Quote:
Originally Posted by xambarrgghx
I'm currently planning a 40 breeder. I'm currently looking at the Hydra HD the 26 and 52. My rock will probably be spread out and I plan on having mushrooms, zoas, and acans mainly. However I feel like the Hydras wouldn't limit me as far as corals. What would be ideal for my tank?
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Ha! Sorry, I don't mean to laugh at you, but the question, "What would be ideal for my tank?" is something you need to decide. There is no ideal fixture. If there were such an animal, then all fixtures would be the same.
Given the corals you want to keep in a 40g tank, most any led fixture will do, except the fixtures that use leds that are less than 1 watt each like the Marineland and Current Orbit which are only OK for coral in very shallow tanks (like 12" or less). I'm less familiar with Hydra fixtures, but I think they will work fine.
The questions for you are, what do you want?
Do you care about having sunrise/sunset ability? It's totally unnecessary, but I love having it on my display tank. But then I'm retired and home during the day alot, so I enjoy seeing the tank change over time. BTW, your fish and corals could hardly care less. This extra control costs more.
Do you want more color control? Most fixtures have 2 channels, blue and white (with some red and green usually in the white channel). But some people are really picky about the color of the light in their tank, so they get fixtures that offer more channels and some even have a channel for every color. Is this kind of control important? Not to me. But some people go crazy over color control. Do your corals care? Not much, they are pretty happy with getting twice as much blue as they get white and that will keep them healthy and growing. This extra control costs more as well.
There is no 'ideal'. Just get enough fixture to cover the area at the bottom of your tank and with 3 watt or better leds and 2 channels with dimmers. Anything more is about what you want and not about what your corals need.