Lighting for tank

[02ruben]

Hi everyone how do you work out how much lighting you need for a tank with fish, and then corals. Is the lighting more important for the fish or the corals or both. As I have seen led setups and ledtulles etc and was wondering if there is a formula of how many per gallon etc or do you just get the marine light tubes the same length as your tank? Any help would be great I'm new to this and am trying to work out the best lighting for my tank. It's 4 x 2 x 2 feet

 

[02ruben]

That was meant to say led tiles

 

[mainereefer]

over my 120g 4x2x2 I have 2-175w mh and 2 vho actinics

I am re doing the lighting for my 180g 6x2x2 I used 3-36 led diy kits and it puts out more light than a 250w mh
if I would have thought a little more I would have done t5 - led mixture on the 4' tank I would use 4 t5 bulbs and 4 strips of led's

the led tubes wont be enough light to penetrate threw 2' of water

 

[02ruben]

Ok thanks I will look into that as I like the new led tiles and was thinking about them and didn't wanna run mh just because Of the power consumption and heat that they push out. Is it worth just using led for night time lighting?