Can i use 3, T8 bulbs( 30 watt each) as a cheap alternative to grow softies and lps?

Marine collection SA

Marine collection SA

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The light is a combination of 1 full spectrum bulb and 2 coral blue bulbs. So can i use this for growing some low light corals such as CERTAIN types of Lps and softies or would i need more bulbs?
 
You can probably get away with it in a shallow tank if you are on a budget, especially if you make them all blue and combine them with that Beamswork FW light.
 
Marine collection SA said:
How shallow are we talking for this to be able to work?
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I think it might be ok in your 40cm deep tank if you keep the softies higher up on rocks closer to the light. If you combine the Beamswork and T8’s. Another cheaper alternative is to do a DIY LED build with 10w chips (10w as they can run off normal 12v PSU which is cheap), can probably light your whole tank for a lot less than R1000.
 
The easiest would be to get 5 of the 10w floodlights (LED Select on Bid or Buy has them for R80). Then you also order 3 royal blue and 2 cool white of a higher kelvin rating (like 20k kelvin), also from LED Select, probably R40 max a chip. Then you just ask them to solder on the new chips before sending and you should be good.
 
When i started out i had T8...came with the tank i bought. I didnt knew any better....My tank was also just 40cm high.....I could keep mushrooms.....the rest of the stuff i tried didnt do well. Eventually bought a odeassey T5 unit...then things became better.
 
I'd take @Damvis up on his offer. More light per watt, and you could get away with changing bulbs yearly (or more). Maybe stagger the bulb change every six months and it will work out a bit more affordable.
 
For T5’s you can even get away with cheaper lights for the white tubes. Osram makes a ‘Skywhite’ globe that is around 8500k I think, works well for white marine tubes, and under R100 a tube last time I check.
 
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