Will Fluval Reef 2.0 be enough light for my 20g H?

Benjamin J. Young · Jul 28, 2015

Just started my first tank marine tank, and decided to do 20 gallon high (24" long). I plan on adding corals once my tank has the time to establish. I initially started out with buying a Fluval Aquasky 24"-36" and realized my mistake. I then ordered a Fluval Reef 2.0 24"-36". I'm just curious if that will be enough? Should I use them both in tandem, or will the Reef light be enough and I can return the Aquasky? I can always run the lights on longer hours, but I have no experience with corals, only freshwater plants. I imagine you probably want to know what corals I'm going to use, and I honestly don't know. I'll most likely just order a few Nano Soft Coral Packs from LiveAquaria.com and maybe an Anemone down the road. I have no room for a refugium and I'll probably be depending on snails for algae control.

Edit: Forgot to mention that I can't find any PAR data on the lights.

Benjamin J. Young · Jul 29, 2015

I hate to answer my own question, but I did find some PAR information. Based on wattage alone, both of them combined will be 2.5wpg, which is enough to keep softies and LPS. Two reefs would be 3.2wpg which is about enough for SPS. With the reef light alone, I can keep SPS in the top 3" of the tank. If they were both reef, I would be able to keep SPS in the top 9". With the reef and aquasky, I should be able to keep softies all the way down and LPS in the majority of the height of the tank. Since I'm was thinking of doing softies anyways, I should be good with using both. I might trade the aquasky in for a second reef light, if I ever want to go with other corals.

The aquasky will shift the average light temperature down, but running in full RGB+W I'll have a high spectrum band. Besides, I tend to prefer the whitter color and think normal reef tanks are too blue for my preference, so maybe it'll work out. With that, I know in planted tanks, we avoided green light with green plants and red plants needed more spectrum outside a warmer red tints. Will the green LEDs provide additional care to corals?