ideas of why the fire fish died.

Thanks. Maryanna

Reefing Madness · Jan 10, 2015

Yes, those lights are adequate for a SW system, you'll be able to keep softies and some medium level light LPS corals.
Run lighting, blue lights 12-14 hours, white lights 8-10 hours. Run blue lights 1-2 hours before white lights, and 1-2 hours after white lights go off.
You'd have to post up your water parameters in order to give us a better idea what your system is doing, mey give us a clue as to why your fish died.

spiers411 · Jan 10, 2015

Thanks for the help!!! We have been testing salt levels, nitrate, nitrite, ph and ammonia levels. The are good as far as I know from my research. What other levels should we be testing??